Black Panther #35-38 and Annual #1 (2008): Back to Africa; Hudlin run ends

Before I start I want to say this: I didn’t hate Reggie Hudlin’s run on Black Panther from the beginning.  I actually thought the early issues were really good–the most fun I’d had reading Black Panther in a while.

But we’re not at the beginning of his run.  We’re at the end.  And…It is boring.

T’Challa and Ororo return from their adventures across space and dimensions to find…Wait.  Guess.  They haven’t been in Wakanda a while so what ALWAYS happens with Black Panther leaves his home country?  That’s right, a revolution.

I swear, for a super-advanced country they certainly don’t seem to be able to engineer governmental stability.

The coup this time is led by hyper-evolved animals.  And Killmonger.

It’s not that this storyline is bad, it’s just that every single Black Panther author has already written variations of it.  It’s not special.  It’s predictable.

The coda for the story, thought is the Black Panther Annual, which flashes forward to a possible future where Storm and Black Panther have kids and rule over an advanced country.  The Annual is well done and offers some culturally relevant flashbacks to how Wakanda was affected by slavery in the 1700s.  Those ties to black history were what made Hudlin’s run different and special, so at least we get a bit of it in the Annual.

During the story, the Wakandans realize they’ve been infiltrated by skrulls.  Hudlin is seeding the next story, but it will be told by Jason Aaron.