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In it, T'challa gives the mantle of Black Panther on to his sister, Shuri. Before you assume anything about 'gender-flipping' a la female Thor, please note: this is about three years before the staff at Marvel went ultra-progressive. It's written by successful horror writer Jonathan Maberry (middle-aged white dude) and brought to life by an artist roster that doesn't sound like it has anyone African-American on it (Gugliotta, Larraz, Villarubia). Shuri is drawn magnificently throughout..they've added a nice little cape to the kick-ass, form-fitting BP costume. And she is a deadly fighter who tears through dozens of opponents..in plenty of beautiful athletic poses.
Not only is the character of Shuri/Black Panther incredibly sexy (in fact, probably the sexiest black character I've seen from Marvel outside of Storm and Misty Knight) but the book is absolutely filled to the brim with the powerful heroes, the sexy superheroines, and the jungle types (namely Ka-Zar and Shanna The She Devil) that you expect from classsic Marvel. The guests not only include Storm and T'Challa, which makes sense, and the villain Klaw after whom the four-issue miniseries is named, but you've got Spider-Man (Peter Parker), Black Widow, and Wolverine joining in, plus brief cameos from Hawkeye, Hulk, Juggernaut, Mockingbird, Moon Knight, Captain America (Steve Rogers) and Valkyrie.
You and I both know that both the current crop of Marvel editors (which actually includes Brevoort and Quesada, who are still at the company) and Ta-Nehisi Coates would NEVER allow a book like this to be printed today. On to some examples - there's some incredible art inside. And it so makes me want to see Shuri take up the mantle of BP again. She does appear in two books in 2017: the one-off 'Monsters Unleashed' (alongside a huge cast) and many issues of Coates' Black Panther series. So I'll investigate to see if she suits up as Black Panther for any of that (given that T'Challa is also in those issues) and if so, what she looks like.
So here's a new black Marvel cutie if you're looking for one - hey Primal, you just did Mockingbird and people are asking about black actresses..get someone really hot in there to play Shuri! I'm going to read this four-issue series and report back, but meanwhile here are
the four sexy covers...damn, that #4 is smokin'! If I like it I'm definitely getting the TPB if it's still in stock.
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but I can't find them listed anywhere, so I wonder if Maberry just made up a moral code for this particular story.]
Ultimately the whole thing is a nice morality play, like a classic Marvel action story should be.