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Marvel’s Black Panther has been around since the ’60s, and has had many different incarnations – the intense, involved storylines of the ’70s by Don McGregor and Billy Graham, the over-the-top adventures by Jack Kirby, the high-profile run by Reginald Hudlin and John Romita Jr, and the recent by Ta-Nehisi Coates, Brian Stelfreeze, Daniel Acuna, and others.
But there was never quite a version like Christopher Priest’s.
As part of the Marvel Knights line that helped revitalize Marvel in the late ’90s, Priest’s Black Panther was a book that was equal parts urban vigilante, political thriller, and a satire where the devil gave a guy a pair of pants he couldn’t quite get rid of.
Over the course of 62 issues – the last of which saw the character literally dropped as the hero of his own book – Priest and artists, including Mark Texeira and Sal Velluto, crafted the dense tale of T’Challa, King of Wakanda, whose skills as a fighter and leader were well-matched by his craftiness and manipulations. Initially exiled to America (and overseen by “Emperor of Useless White Boys” State Department rep Everett K. Ross), the Panther’s tale soon expanded to encompass the elaborate power structure in Wakanda, the tribal traditions that kept his followers near, and his own demons – and cemented the Panther as one of the most cunning, manipulative minds in the Marvel Universe.
Back in 2015 coinciding with the publication of Black Panther by Christopher Priest: The Complete Collection, Newsarama talked at length with the writer to take an extended look back at his run in a three-part conversation. Over the course of our conversation, we got some candid insights into what it was like creating the book, and his thoughts on the character of T’Challa – past, present, and future.
Newsarama: Priest – first off, how’s it feel to see these stories collected and reprinted?
Christopher Priest: Actually, I don’t know; I haven’t seen the volume yet. But I’ve just been notified of a FedEx delivery so I’m assuming the volume is in it. That or, you know, a pipe bomb.
I’m happy Marvel chose to collect the series. I’d been told previously that a collected edition would never happen because the character and series had been retconned by Reginald Hudlin, and that was now the official version of Panther Marvel was promoting.
This also marks the first time my name has been part of a Marvel title, which would make my mom happy if she were still with us.
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Nrama: What do you remember the most about that time in your life when you were doing Black Panther?
Priest: The constant uphill slog to woo fans of mainstream Marvel comics. Post-Marvel Knights, there was constant and unrelenting pressure to get our numbers up. It was not healthy for the creative process.
I never had editorial or creative control over the book; all of the shifts in approach and changes in the narrative were suggested by Marvel, including replacing T’Challa with Vin Diesel toward the end in a desperate flailing to keep the book alive.
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