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New BLACK PANTHER By TA-NEHESI COATES & BRIAN STELFREEZE

Black Panther #1 courtesy Marvel via The New York Times
Black Panther #1 courtesy Marvel via The New York Times

The first black superhero will star in a his own brand new ongoing series in 2016.

Marvel announced writer Ta-Nehisi Coates and artist Brian Stelfreeze as the creative team on the new Black Panther book via The New York Times.

Coates is the acclaimed author of Between the World and Me, correspondent for The Atlantic and nominee for the National Book Award. This will mark the comic book debut for Coates. Batman fans will remember Stelfreeze’s run of covers for Shadow of the Bat.

Marvel revealed “A Nation Under Our Feet” will be a “yearlong story line” by Coates and Stelfreeze. The arc is inspired by the 2003 book of the same title by Steven Hahn. T’Challa will be dealing with a violent uprising in his country set off by a superhuman terrorist group called the People.

“It’s going to be a story that repositions the Black Panther in the minds of readers,” Marvel Editor-In-Chief Axel Alonso told The New York Times. “It really moves him forward.”

Wakanda was devastated by the events of Avengers vs. X-Men and T’Challa stepped down to let his sister Shuri rule. Black Panther was a critical member of Marvel’s Illuminati in the pages of New Avengers as T’Challa as he and other Marvel icons fought to save Earth.

Black Panther was co-created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby in the Fantastic Four in 1966 as hero and heir to the fictional African nation of Wakanda. T’Challa would become a fan-favorite member of the Avengers.

Marvel was “an intimate part of my childhood and, at this point, part of my adulthood,” Coates told The NYT. “It was mostly through pop culture, through hip-hop, through Dungeons & Dragons and comic books that I acquired much of my vocabulary.”

The story cited X-Men leader Storm, James Rhodes aka War Machine and Monica Rambeau (formerly Captain Marvel, now Spectrum) as inspirations.

“They were obviously black,” he recalled, but it was not made into a big deal. Still, Coates said: “I’m sure it meant something to see people who looked like me in comic books. It was this beautiful place that I felt pop culture should look like.”

On the big screen Black Panther will appear in Captain America: Civil War next May then star in his own solo movie and possibly Avengers: The Infinity War or other Marvel Cinematic movies. Chadwick Boseman is playing the hero.

T’Challa will be a member of Marvel’s new Ultimates team book when it returns this Fall.

By Editor

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