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| Cover Art: Humberto Ramos |
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Title: "There Is a Place Called Wakanda: Part 1"
Writer: Jed MacKay
Artist: Jefte Palo
Letterer: Joe Sabino
Colorist: Jim Campbell
Editor: Jordan D. White
Assistant Editor: Annalise Bissa
Editor-in-Chief: C.B. Cebulski
SYNOPSIS
T'Challa, prince of Wakanda, is exiled from the country after an argument with his father. He travels to America and meets Jericho "Brother Crash" Simpson, who gives T'Challa a job as a motorcycle stunt rider. Taking the name "Johnny Blaze" he performs stunts for five years until a wreck kills him. Brother Crash invokes a favor from the Panther God of Vengeance, Zarathos, who meets with T'Challa in the after life to offer him power in exchange for providing her with souls. He declines and she brings him back to life with the knowledge that his father T'Chaka has died.
He returns to Wakanda and meets with his sister Shuriri, who tells him about the two strangers that killed T'Chaka and destroyed the herbs used to grant the power of the Black Panther to the nation's ruler. After his sister accuses him of cowardice T'Challa goes off into the desert to find his father's killers. He soon finds them and is attacked by M'Bakshulla the Ape Man, a giant warrior with cybernetic arms. Despite his efforts T'Challa is nearly killed and is forced to take Zarathos' offer. He is transformed into the Ghost Panther and uses his power to eat the soul of his enemy. T'Challa, horrified by what he has done, transforms back into his human form. He's then stabbed in the back by the second attacker, Erik Killraven.
ANNOTATIONS
This issue is a tie-in to the "Infinity Wars" crossover event. In that series Gamora used the power of the Infinity Stones to merge the universe into itself, dividing the population by half by combining two individuals into one. This new Earth produced its own heroes, one of which was Ghost Panther, a combination of Black Panther and Ghost Rider.
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REVIEW
The Infinity Wars event goes all Amalgam and introduces the Ghost Panther.
I've commented in many places that Marvel seem determined to dilute the Ghost Rider concept down with as many derivative variations as possible. Some, like Cosmic Ghost Rider, turn into worthwhile properties, while others such as Host Rider come off as unwanted and poorly executed attempts to cash in by slapping a flaming skull on a popular character. The latest is this Ghost Panther, and it may be the laziest concept so far.
Everything about this comic is like the set up for a parody story, from the character mash ups like Brother Crash and Shuriri to the shoehorned Johnny Blaze identity, but it's played so damn somber and serious that it creates a tonal whiplash effect that it just can't overcome. Smashing together these characters is ridiculous and playing against that idea is totally counter to expectations or, dare I say it, fucking reality. You can also tell that the writer was struggling to make sense of some of the character combinations, because the "Johnny Blaze" thing is rushed through so quickly that it doesn't stop to think about whether or not it makes any damn sense. It's obvious, though, that the writer is far more interested in the Black Panther half of the equation than the Ghost Rider one, because outside of the Johnny Blaze and Zarathos names not much remains of that character's concept. Instead it's all about Wakanda and all the stuff from that hugely successful movie from 2018. It's not a mash-up at all, it's just Black Panther possessed by a cat demon.
I also highly question the choice of artist for this series and it makes me wonder if Jefte Palo was on some extreme deadline crunches. I've seen his work in the past, he's done some great stuff with Moon Knight and the Punisher, usually with a deft eye for negative space and heavy blacks. Here, though, those heavy blacks tend to make the characters look like they've just bathed in black goop and have perpetually shadowed eye sockets. The negative space, too, translates into a complete lack of backgrounds except in the most general of senses with the majority of panels showing characters interacting in front of flat colors. I hate to say it but the artwork is as lazy as the writing, it looks unfinished. The only part it truly shines is in the Zarathos scenes, with the demon's dress and wrappings consisting of swirls and swatches of color, giving it a nice effect.
I've quickly grown tired of Marvel pushing more and more Ghost Rider mash-up characters onto the shelves and this one couldn't even bother to show up with something interesting behind it. Utterly disappointing.
Grade: D+
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