HARD TO IMAGINE Edmund Wilson, Reinhold Niebuhr, or Hannah Arendt scripting a comic book, but we are in a whole new era of the public intellectual as well as a whole new era of the comic book. This one, for instance, cost fifteen dollars; when I started buying them, they cost twelve cents. It is a sumptuous production, though (it even includes a reprint of the Black Panther's first appearance, from 1961), so I won't complain about the price.
And it actually made sense that Coates would get a commission like this. Having read his first book, The Beautiful Struggle, I knew that he was a bit of a fantasy nerd growing up, and he is obviously comfortable with the form. So comfortable, indeed, that he begins very much in media res, with a whole lot of storylines already in full-tilt motion before we get much exposition.
A member of the Dora Milaje, Wakanda's all-female Praetorian Guard, is being held prisoner, but we don't know why; her lover, also I think from the Dora Milaje, busts her out, and they connect up with a resistance movement, but we don't know what/who/why they are resisting. There is enormous civil unrest in Wakanda, and the workers are angry at the monarchy of T'Challa (i.e, the Black Panther), but we don't know what caused the rift. Tutu, leader of the resistance faction known as The People, is meeting up with some white guy, but we don't know who the white guy is. And what is going on with T'Challa's sister? How does the lecturer whose grey dreadlocks are pulled back into a ponytail fit into this?
Coates has given himself a lot of story to untangle right from Book One. I found it bewildering, but still intriguing enough to take a chance on Book 2, where I hope some answers start taking shape.
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