My What Big Feline Fangs You Have — Reviewing ‘Black Panther: Blood Hunt’ #1

From the King of Wakanda, to exiled vigilante, to creature of the night. Things are rough for the Black Panther.

Unfortunately, they might get even rougher for those that he cares about, as the vampire T’Challa heads home in Black Panther: Blood Hunt #1. One of the Blood Hunt’s first victims has his tale told by Cheryl Lynn Eaton, Farid Karami, Andrew Dalhouse, and Joe Sabino.

Tie-ins to major events can be a tough nut to crack. They must follow certain tempos set by the main series, to avoid lapping it or revealing things too soon. While also serving the character(s) that headline the given book.

Black Panther’s sojourn into the Blood Hunt event does a decent job of balancing on the invisible line.

Eaton writes a solid T’Challa and Shuri. She has a good grasp on the nation of Wakanda, and the tortured state that T’Challa’s mind currently is suffering through. A lot of what we get is the Panther’s internal monologues, bemoaning his situation and what it means to be a creature of the night now. Some solid set pieces are used to really show what Wakanda is going through, and the sequences of his attempts to get Bast’s help are well done.

One issue I found, though, was the pacing.

Mainly the fact that the whole issue is mostly just wandering around, monologuing, and trying to ignore Blade’s orders. We don’t learn anything about what Blade actually wants, so the Vampire Lord is basically talking in abstract code, playing the role of ghostly scold more than master. Again, that likely has something to do with reveals in the main book but it’s a glaring sort of hole in the story currently.

I’ve only encountered Karami’s artwork once before, as part of the What If…Miles Morales series from a few years ago. A book that was very iffy overall, with one truly egregious issue smack dab in the middle of the series. Luckily, that was not the one Karami worked on, and in fact his was one of the better books in the iffy series.

Just like then, I like the mix of somewhat slickness and roughness that Karami employs. Panel choices that really frame things solidly, whether getting close up or moving far back. Either way the energy is captured and resonates as everything feels like it has actual motion to it. Panther is himself but not here, and the character generally is a more graceful fluid mover. That is still the case here, but there is an implied heaviness, which fits with what is dragging the character down now that he’s a vampire.

Color-wise, Dalhouse is no stranger to Wakanda, having worked on a few of the books focused on the character and its main characters over the past few years. Including the just recently concluded volume of the main Black Panther series.

Here the colors are heavier, darker, and very ominous. Different from what we normally see in Wakanda, both because this is a horror story, and the entire Marvel Universe is bathed in supernatural darkness currently. A rougher edge comes with the colors to meet that within the artwork, helping enhance it all the way around.

Another familiar figure in the Wakandan space is Sabino, who also worked on the recent Black Panther main books. Plentiful captions and dialogue are spilled across the pages, kept tight and focused, sliding around the rest of the artwork. Sabino matches the energy of T’Challa and the characters around him, letting it peek out from each of the words. Throwing in some colors here or there for emphasis, while pulling out the white on black coloring for the caption boxes which fits the character so well.

Black Panther: Blood Hunt #1 is now available from Marvel Comics.