Monotonous Toy Mashing: Reviewing ‘Predator Vs. Black Panther’ #1

The universe’s deadliest hunters have their sights set on Earth once more, this time they’re squarely looking at Black Panther’s domain. Predator meets hidden advanced society as the latest hunting party comes to the land of Wakanda.

Predator Versus Black Panther #1 kicks off Marvel Comics’ latest property mashup series from Benjamin Percy, Chris Allen, Damien Hill, Craig Yeung, Lee Ferguson, Erick Arciniega, and Travis Lanham.

On paper, this should be a pretty darn fun series.

Ultimate space hunter species taking on one of Marvel’s best hand-to-hand combatants who is also a wise tech savvy monarch of a heavily advanced society. Clearly set in an AU so that anything is possible, including the types of bloody violence that comes with Predator stories. Yet, somehow, I’m just not having fun at this point.

Percy is a writer that I go back and forth with things from him. Often I can find them fun or just average-level good. It’s when his expositional side takes over and drowns a book in words that I begin to lose all focus and sense of fun. That’s what we get with this series.

First issues are naturally more setup than other stuff, but the level of foundational setup and characters just talking or captioning at each other as well as us is just too much. There are pages upon pages of captions poured across the page to tell the Predator clans story (a natural way to do it since they’re not big talkers, as we know it). Then we’re setting up the Black Panther and Wakanda (for some reason) and everyone is just drowning us in banter and set up.

There is just nothing compelling or engaging here. All of the Black Panther stuff is just a variation of the same overused flavor we’ve seen of the character in too many formats. Including in the really rough currently running Ultimate Black Panther series.

A bevy of artistic hands are here for this really long and slow-paced story. Unfortunately, this is one of those cases where more hands don’t make for the better.

Everything is just so busy, muddy, and rough. Often there are points where it’s hard to tell what is exactly happening with so many things going on. Characters all over each other, beings who look too alike, doing actions that undecipherable. Paneling choices are fine for the most part, but otherwise it’s not the most engaging book by far.

Murky colors accompany the murky artwork which feels strange from Arciniega, who we witnessed bring such life to Otherworld and Krakoa back in the X-Men Krakoan Era. There are points where it has more vibrancy and pop, but that is few and far between sometimes.

For so many words, at least they look good as they load up the pages. Lanham does the best he can to make it flow and provide character energy, when a lot of that is lacking and feels one-dimensional. Plenty of little quirks are added so it at least has good energy to it at times. Which is something I suppose.

Sometimes what is fun on paper turns out to be sour and undesirable when it’s turned into reality. Right now, that is very much this series and it’s concept. Only way left to go is up…right? Right!?

Save us Padme meme.

Predator Versus Black Panther #1 is now available from Marvel Comics.