Something Strange This Way Comes?: Reviewing ‘Ultimate Black Panther’ #9

Magic is in the air as Black Panther’s rebellious duo of allies searches for a game-changing sorcerer of supreme levels.

War rages on as Ultimate Black Panther #9 furthers the Wakandan side of the Ultimate saga under the care of Bryan Hill, Stefano Caselli, David Curiel, and Cory Petit.

Ororo Munroe, the wind rider known as Storm, kicks off October by taking the lead in two major comics. While the character is (mostly) the same, the results could not be any further apart if they tried.

So far — eight issues in — Storm has been very little but a side supporting presence in Ultimate Black Panther. Sometimes, she gets a bit more focus than others where she might as well be wallpaper. To be fair, that goes for most of the characters in the series so far. Characters cloaked in names, abilities, positions, and features that we know without any of the emotional, historical, or other foundational grounding elements.

That changes here a little, but not enough.

We see some cracks form as Storm is very much tiring of following T’Challa, a man that bosses everyone around with that royal authority he wears so tightly. At least it was nice to get this time with Killmonger and Storm after they took a major backseat for a few issues, which is months in real time publishing schedules. Their humorous back-and-forth in the face of unknown, terrifying danger was fun.

Honestly, I wanted more time with them. The moments with T’Challa and Shuri, and the still-crawling-along Moon Knight stuff, made me sigh.

A major thing that drags this title down like an anchor is its focus. It’s trying to simultaneously wholesale copy and slightly edit the Black Panther mythos we know while playing universe set-up as well. Where the Ultimate Spider-Man book has family moments and Ultimate X-Men is whole cloth reinventing things, this book is similar to The Ultimates in its focus to build toward a singular future moment. While the former is doing so in a really grand way that still relies on character development and exploration, this book leans more toward the plot focus over the cast or world.

As I’ve said before, there are very interesting beats being built in that focus even as time keeps skipping toward the inevitable return of the Maker and the mad dash efforts against his council in various titles. Hill mixing and matching that with more actual world-building and fleshing-out of characters would be the preferable way to do this. It’s a fine book on the surface, but presenting the toys within as the ones we know without any context or unique identification keeps it from being a great book.

At least it’s fun to look at.

Caselli has a very house friendly type of style, but that’s not a bad thing in many cases. Big, dynamic, emotionally charged, tonally accurate, and just detailed all describe his work. Letting the characters exist and move through the space. Often capturing some of those ‘iconic’ sort of poses or stances that work for superheroes and not so much the rest of us in real lives. There was some shift when the more horror tinged bits came into play, giving them at least a semi eerie appeal.

Just as smooth and focused as the overall art are the colors from Curiel. Quite heavy in the darker colors, the palette skews towards a more neutral or natural tonal range. Saving the flashier stuff for the costumes, tech, magic, and other elements. Giving each space that is visited its own feeling just with some shifts of how those colors are deployed. Being more horror tinged, as well as T’Challa fighting through some rage, the overall colors are a lot heavier on the shadows and blacks this time around.

This is an issue where the wordiness is pulled back quite a bit, as various characters are less verbose. Save for the moment where Khonshu is going on and on about stuff. A little more personality and energy is popping into the book so at least Petit has that to work with now. Funny enough, with how little they say, a lot of the personality and energy comes from the previously mentioned scenes with Storm and Killmonger.

Them having more personality than T’Challa and others somewhat tracks, but also isn’t the best look at this point.

Beyond that though, Petit gets a little visually playful with the way that we see the mystery sorcerer speak to the characters. Adding more to the overall creepy vibe that we have going here.

Ultimate Black Panther #9 is now available from Marvel Comics.