Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet, Book 1 by Ta-Nehisi Coates
My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Let’s start with the art:
I quite liked it, although there was a distinct lack of background, which is a choice several artists are making at the moment. Maybe it’s just looking at things with old man eyes, but I miss backgrounds, not just because they’re fun to look at, but because they provide visual context. How close are objects and characters to each other? Where are they in space? But other than that, the art was nice, the human figures are great.
It should also be celebrated that the artist, Brian Stelfreeze, is black. Comic book artists don’t usually get their due, and there is a lot of diversity in artists in comics.
Comic Artist Minute!
Stelfreeze is probably best known for some of his very cool, painted Shadow of the Bat covers, not to mention the re-design of Nightwing’s costume which has been used pretty consistently since Stelfreeze created it in the 90’s.
It’s a fucking great costume.
He also did this sweet variant for Iron Man:
A No-Prize to the person who names that mimicked album cover.
End of Comic Artist Minute
The story:
I’m fully prepared to admit when I’m being stupid and not understanding something.
I’m stupid and not understanding this book.
Halfway through, I felt like I should have read the Comic Vine summary of Black Panther, as a character, before getting into this book. And I did, in fact, go and read the summary after I finished. I figured Ta-Nehisi Coates must have been handed a whole plateful of plot to tie up as a result of some of these big Marvel crossover events because there was SO MUCH happening in this book and so much of it felt like stuff that I, as a reader, would already know something about. I figured there must be a bunch of Secret Wars stuff and Super Secret Wars and Triple Dog Dare Wars and whatnot going on, and Coates was handed the stuff, like opening the Xmas lights from last year and pulling out a ball of tangled wires.
I was having the experience that many people have when they jump into comics, I think. I was confused about what was happening, who I was supposed to know and who was new, and what the context was here.
After doing the research…I’m still a bit confused.
I don’t really know why the things that are happening are happening. I’m not sure why some characters are really pissed at each other, what they’re trying to do, and why they’re trying to do it.
My best guess, it seems that Wakanda is a fractured nation at the moment. But I can’t really tell what the different factions are after.
It seems that there is a pair of women who are wanted criminals and start a revolution of sorts? I think these are the characters that will be spotlighted in Roxanne Gay’s tie-in title, so maybe there’s more to come that will flesh them out, but as of right now I can’t say I totally get what’s happening with them.
Also, there is a…witch of sorts? I don’t actually know what her deal is. But she’s leading a group of people too, but maybe by controlling their minds? Like they’re not following a different leadership so much as they are brainwashed?
I’m not sure why Wakanda is so divided and why everyone is so pissed at T’Challa, specifically.
And what I can’t tell is whether this is the groundwork for something really big and special or if it’s confusing now and will remain so. I hope for the first option, but fear the second.
The story was confusing, and perhaps a little disappointing considering that issue one of this book was a total sales phenomenon.
Issue 1, in April of 2016, was a top-seller, selling 253,259 issues. Which is pretty goddamn incredible in comics. That’s like 90’s numbers, when people thought that comics were a solid investment. Which they weren’t, by then. There’s the occasional high-value book, but somehow most people involved in the collecting bubble did not put together the fact that older books were WAY more valuable because A) they didn’t print nearly as many, B) they featured early stories of iconic characters, and C) people back in the day didn’t give a rip about comics’ collectibility, so there weren’t a ton that survived in collectible condition.
Black Panther, briefly, brought us back to the huge sales of the days in which you figured you’d pay for your kid’s college in funnybooks.
That said, the high sales point for Black Panther after that was issue 5, which sold 80,000+, after which issue 6 saw us down to the low of 58,746, putting it into the 30’s as far as sales rankings.
Now, this isn’t atypical of comics. #1’s sell like crazy, and then they drop off. 50,000+ is very respectable in 2016 numbers. I also notice that in the sales of issues, Marvel is getting their ass handed to them at the moment. I wondered whether that’s because Marvel readers have moved to trade paperback, but in the top 10 sellers from September, Marvel only has 1 title (Secret Wars) where the folks at DC have 6. Hell, Image has 2. And this first Black Panther trade did pretty well in its first month, but didn’t do gangbusters sales like the first issue did, and it dropped down the list in normal fashion.
So. All this to get to the big question. Is Ta-Nehisi Coates a successful comic book writer? Because that’s the big question when a prose writer comes over to comics, right?
Financially and in terms of the diversification of the medium, 100%.
Past prose writers who took a shot at comics have been less successful, for the most part, and didn’t seem to draw in a new audience. Very few seem to convert fans of their “serious” work to comics. Coates seems to have pulled this off, which is pretty cool, although whether or not those fans are sticking around is tough to say.
In terms of comic book writing? I think it remains to be seen. I see this first volume as a promise to be fulfilled. There are a lot of ends loosed, and whether or not they’ll be tied up, blown apart, exposed to cosmic rays or not remains to be seen. There’s also some roughness to the writing. The dialogue is very expository, and the internal monologues almost always seem to be inner thoughts of characters that have little or no relation to what’s happening in the panels. I feel like that will even out as the series moves along, but it was a bit rough in this first trade. The prose itself is good, but the way it’s presented is not quite clicking for me, somehow, like a well-composed photograph that wasn’t developed quite right.
I feel like any good review should leave a reader knowing whether or not they want to read the book. If that’s you, if you’re waiting to find out, here’s my take:
I would advise against this book if you’re looking for a #1, a first point of contact, a point of entry into a series. There is very little explanation of the characters, the setting, and so on. If you didn’t already know T’Challa coming into this book, you wouldn’t walk away feeling like you know the dude. I might change my mind after the second trade and seeing where it all goes. Maybe it all wraps a little tighter and becomes easier to follow with hindsight. It’s a little like the first 25 pages of a book. It’s not totally fair to complain about being confused this early on, and I wouldn’t say I’m complaining or upset, but I am definitely confused, and because comics offer such easy points at which to jump ship, the temptation is there.
As for volume 2, I’ll read reviews here. Although this volume is highly rated, lots of reviews with good ratings still have the reviewers saying they are confused and unsure what’s going on. So, if that trend continues, I’ll probably pass on volume 2.