SB: If one has to be a BLACK MAN to enjoy the comic, maybe that should run as a disclaimer on the cover? And how many issues, exactly, should one be expected to buy before you think we’ve given it a “fair” shot?

While Priest’s first arc got me hooked on his series, Hudlin’s Black Panther bears little similarity. Unlike police procedurals where names have been changed to protect the innocent, Hudlin retains the names to lure the innocent into partaking of this misbegotten mess.

Continuity (which Priest so ably employed) gets largely tossed out the window… except, interestingly, for Rhino who seems to be spot on for the most part.

The rest of the story – such as it is in all of its decompressed languidness – largely rewrites Panther’s history and tries to be oh-so-topical… quickly becoming oh-so-outdated to this reader.

Something you don’t find on Newsarama. I encountered flack, when I compared Sue’s bizarre, sudden change in character in Civil War to Storm’s situation on Tamora Pierce’s journal
http://tammy212.livejournal.com/2099.html [and incidentally, I got attacked by the lady who wrote that article you quoted. It's a small, small world... my later comments were made after I discovered she a rather infamous internet Troll. If this is the kind of person Hudlin believes is a quality promoter of his works, he should reexamine things. I hope Storm and BP find better pastures in the future, and that Storm can rejoin the X-men someday]

[...] Found at Comics Worth Reading, it turns out that Black Panther writer Reginald Hudlin is such a controversal figure that the fans at Comic Book Resources are no longer allowed to discuss his work. On October 30th: We’ve reached the point where every thread even remotely related to Black Panther turns into a fight about Reggie Hudlin. It’s less about the comic and more about everyone’s personal reaction to the writer’s persona and writing style. [...]

Sounds like racism to me.

Wasn’t Priest’s “The Crew” dismissed as just “yet another ghetto book” before it even came out? Priest never got a board-closing reaction, no, but I don’t think that his BP was ever as high-profile as Hudlin’s, either.

That’s the worst part — even typing out that premise I thought to myself “That sounds so awesome.” But reading it was such a bore. After the crossover with the X-Men that had taken place prior to it, which managed to disillusion me on both Hudlin AND Milligan (after I loved X-Statix so much!) it was basically all I could take.

If both of those stories were satire, which I kind of have to believe any contemporary story with Red Ghost and his Super Apes must be, they weren’t very good satire.

Nothing in Black Panther has really made me feel annoyed, offended or happy or proud. The stories are okay. The problem is Hudlin seems to be trying to provoke reaction to racial content. I don’t take that bait.

Christopher Priest’s run on the title was excellent and Marvel never gave it the huge amount of hype the title gets now which is too bad since now the push is coming with a much more mediocre creative team.

Some have argued that Black Panther is a niche product aimed at black readers and arguable this might be so. But the facts are there are not enough black comic collectors to sustain the comic by themselves (look at the past on and off publishing history of Blade, Panther itself and the entire Milestone line, which I still miss). Black Panther depends on having non-black readers pick it up every month. Marvel management has gone out of their way to featuring many crossover appearances, event tie-ins and the wedding event itself to help the comic attract readers. Sadly, Hudlin seems determined to drive away as many as he attracts with his letter columns and online interviews/comments.

I pick the title up when it interests me and don’t when it doesn’t. Recently, only the appearances of the Inhumans, Doom, Namor and Civil War have made it worth looking at. I thought the Doom issue was terrible, the Inhumans was very uneven and poorly handled, and I thought the Namor issue was pretty decent.

I wish the creative team the best but frankly could care less if this book continues to be published or not.

But calling them the White or Black anything merely begs the question of racism, which is where we are with Hudlin. Priest’s Panther had it’s detractors, and I am sure that some of them even hated the comic for no other reason than Panther or/and Priest was Black. But it had it’s fans as well. And the level of “debate” never sunk to what we have now.

It is possible to think that Hudlin isn’t a very good writer without being racist. (“House Party” was House Party, but his MK Spider-Man had it’s moments.) It is possible to feel his changes to continuity are ill-used without feeling a need to “keep the Black Man down!” (Changing Klaw acomplished, what, exactly? He was already the personification of White Imperialism. And Rhino? Why?) And it is possible to see “The Wedding” as a cheap publicity stunt that has nothing to do with the characters as they have been written for the past twenty-some-odd years and yet not “fear expression of Black Love”. (Might as well have Peter Parker start hitting on Janet van Dyne.)

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar. And a fanboy is just a fanboy, not a kloseted Klansman.

As for Everett K. Ross… I found him grating and an obstacle – rather than a conduit into the pleasure of the Priest run.

Coming from a middle-aged, white, continuity adherent this might sound a bit odd, but Priest’s Panther felt more authentic to me (and therefore more compelling to read).

Perhaps it was the race of the writer (which certainly came into play with regards to the writers of the character’s earlier renditions and my dismissal thereof) that makes me feel that way, but I’d prefer to think of it as the writer’s talent (since – as the continuity aspects clearly show – Priest does his homework on trying to get things right).

Just checked, and apparently the library copies of the trade is fairly popular and I won’t be seeing it for a few weeks.

When I initially looked through the first issue on the stands, it was the art (rather than the writing) that held me back. Interestingly, I had the same difficulty with Priest’s first issue… which the trade nicely cured me of.