Ultimate Black Panther #7 Review

It’s been a couple months since I’ve reviewed Ultimate Black Panther, life has been lifing for me and I’ve been finding the motivation to write while I’d been busy taking care of things in my personal life, but I’m finally back and boy did I choose a great time to write another review for this series.

Since my last review, the first arc of Ultimate Black Panther ended with issue #6, and with it we finally see Black Panther, Okoye, Storm, and Killmonger finally take the fight to Ra and Khonshu. Revelations were made, big debuts have been seen and this series has continued to be my favorite book coming to shelves. This series promised a reimagining of the modern Black Panther mythos, even entirely  changing Moon Knight and their function in the grand design of things. And every single issue, it delivers on that front for me.

Issue #7 opens up with T’Challa in a crisis of belief. This war has brought him against false Gods, the people he swore to protect as Black Panther, and has unveiled new elements. He wants nothing more but to protect Africa and its people, but he doesn’t quite understand yet that he must walk a new path to do this. He must show his people how a King challenges a God. How a figure who wants nothing but to protect challenges a duo with no regard for their believers’ lives. This brings Storm to challenge T’Challa, however. It’s very clear that Killmonger and Storm are very different people in terms of their morality, in a sense, as opposed to T’Challa, but I’ll get into that later. For the moment, Storm believes T’Challa may not be doing enough– that he’s being too soft in comparison to Moon Knight, hoping he doesn’t regret his actions as it may be their end. Later, T’Challa meets with Matron Imala, the Vodu-Khan, again, seeking guidance as he doesn’t want Africa to be split between two Kingdoms, Wakanda and Moon Knight’s, and Imala relays that he cannot stop the war, only master how it ends. Obviously everything isn’t in his control, but he can spin the outcome in his and Wakanda’s favor. 

At least, that’s how I took it; Matron Imala is intentionally vague. She speaks almost in riddles, but she adds a very interesting element to Wakanda, subverting a nation built on science and miraculous advancements. T’Challa probes more, wanting more knowledge, but obviously we’ve seen that Imala doesn’t really answer in specifics, and instead she sows more seeds of doubt in what he already believed to know. Everything, of course, isn’t what it seems. It’s implied that both Vibranium and the new element aren’t just elements, that they may be alive. This moves T’Challa to believe his way has been wrong. He can’t fight Ra and Khonshu the way he has been. They understand the new element in a completely different way than T’Challa does because they’re based in faith. To defeat a God, you must think as a God. To have a figure who is more or less like an Oracle of faith in Wakanda is interesting. It’s playing into the Dune influence masterfully where Imala plays the Reverend Mother role, but she’s mainly there to expand T’Challa’s perspectives. We all know T’Challa is incredibly smart, even in this version they make it a point to show it, but he’s locked in a box of logic and reason. Imala’s role here, expanding his point of view outside of that box, seems to be his way to eventually win this war. Later, T’Challa seeks counsel with his team, asking Erik and Storm to seek allies outside of Wakanda, as they have knowledge of the outside society, and I believe it will be Ultimate Doctor Strange, per certain solicits. Before they leave however, T’Challa requests Storm to charge him while he’s in his suit, to perform an act of God, to show how vengeful he can be to his enemies and turn his once-believers back into his graces, back to believing the Black Panther will be there for those who reside in Africa. Sending a lightning bolt into the air, to send a grand message to Moon Knight.

This issue was, again, fantastic. I love the insight into T’Challa’s brain we get here. It’s a lot of challenging him and his knowledge, even establishing how smart he is indirectly, and then juxtaposing it with the fact that even with all this knowledge and intellect he may have, he still doesn’t have the full picture. He needs faith, he needs to think outside of the box in order to win this war. He can continue acting as a noble King, he must act as a God in order to defeat those who claim to be Gods. It’s a hard thing for T’Challa to do as he doesn’t seek power, he doesn’t seek fear in those he wants to protect, however his enemy lives for it, they want nothing more than to have endless power, especially the power of creation like the element they’ve uncovered as it more than likely has the power to destroy. They play God, and T’Challa must play the same game otherwise he risks losing terribly to his enemy. 

Ultimate Moon Knight has been an interesting part of this series, to say the least. They’re, of course, wildly different from their 616 counterpart. They’re chasing to be Gods and that must be intentional as it seems like they don’t have a God behind them like 616 Moon Knight does, so instead they’re chasing godhood themselves. I don’t even think there is an actual Moon God Khonshu, if there is I can see him being completely unrelated to these two. This duo are classic, power hungry villains who seek to be Gods, but I wonder if there’s more to them. They’re a pretty blank canvas, which isn’t a bad thing, they’re familiar and I think that may be instrumental to integrate the readers into this new version until they become more complex, but until then a duo seeking Godhood and the conquering of an entire continent is sufficient for me.

Now to dig into Killmonger and Storm, as I said in my issue 4 review, I’ve gravitated so much to this version of Killmonger. He doesn’t do a whole lot every issue, but what he does do is good enough. He’s this cool, hard-nosed guy who just wants the best for his people, but is too restless to truly enjoy it. Because of how much he’s done to survive, he’s always thinking he needs to deserve comfort like he implies in issue #6, but Storm contrasts him in an interesting way. She believes they deserve comfort, and they do. Her challenging of T’Challa shows she’s a little more cut than Killmonger, she’s not too different from her 616 counterpart, I really think the main difference is the air of Goddessness that 616 Storm has, this one feels more down to earth and grounded, but that comes with the background of freedom fighting.She’s reminding me a bit of how 616 Storm was after she lost her powers and leads the X-Men during Chris Claremont’s Uncanny X-Men run. All in all, I like these two, I even like them together. We don’t get too into the nitty gritty of how they work relationship-wise, but they do, and I don’t mind them together.