There are a bunch of her men in the base, and they attack again, shooting Little dead, but it is Princess Zanda who blasts the Panther into submission. We learn that the men pursuing them work for Princess Zanda. They are attacked again by guys with jet-packs, but they fly away from them and go to Little’s secret mountain base. Mister Little explains that the frog has been known to transport people from other eras, and provided the genie in the Aladdin myth, and brought the Loch Ness Monster to the present.

They leave in Little’s jet-copter, and are pursued by a massive airship that almost captures them.

We learn that T’Challa’s grandfather, Azzari the Wise, once owned the frog. They are attacked by an elaborately dressed swordsman who T’Challa fights off. Queely, who is holding King Solomon’s Frog, a brass statue that we learn later has bizarre time travel properties. Little entering the trophy room of the dead Mr. This issue opens with T’Challa and the diminutive and monocled Mr. I cannot deny the incredible contributions he made to American superhero and adventure comics, and I love many of his creations, but I don’t always enjoy his work. In the interest of making a full disclaimer, I feel that I should admit that I’m not a huge Jack Kirby fan. I had no memory of reading or buying this book, which I gather from the bag it was in that I spent $0.50 on at some point in my childhood, and which is now probably conservatively worth about $40 in the condition it’s in.Īnyway, this column is going to be a bit of a grab bag, as I go through this stuff and prepare myself for the glory of Priest’s work. When I went into my longboxes, I was surprised to discover that I also had the first issue of Jack Kirby’s Black Panther series. To that end, to provide myself with some proper context, I thought I’d read the late 80s miniseries that I remember buying, and the early 90s prestige format title that I also remember starting, but couldn’t remember if I ever finished. As I did this, I started reflecting on how the Black Panther was portrayed in his own solo comics before Priest got his hands on him, and didn’t so much reinvent him as he did refine him. I gathered up a few issues missing from my collection over the last few months, and was ready to get started when I started reflecting on just what it was that I liked about that title so much. For my next set of columns, I wanted to reread Christopher Priest’s classic run on The Black Panther.

Black Panther, Vol. 1 by Jack Kirby