Tag: Joe Sabino

Best of Marvel: Week of March 25th, 2020

Best of this Week: Black Panther #22 (Legacy #194) – Ta-Nehisi Coates, Daniel Acuna, Ryan Bodenheim, Chris O’Halloran and Joe Sabino

Can T’Challa ever be redeemed?

Most people might not know, but I have something of a distaste for the King of Wakanda for various reasons over his long, illustrious, heroic career and, over time, it has all spun into a neverending flood of anti-T’Challa bias as time has gone on. From his time as part of the Illuminati to his failed relationship with Storm, I have hated this character and the fact that his misdeeds have gone mostly unpunished…until now.

The Black Panther has never been an apologetic hero and he shouldn’t have to be because he is a king and needs to be strong for his people. Though with his nation on Earth and in Outer Space under siege by the resurrected Erik Killmonger with a symbiote of the former Emperor N’Jadaka, T’Challa has trials to face before he’s able to command his people and see his defeat. His biggest question is, what is his name and will he be able to overcome his own transgressions and become the leader his people truly need?

The main theme of Ta-Nehisi Coates’ Black Panther story is redemption. This issue begins with Zenzi, one of the first new villains introduced by Coates in his initial Black Panther series back in 2016, and gives us a little bit of her backstory with some history involving the original Killmonger. Through Ryan Bodenheim’s pencils, we see the simmering anger and power that she’s been capable of since her introduction and why she’s so eager to see the end of men like T’Challa who use their people and then discard them like Killmonger did for her, giving her superpowers and then trying to have her executed.

Bodenheim and Chris O’Halloran on colors gives this scene and her subsequent conversation with Bast in the body of a child a sense of weight as we now are able to understand why she’s on a mission to rid Wakanda of false rulers, Gods and Kings as Killmonger killed her entire village for his own ends and she likely feared T’Challa was doing the same to Wakanda. O’Halloran uses soft and hazy colors for the flashback, employing slight green and purple hues and switches it up to vibrant greens for Bast’s astral projection and Zenzi’s clothes as the Goddess convinces her to support Wakanda against Emperor N’Jadaka.

At the same time, T’Challa finds himself within the Djalia, the Plane of Wakandan Memory, facing off against his many ancestors to gain their help and fealty so that he may finally put this battle to rest. The main problem he faces, however, are both their numbers himself as a King. Daniel Acuna takes over the art for this portion of the issue and absolutely stuns throughout with impressively smooth linework and coloring which gives distinct borders to characters and their clothing and backgrounds while being absolutely beautiful at the same time. 

Joe Sabino’s lettering also shines here as he makes the distinction between T’Challa and the many other Black Panthers by giving him black letters and word bubbles while the rest have purple letters because of their nature as ethereal beings. Not only that, but his sound effects accentuate the panels perfectly as the “TWOK” from a headbutt is given a yellow hue while being transparent to show impact and a “THUD” from  T’Challa being swept at the feet is colored in a bright blue that accentuates the yellow background.

One of his female ancestors mocks his so-called “preparation” as he summons a white, luminescent spear to fight them all before she summons the Ebony Blade of the Black Knight (see Black Panther 22 – 23, 2005) and slashes him across the back, revealing his own recent past to him. This is meant to serve as a way to show how T’Challa is not as infallible as he makes himself out to be, considering how many times he’s been on the wrong side of history in regards to the world, his people, his lovers and his friends.

Coates has obviously done his research into Black Panther’s best and worst moments as the first flashback we get is from Jonathan Hickman’s New Avengers (#21, 2013) after the Illuminati defeated the heroes of another Earth to save their own, the caveat being that they would have to destroy the other Earth. This was one of the lowest moments for the hero as he couldn’t do what needed to be done and King Namor had to, knowing that sacrifices had to be made in order to save the Earth. He shrank away from his duties of protecting the Earth – of protecting Wakanda after The Black Order had attacked it merely ten issues prior.

Daniel Acuna portrays T’Challas fear and reticence to commit such an atrocious act by having his face mostly shadowed and showing him cry as King T’Chaka lambasts him from the spirit world for his cowardice. Coates and Acuna then cut back to the hooded Panther and she asks what his ancestors should call the boy who scorned his legacy and T’Challa, still reeling from pain, says his own name before being slashed again.

Acuna begins the next flashback with a beautiful wide show of T’Challa looking upon a vibrant purple and almost 3D looking silhouette of the secret meeting location of the Illuminati before they wiped the memory of Steve Rogers. This was because they decided to destroy planets when the honorable soldier would not and T’Challa is framed in the background of these shots, just watching it happen. Coates makes it a point to stress that “No friendship [was] too precious to be spurned.” Then he is attacked by the Spirit of his grandfather, Azzuri.

Thematically, this makes sense as Azzuri and Steve Rogers first met when the Red Skull and Hydra Nazis tried to invade Wakanda for Vibranium and the two heroes had to fight them off, becoming friends and allies over the course of their battles together (see Marvel Knights’ Flag of our Fathers, 2010). Acuna gives the T’Challa/Azzuri fight a sense of speed by using a lot of blur lines as well as struggle squiggles as T’Challa is placed in a chokehold. As he breaks free, Azzuri disappears into a cloud of hazy, purple smoke.

We are then given a flashbak of what I consider to be his greatest failure, his broken vow and fight against Storm during the events of Avengers vs. X-Men where he stood against Mutantkind after the first mutant child was born post Scarlet Witch’s Decimation of them. The child, Hope Summers, was prophesied to be either the savior of mutants or the destroyer of everything and Black Panther cast his marriage aside during the conflict (AvX #5, 2012), though it was continued in Coates’ series years later.

Of course, while ancestors are supposed to tear you down, it was his mother that proceeded to build him back up. The final flashback given is T’Challa’s birth mother, Nyami, showing T’Challa how King T’Chaka also grieved after his wife’s death, but because he was not just one man, but a nation, he had to move past it and that’s what this whole story has been about. T’Challa’s actions have all been about him and his decisions and not about Wakanda as a whole. He forgets that he is the crown and therefore the Nation itself.

Coates has become a master of longform storytelling as he’s managed to craft a saga of almost fifty issues of T’Challa taking responsibility for his crown and Coates has framed that excellently by the name he keeps giving when his ancestors ask him who he is: T’Challa. The wrong answer. Acuna show’s the various ancestors surrounding the man, waiting for him to give the correct answer as his mother encourages him and he stands for a moment before speaking. What should he be called?

King. King of Wakanda.

In that very instant, Acuna draws all of the ancestors giving King T’Challa the, now iconic, Wakanda salute as he demands their allegiance. He feels so strong, so complete as a character now that he accepts and acknowledges his many faults as part of who he is. He doesn’t need to apologize for them because they are a part of who he is as a man, but when he is a King, he must be better. He must protect his people and that is why he will be able to stop N’Jadaka in the coming battle, just like he stopped Killmonger all those years ago as well.

This issue of Black Panther was phenomenal and really shows how much Ta-Nehisi Coates has grown from his initial few books which were mostly full of world building. He’s shown that he can create an amazing and expansive story that utilizes not only T’Challa’s extensive history, but also that of the Marvel Universe at large to make this story seem grand and far reaching as something on this scale should. 

Ryan Bodenheim does have amazing skills as a penciller, but I found myself far more engaged with Daniel Acuna’s style throughout this issue as he manages to make the fight seem so ethereal while also focusing on some of my favorite moments of Marvel History – not to mention his colors are always so vibrant and loud, popping off the pages with the intensity that readers have come to expect from him.

I hope that the rest of this series continues this upward slope because this was fantastic and it gets a high recommend from me!

Best of Marvel: Week of February 12th, 2020

Best of this Week: Thor #3 – Donny Cates, Nic Klein, Matt Wilson and Joe Sabino

Thor has lived for a millennium and has fought in thousands, if not millions, of battles… but the one he will remember most was against his brother in arms: Beta Ray Bill.

That’s the tale that Donny Cates is spinning as we see the fallout from the last issue of Thor as Beta Ray Bill comes to find his brother standing side by side with the Eater of Worlds, Galactus. Their stare down is intense and readers can feel the vortex of thoughts in both of their minds. Nic Klein and Matt Wilson frame their confrontation excellently with a pulled out shot, showing them both with Bill floating hesitantly and Thor standing still, unaffected by Bill’s appearance. In the background looms the World Eater with neon oranges coloring his body while all of them are in space.

Cates does an amazing job of portraying Bill as someone who cares for his people, specifically Thor, given Odin and the Thunder God gave him a home and people after Galactus destroyed his. He tells Thor that he will have his revenge against Galactus for corrupting his brother’s honor and attempts to strike the Thunder God. Unfortunately for him, with the Power Cosmic, Thor backhands Beta Ray Bill into the recently destroyed planet of Clypse.

It’s an excellent show of power as Thor barely moves an inch and as Bill crashes, Klein draws an excellent pair of panels showing Bill being flung into the ruins of the planet, with Wilson offering amazing and dynamic oranges for the subsequent explosion and an awesome DOOM lettering from Joe Sabino as Bill hits the surface. The next panel shows Bill trying to stand with his armor and helmet in absolute tatters. Thor then comes to him and says that in the past they were equals, but with the Power Cosmic and his new All-Father abilities, he is far beyond what he was.

This is absolutely true as well. In their first meeting in The Mighty Thor #337 (1983), Bill was able to overpower Thor and use Mjolnir as a weapon against the Thunder God, thinking he was a threat to Bill’s fellow Korbinites. Soon after, the pair became the greatest of allies, even brothers when Odin forged a new hammer for Beta Ray Bill called Stormbreaker and allowed him to fight through the cosmos as an Ally of Asgard. However, it has been quite a few years since then and Thor himself has gone above and beyond his capabilities from their first meeting.

In the almost forty years since that story, Thor has beaten the Mangog and Thanos back-to-back (Thor, 1998), knocked out the Phoenix Force (Avengers vs. X-Men, 2012), fought back against the forces of the Collecter for a straight two years in order to reach a hammer from another universe (The Unworthy Thor, 2016) and repelled an interdimensional invasion from Malekith the Accursed (War of the Realms, 2019). He is now the All-Father of Asgard as well and Bill has lagged behind.

Thor tries to calm his brother by using the Thunder to transform into his non-Power Cosmic form, showing Bill that he is completely in charge of his own decisions. Wilson does an awesome job of using blue to contrast the raging fires of Clypse and Thor looks absolutely heroic and badass in his new costume with his regular, non-glowing, hair. Galactus blasts at Thor, telling him that he is not above the Power Cosmic, but Thor overpowers him with Mjolnir alone as the scene is colored with intense white and purple hues.

Bill calls Thor a traitor for choosing to help Galactus and gives the Thunder God a nice whack across the face that BOOMs out in his anger. Beta Ray Bill is angry and where he might have been holding back before, he questions Thor’s integrity for siding with a monster like Galactus and the two have a savage fight against each other. It’s intense and paints their formerly friendly rivalry in a new and painful light as every strike is filled with venom, rage and anguish. Both men even have great points during the fight as they speak between punches and hammer swings.

Bill tells Thor that he is a king and he has an army at his very command. He could have sent forces to the edge of the universe and fought to his last to stop the Black Winter from taking another Universe. The most powerful line comes when Bill says, “You could have come to ME!” and this hits far harder than every thunderous blow the pair have made to each other. Thor did have options and he always has his brother as the two have fought side by side through worse.

Thor needed Bill’s help when Asgard was about to crash into the Earth during Secret Invasion (2008) and Bill even offered Thor Stormbreaker when the Thunderer found himself Unworthy. Bill has always been there when Thor has needed him, but this time Thor has chosen to go to the shadows rather seek help from his friends in the light.

Thor owns up to the fact that he has to become something almost evil because there’s a far larger picture that Bill isn’t seeing however. The Black Winter has destroyed Universes and it will destroy this one too unless Thor allows Galactus to consume the planets that he’s heralding him to. Thor understands the responsibilities he has as King of Asgard and he is completely right. Bill is an idealist in this situation, but realistically Galactus, having survived the previous Winter, is their last hope (at least until something better comes along later down the line).

After smacking each other around for several pages, Thor attempts to throw Mjolnir at Bill and the Korbinite catches it, trying to keep it away from Thor. The Thunder God attempts to call it back, threatening to take Bill’s arm if he keeps fighting against him, but Bill does not relent. Klein frames this as not just a struggle of power, but of honor. Thor initially stands firm, trying to reason with Beta Ray Bill, but Bill is steadfast and struggles against the weight of Thor’s power. We get a pulled in shot of Bill holding on through sheer will before he tells Thor that he truly is unworthy of Mjolnir.

Klein then gives us an amazing shot of Thor lowering his head, a moment of pained realization as Bill’s words strike him to the core as he’s unable to say a word against it. But it is for only a moment as Thor then calls Stormbreaker to his hand and we get an almost heartbreaking and powerful double page spread that is best read for yourself.

Overall, this was yet another phenomenal issue of Thor in what I believe is an absolutely worthy successor to Jason Aaron’s years long epic with only three issues released so far. Donny Cates understands the sheer power that these characters wield and scripts them to great effect. He also understands their personalities and strives to give us a badass story that leans on Marvel’s past while also creating a new history in the process. I honestly haven’t felt this energized about a Thor story since The Unworthy Thor almost four years ago and I feel the same gravitas from this story as I did from that one.

Nic Klein, Matt Wilson and Joe Sabino absolutely pull this issue together with their excellent pencils, colors and lettering respectively.  Klein has an excellent eye for scale and fight scenes in particular which gives this book a grander feel while also highlighting the brutality that Thr and Bill are capable of as warriors. Wilson accentuates Klein’s lines with stunning colors that pop off of the pages and create the intensity and heat from the raging fires and crackling lightning. Sabino places word balloons and sound effects to give the book a voice and sound for every hard hitting action or line of dialogue.

With all of them together, this book is the Perfect Storm of what a great Thor comic can be and the awesome potential of singular events taking place in one issue. So far, I’m absolutely enthralled with this book and the cliffhanger from this issue absolutely ensures that I’ll be back for more – High Recommend.