Black Panther #4 Review

Writer: Ta-Nahisi Coates// Artist: Daniel Acuña // Publisher: Marvel “There can be only one Avatar of Bast” – Emperor N’Jadaka The fourth issue in Book One of the Ta-Nahisi Coates’ “Many Thousands Gone” storyline finds T’Challa and the Maroons fighting for their lives against the hordes of Emperor N’Jadaka led by the merciless mutant Manifold. Up until this point, the revolution of the Nameless against the Wakandan empire was preached and pontificated over to the point of redundancy. In this new installment, however, the rebels experience their first major casualty. This results in a shift in leadership and raising the stakes. Anyone who felt that Coates’ previous run on Black Panther was too cerebral and political can sit all the way down as this issue is pure violent insurrection and loss; it is The Empire Strikes Back’s Battle of Hoth meets the slave uprisings of Nate Parker’s The Birth of a Nation. In the previous issue, Emperor N’Jadaka unleashed the might of his forces against one of the Maroon’s moon bases in order to destroy T’Challa. With his uncanny abilities and heightened senses, the once embondaged mindslave represents a threat to the Emperor’s power. Of course, the almighty Killmonger will not stand for any living symbols of hope against his intergalactic reign. The rebels can barely hold their own against the combined might of his Askari raiders and Massai fighters, but T’Challa and Nakia fight like a man and woman possessed by the spirit of Ogun.  You want the…