Secret Invasion: Black Panther


By Jason Aaron, Jefte Palo & various (Marvel)
ISBN: 978-0-7851-3397-1

The Skrulls are pernicious and persistent shape-shifting aliens who’ve bedevilled Earth ever since Fantastic Four #2 to become a cosmic cornerstone of the Marvel Universe. After years of humiliation and constant defeat, in the early years of the 21st century the metamorphic malcontents finally hit on a winning plan and to this end gradually and methodically abducted and replaced a number of crucial Earth citizens – most notably metahumans and their friends…

When the plot of the Secret Invasion (a colossal braided crossover which ran throughout all Marvel’s titles from Spring to Christmas in 2008) was first uncovered, it led to a confrontation between Earth’s champions and a Skrull starship full of what appeared to be old comrades; many of whom had been accounted dead for years.

Were they truly escaped humans or yet another army of newly undetectable Super-Skrulls?

With no defender of the Earth knowing who to trust, the planet almost fell to a determined massed onslaught…

Most worrisome was the fact that the cosmic charlatans had recently unravelled the secrets of Terran magic and superpowers genetics: thereby creating amped-up equivalents of Earth’s mightiest for their own armies. Now primed and capable of defeating the world’s champions in face-to-face confrontations the smug Skrulls moved into a second stage after certain human heroes caught on…

Scripted by Jason Aaron and illustrated by Jefte Palo, this slim and insidiously engaging paperback (and eBook) reprints the last three issues of Black Panther volume 4 (#39-41 (September-November 2008), offering more insights into the slow progress of the invidious infiltration and a harsh look at the fabled lost kingdom of Wakanda: homeland of the mysterious Black Panther…

T’Challa the Black Panther rules over a fantastic African paradise which isolated itself from the rest of the world millennia ago. Blessed with unimaginable resources – both natural and not so much – the nation developed uninterrupted and unmolested into the most technologically advanced human nation on Earth. The country has also, never been conquered…

The three-part saga ‘See Wakanda and Die…’ opens as veteran Skrull Commander K’vvv’r confidently approaches the border in his three mighty space dreadnoughts, ready to mop up the human primitives defeated and demoralised by his shapeshifting Fifth Column.

He is astounded when he sees his soldiers – or at least their heads – stuck on spears: the time-honoured Wakandan response to invasion…

Angered and ignoring the warning, K’vvv’r’s forces are, within minutes, battling a host of deadly mechanical weapons and cyber-war tactics which reduce his super-scientific fleet to three dead rocks crashed on the plains before the capital city. It’s not all one way however: the deadly digital duel also derives Wakanda of electrical power. Soon the two inimical forces are reduced to facing each other with hand-weapons…

And that’s where it gets really nasty. The Skrulls have decades of military experience utilising their innate metamorphic abilities, bolstered by a new sub-breed of genetically engineered super-powered commandoes. They are confident they will massacre the part-time militia and terrified citizenry of the human enclave…

The Wakandans have their King T’Challa, his recent bride and former X-Man Storm, and faith in their god. Of course, their god is Bast, the Panther Spirit: interventionist sponsor of an indomitable warrior-cult with its origins stretching back beyond the beginning of Ancient Egypt, and currently imbuing the entire populace with all the strength and ferocity of a wild beast defending its home and family…

With covers by Jason Pearson, Secret Invasion: Black Panther is dark, moody, packed with cunning twists and turns and ferociously violent in delivery. This is a superbly smart and gritty Fights ‘n’ Tights take on the old Alien Incursion plot that stands alone for readers only now discovering the Panther but also offers insight and increased nuance for more informed fans. Be warned though, this is a war story and really not suitable for the young or squeamish…
© 2008, 2013 Marvel Characters, Inc. All rights reserved.