Tag Archives: Ulysses Klaw

Apr 4 2018

Using Our Voices to Help, Not Hurt in Black Panther 171

By Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Our voices make us powerful. They allow us to make bonds and forge connections with one another, they allow us to speak out against oppression and injustice, they allow us to express our innermost desires and emotions, to be heard. Unfortunately, some voices are louder than others. Voices of men, voices of white people, they have a platform that women or people of color are so often denied access to, a platform that amplifies their voice, not only giving their words too much power, but drowning out the voices of others. This is first and foremost a problem for those whose voices are being drowned out, of course, but it’s also a problem for those doing the speaking; they’re so busy talking that they’re not listening, and that means they’re missing out on a lot of vital information. Continue reading →

Mar 6 2018

An Unsettling Twist Changes the Game in Black Panther 170

By Drew Baumgartner

Black Panther 170

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Black Panther 170 is by all measures a climactic issue. Indeed, with so many of T’Challa’s villains and allies joining the fray, the bulk of the issue has a decidedly “Battle of the Five Armies” feel to it, which artist Leonard Kirk captures in all of its chaotic glory.

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

We may suspect a quieter, more personal denouement down the line — Klaw, Stane, Faustus, and Zenzi are nowhere near this fight — but this feels like the big army battle before things tighten back up to Black Panther tracking down the villains and rescuing his kidnapped friend. We think we know where this is going, but then writer Ta-Nehisi Coates yanks the rug out from under us on a stunning final page turn. [Major spoilers after the break!] Continue reading →

Jan 31 2018

Silence is Golden in Black Panther 169

By Ryan Desaulniers

Black Panther 169

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

All comics are silent comics. This is an immutable fact due to their very nature as a static, visual medium. This makes it all the more impressive that artists can imbue a page with a bevvy of techniques which trick our beautiful brains into not only interpreting some onamonpaeatic words as sound, but even suggest the sound’s quality in a way that we, as readers, hardly notice as we go. Black Panther 169 takes away the sense of perceived sound and employs a level of visual storytelling which this title had not yet utilized, making for a gripping read, one focused on two characters, in opposition, in a high-stakes sprint to their objectives. Continue reading →

Jan 10 2018

Rise of the Black Panther 1: Discussion

by Drew Baumgartner and Ryan Desaulniers

Rise of the Black Panther 1

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

“Spinoff!” Is there any word more thrilling to the human soul?

Troy McClure, “The Simpsons Spin-Off Showcase”

Drew: That epigraph might seem a bit glib, but while I understand the criticisms spinoffs get for being uninspired or safe, I’d never dismiss a spinoff as a matter of course. Case in point: The Simpsons is technically a spinoff from The Tracey Ullman Show, but that didn’t stop it from becoming arguably the greatest sitcom of all time. And actually, the discrete nature of The Tracey Ullman Show might just have been part of what makes The Simpsons so successful — there isn’t the temptation to feature cameos from the original show, the way Frasier might with Cheers, for example. That is, The Simpsons could operate in its own world, untethered to the sensibilities of its origin. Unfortunately, despite the decades that separate The Rise of the Black Panther from its main series, it never really manages to form its own identity. Continue reading →