Hey, it’s me, and tonight I am apparently reading a comic where Black Panther machine guns Spider-Man with a “broken glass” gun from a helicopter. I feel like this is a pitch for an 80s Marvel movie by the people who made Predator. Anyway, let’s do it. This is one of the 77. We got Steven Grant writing, the legendary Gene Colan on pencils, and Frank Springer on the inks. He did Don McGregor’s last Black Panther story in Marvel Comics Presents, but that’s not for about 7 years after this.
Oh man, it’s a wrap for this guy. One of those reporters is Peter Parker, and when Panther leaps down and grabs the guy, Peter gets socked in the mouth for trying to stop him. That doesn’t seem much like T’Challa.
Then we see the pilot of the chopper is a white dude, so it’s not the real Panther, but he does indeed shoot some kinda shrapnel machine gun thing at a pursuing Spidey, cutting his web and leaving him to do some serious acrobatics to make it to the ground without splattering on it. Spidey is prrrretty mad about getting shot out of the sky, so he sets out for the Wakandan Consulate, and it’s time for Two Heroes Fight Over A Misunderstanding. Black Panther often got short changed by writers in this era, but Steven Grant gets it, and he defeats Spider-Man, like, immediately.
They argue about who did what, but not for long, because troops are massing outside. An attache from the State Department (Sadly, not Everett K. Ross yet in this era) stands in their way, but he’s out of his element when a costumed goon shows up, and boy, is he lame:
Panther tackles this lame, the troops take that as their cue to move in, and the guy from the State Department is still trying to stop them, he’s alright. Spidey is inside hesitating, because he worries T’Challa might not want to be seen with a questionable character like himself (How shrewd!), but when the fight moves inside, that changes things. “Hellrazor” shoots little razors, so that explains the odd munitions in the gun earlier. He tries them on The Panther, but suddenly finds a big web in the way. Spider-Man rightly makes fun of this idiot’s name, and the longer the idiot talks, the more Spider-Man realized he was the “Black Panther” who kidnapped the smarmy dude. But…
Colan’s art could seem wild and kind of out of control to the untrained eye, but look at that crystal clear storytelling and Spidey steals the wristbands.
I like seeing a crap villain get an embarrassing defeat, and Grant’s Black Panther continues to be the powerful, commanding presence he would later become under Christopher Priest’s pen. Very cool. T’Challa & Spidey drag “Hellrazor” back to his boss, who turns out to be Agar, the guy he kidnapped. All just a smear campaign against Wakanda. Then, on the last page, we get the truth about all this:
Ah, the nefarious Roxxon Oil, the Marvel Universe’s most evil corporation, last seen on the blog some 12 years in the future in Web Annual 7. I wonder if this goes somewhere. Looking ahead, it seems like Steven Grant is here for a short run on the title (After one more from Claremont next issue), but I don’t think T’Challa comes back. I guess we’ll see. Man, that one felt like it zoomed by.