Black Panther (2016-2018) #1 in Book Riot's Read Harder Challenge

Sep 27, 2016 Cathy rated it really liked it

Great illustrations, and I like the plots that Coates is building. However, I felt like T'challa spent an inordinate amount of time feeling lost and confused, and then verbalizing his feelings of being lost and confused. I do think it's interesting that Coates makes Black Panther's enemies have laudable aims, so it's difficult to root for any one group in power, including Black Panther. I think Coates is trying to get us to think about governing structures, the rights of citizens, paternalism an ...more

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Sep 23, 2016 Elizabeth rated it liked it

Maybe you're thinking you'll be able to just jump into this series based on your general fondness for panthers. You would probably be completely wrong, and very confused, for most of the issues if you thought that. ...more

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May 09, 2017 Julianne Dunn rated it really liked it

Beautiful artwork, great story. Took me too long to figure out what was going on. For the first 15 pages, I was convinced that pages had been torn out.

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Mar 12, 2017 CrystalIsReading on StoryGraph rated it liked it

Shelves: graphic-novels-comics, diversity, fantasy, superheroes

I'm not sure what I was expecting from this volume, other than that my expectations were high. I'm new to Black Panther, but interested, and I thoroughly appreciate the work of Ta-Nehisi Coates. But somehow this volume mostly fell flat for me. I don't know if it was trying to set the stage with world-building and character backstory, but the story felt slow and confusing. The art was cool, and it was wonderful reading a book that is unashamedly by and about Africans/ African Americans. But I did ...more

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Dec 31, 2017 Elizabeth rated it liked it

This was the first Black Panther comic/graphic novel I've ever read, and it might not have been the best introduction. I was confused for a large chunk of the beginning: I felt like I had missed the first issue (even though I was reading the collected series) and the explanations of the characters. I definitely don't need or expect an origin story for every superhero comic I read, but I felt like this one requires a prior top-shelf-level familiarity with Wakanda and its people in order to unders ...more

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Feb 05, 2018 Sarah rated it liked it

Shelves: fiction, american-fiction, africa-fiction, graphic-form

I don't really know how to rate this - I think it probably deserves more than three stars, based on what I've heard - because it's the first comic book I've read, at least as far as I remember. I've read plenty of graphic novels and memoirs, but nothing superhero-y, and so I just have nothing to compare it to. I was excited with the set-up of the story, but I'm not a huge fan of series, so it seems tedious to me to have to read a lot more to find the whole arc of the story (I realize this is a p ...more

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Jan 27, 2018 Shannon rated it liked it

Shelves: read-harder-2018

Read Harder 2018: Comic written or illustrated by a person of color

I'll confess I'm just not a fan of comics. I can get into some graphic novels, but comics seem to have their own visual vocabulary that I find challenging. I find myself reading slowly- do my eyes go here next or here?

All of that being said, there was a lot to like in this comic - I liked that there's an LGBTQ relationship for a key character, that T'Challa is struggling to understand what it means to be a good king, themes of mo ...more

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