Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Forum!

The Living Davebunal · Site Admin Joined: 11 Oct 2010 Posts: 238

Another exceptionally-strong episode from the AEMH team.

The Black Panther presented here is a hybrid of the classic Black Panther character, with some Christopher Priest elements thrown in; not only is this Black Panther possessed of the strength, speed, and agility granted by the Sacred Herbs and rituals of the Panther God, but T'Challa is also quite brilliant, augmenting the traditional with modern upgrades. His uniform is absorbent to all energy spectra, including Wasp's bio-energy blasts. He has vibranium weapons. He can fire vibranium blasts (presumably via those weapons). The Wakanda technology is decades ahead of its time; Hank Pym declares it so.

The Black Panther presented here is a strong character, and his interactions with the other members of the team are a delight to behold; Iron Man distrustful and jealous of someone with superior technology, Captain America respectful but stubborn, Ant-Man immediately accepting and collegial.

One of the oft-stated complaints with "focus" episodes is that the tight focus on one character often comes at the cost of neglecting the other characters, or making them look lesser than they are. The writing staff, under the direction of Christopher Yost, is adept at giving each character something in each episode, building characterization with skillful application, brick by brick. Examples from this episode include:

* Watching Stark get insecure about his technology vs. the Black Panther's was so much fun, especially since T'Challa didn't seem aware they were in competition.
* Captain America taking an order from Iron Man with which he clearly disagrees.

The animation is still kind of stylistic, but has already grown on me; I mean, its not the Justice League-like style, but it doesn't have to be; as someone who grew up cutting his teeth on Kirby, Heck, Perez, Robbins, and others from both Marvel and DC, not neverthing has to be "Neal Adams" perfect for me to appreciate it. Heck, I even came to tolerate the horrible anime-influenced style of the Teen Titans animation...

For the faithful, we're even treated to a full launch sequence for the Quinjets, which had my inner fan-boy cheering!