Black Panther: Black & White

Christopher Priest's run on Black Panther is the definitive take on the character, balancing character, action, and international politics into one of the smartest hero books to have ever been released. Late in the run, though, Priest started to go a little haywire. He started to bring in all these weird elements from Jack Kirby's insane 70s version of the Black Panther, including time traveling golden frogs, a loquacious dwarf, and a 7 foot tall woman dressed like Galactus. That craziness in itself wasn't necessarily bad, but the continuity Priest had built up over 50 issues on the book was fairly dense, and it was difficult for new readers to jump on board. So he took the book in a new direction with this (uncollected) storyline, in which a New York City policeman finds half a Black Panther costume and decides to use it to fight corrupt cops. It's a terrific crime book, and true to form was canceled basically right after this so thanks Marvel!

RATING: 90%

Black Panther Vol. 2: Enemy Of The State

Like I said before, Christopher Priest's Black Panther run was probably the definitive run for the character. His use of nonlinear storytelling and humorously titled micro-chapters just propels everything into this insane barrage of pop culture, action, and political intrigue that has not since been matched in comics. This volume follows the title character as he deals with a coup in his home nation, Wakanda, intercut with Bill Clinton attacking Everett K. Ross with a hockey stick and the Avengers mucking everything up. The only downfall is that in the seven issues here they go through like three different artists, although Mark Brooks knocks it out of the park at least.

RATING: 85%

Black Panther Vol. 1: The Client

When Christopher Priest wrote this book starting in the late 90s, it was probably the best mainstream superhero comic being written. This first volume sets up his 60 issue run, and establishes the sort of out of order storytelling and vignette style break downs that the series was famous for. The plot is the Black Panther, a superhero/king of high tech African nation, comes to America because a little girl has been murdered at one of his charities. Dorky state department liaison/narrator Everett K. Ross is assigned to escort the Panther around, but constantly and hilariously finds himself out of his elements. It's too bad that reading this book again just emphasizes how much I dislike Reginald Hudlin's take on the character, but oh well you gotta know when to fold 'em.

RATING: 90%

Green Lantern: Emerald Dawn

Green Lantern is the 5th most famous DC superhero (behind Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Flash), and if he was a Beatle that would make him Pete Best. Most average people probably don't know any of his powers, so let me clarify: he wears a space ring that makes his imagination appear as weapons to fight evil unless that evil is yellow. In the late 80s they decided it was time to update his origin, so this trade was born, and I suppose it's fine. It establishes a lot of the mythos we know today about Green Lantern (by we I mean Bryan and I), and it's got complex undertones of guilt and inadequacy. Right now Geoff Johns is kind of doing an updated version of this origin in Green Lantern's main book and it's pretty awesome, but that doesn't mean this one isn't ok, too.

RATING: 64%