In the early 1970s I was just about ready to give up on comic books. My favorite series were either cancelled or being written and drawn by creative teams I wasn't interested in. Artists like Neal Adams, Jim Steranko, and Barry Windsor-Smith were channeling their energies into other more lucrative endeavors and only showed up sporadically in mainstream comic books. Fortunately for me a new wave of comic book creators was arriving on the scene. Artists like Jim Starlin, Howard Chaykin, and Paul Gulacy appeared full of energy and new ideas. Writers like Steve Englehart, Doug Moench, and Don McGregor were given unprecedented freedom at Marvel to take chances.

This was the atmosphere that produced Don McGregor's magnum opus - "Panther's Rage", a thirteen issue story that took McGregor and his collaborators (artists Rich Buckler, Gil Kane, Billy Graham, and inker Klaus Janson) over two years to tell. It was a pretty bold move on Marvel's part. Black Panther was an African prince, and this story was set in his homeland, the fictional Wakonda. The entire cast of the story was black, no Tarzans or Ka-Zars to be found. McGregor's writing dealt with revolution, petty tribal bigotries, and inequality and was filled with beautiful prose, passionate dialogue, and complex characterizations. The pencillers used cinematic techniques (prompted at times by McGregor's detailed plots) and then newcomer Janson's inks show his now trademark heavy spotting of blacks and zipatone.

I still own the original comics bought off the newsstands over forty years ago, and I bought the recent reprint collection. It is well worth a look.

http://www.amazon.com/Marvel-Masterworks-The-Black-Panther/dp/0785141987