Mar 30, 2025
I could write this review in reference to everything in this series I've read up until now, but I'll just keep the focus within the first 6 issues here. This is a nothing book. Nothing in this comic is interesting or worthwhile or even entertaining. The easy stuff to praise is the art, and I admit that Stefano Caselli is a pretty great artist on a technical level, and the colors by David Curiel really help give live to these pages and help the mood. Carlos Nieto is also good as a fill-in artist, with a less realistic style but still serviceable at the very least and if anything his work comes off more dynamic and expressive. However both are not giving me memorable looking scenes, proving unengaging panel to panel & page to page reading, an
d Caselli's action moments feel relatively stiff and sometimes he provides faces I can only describe as "too expressive" due to the realistic style is going for.
But the real killer for this comic as a whole, lies at the feet of Bryan Hill's writing. I've not read anything before from him, so I came in with fresh eyes Somehow this doesn't feel like it's being written for the trade, it feels like it's being written for the omnibus. This series seems to be moving in real time, like The Ultimates or Savage Dragon. There are elements between issues we are not witnessing and I must assume that's where are the character building and interesting character dynamics are happening. This is a book that's just trying to redo the general premise of Black Panther 2018 but with some switched up elements to try and make it feel fresh but instead it just feels like a weird drag. This book feels like it's trying to be Game of Thrones (or Dune as that's a cited reference iirc) but the actual political aspect of this book feels so nothing. Not in how it's talking about the world's own politics and we as the reader relaying it to real life politics, or classic political tension/drama where people are vying for power and manipulating one another for control. There is alleged tension between
the cast of protagonists, but I do not see it. There are alleged personalities and characteristics among the cast, but it is barely there. I don't want to talk too much beyond this issue in terms of critiques, but I will say it does not really get better. In fact, there seems to be elements that were there early on that has not come back or if they have then I guess they were given more weight than intended or just had weak payoff.
People don't talk human. This book wants to talk like it's a Nolan Batman film or the Netflix Daredevil series, but without the actual quality or other aspects that help prop that film/series up to keep the interest that a comic just cannot sensibly do. This is a boring book that I am only continuing out of obligation. At least the art is pretty. more
/vol-2-gods--kings-TP.webp)
/vol-1-peace-and-war-TP.webp "Ultimate Black Panther Vol. 1: Peace And War")
