Cover: John Cassaday
Artist: Butch Guice| Writer: Ta-Nehisi Coates & Yona Harvey
Release Date: April 2017
What happens when Wakanda’s king partners up with Marvel’s street level heroes and his former queen to investigate the death of a Harlem activist? Fireworks are guaranteed when so many combustible elements are in one book and that’s just with regards to the heroes involved! We’ll have to wait until April to see how it all pans out.
My Take: When it comes to the current crop of Marvel titles the Black Panther series by Ta-Nehisi Coates jumps out as a must read for many fans and with Black Panther and The Defenders getting more screen time in the coming months it’s not a shocker to see Marvel bringing Wakanda’s king into the stories of Marvel’s street level heroes. This association will be the focal point of Marvel’s new ongoing series Black Panther & The Crew which unites Black Panther, Luke Cage, Misty Knight, Manifold, and Storm. The addition of Storm who has quite the history with Black Panther only adds to some awesome elements that are being teased.
Black Panther & The Crew is a book worth keeping on your radar as the differing ideologies between the characters alone will make for some interesting reading.
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Marvel Comics Announces BLACK PANTHER & THE CREW
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Yona Harvey, and Butch Guice Helm All-new Ongoing Marvel Comic Series
New York, NY—January 23, 2017— Prepare for a whole new team to take on the vile underbelly of the Marvel Universe. It’s time for BLACK PANTHER & THE CREW – Black Panther, Storm, Luke Cage, Misty Knight and Manifold band together to take on a dangerous wave of threats in this new ongoing series by co-writers Ta-Nehisi Coates (New York Times best-selling author of Between the World and Me and Marvel’s Black Panther) and Yona Harvey (Black Panther: World of Wakanda) paired with legendary artist Butch Guice!
Speaking with TIME, Coates explained how this new collective of heroes is unique across all the corners of the Marvel Universe, “There’s this concept in comic books of street characters—characters who mostly deal with street-level stories—those are your Daredevils, your Luke Cages, things that are considered lower-tier. And then you have your more cosmic level heroes, like The X-Men, the Fantastic Four, Avengers, that sort of thing. What we have in this book is a group of characters that operate on both levels.”
Paired with Coates’ current best-selling and award-winning Black Panther series, the death of a Harlem activist kicks off a mystery that will reveal surprising new secrets about the Marvel Universe’s past and set the stage for a big story in the Marvel Universe’s near future.
“The book’s action stems, in part, from how stealth these heroes must be when operating in Harlem,” said Harvey. “Misty and Storm are forced to improvise and take cues from one another, for instance, and that kind of give-and-take makes for a great adventure. The characters dress slightly differently and don new monikers, but their powers are recognizable and their heroic dilemmas persist. The villains might be fooled, but the readers are hip to what’s happening. And that’s part of the fun.”
Fear, hate, and violence loom, but don’t worry, there is a brand new team ready to take on a mystery that may begin in the streets, but plans to encompass a universe. Get ready for BLACK PANTHER & THE CREW arriving in comic shops this April!
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