Captain America/Black Panther: Flags of Our Fathers

The basic story here is meat-and-potatoes stuff. It’s World War 2 and an elite force of Nazis headed by the Red Skull, Baron Strucker, Master Man, Warrior Woman, and Armless Tiger Man are off to Wakanda to steal some of that awesome vibranium stuff to power their secret weapons. But the African kingdom is protected not only by its reigning Black Panther (T’Challa’s grandfather), but some (very) paleface visitors in the form of Captain America and Nick Fury and his Howling Commandos.

What follows is a lot of fighting as the good guys kick Nazi ass in a manner a little bloodier than usual. The Wakandans decapitate an advance party of Nazis and stick their heads on stakes as a warning. Armless Tiger Man is a cannibal with sharpened teeth who tears into people mouth-first (since he doesn’t have arms, you see).

I actually liked this better than I thought I was going to. There were a couple of places where it seemed like a page was missing though, as the story kept skipping around different parts of the battlefield. And I wasn’t sure what Black Panther was using to take out Master Man and Warrior Woman. Vibranium? Perhaps I just wasn’t paying close enough attention.

The other thing I could have lived without was the lecturing from Black Panther about how post-war America will have to live up to its ideals of freedom, meaning civil rights and all that. “The true test of your ideals will come when the war is over. A nation at war has an enemy to unify them. A nation with no enemy often looks for one within its own borders.” The Panther was becoming a mouthpiece for stuff like this around this time, and it just sounds stiff.

Still, if you want a violent shoot-‘em-up you get it here. Also included as a bonus (since the Flags of Our Fathers storyline is only four issues) is Rise of the Black Panther #1 but I thought this was dreadful. Nothing at all happens, as it’s just backstory about T’Chaka, leading up to the point where he’s killed by Ulysses Klaw. And boy is the action ever talky! Now to be sure Black Panther has often been a talky comic. The Christopher Priest years were thick with text. And he’s always been political too, again in the Priest years but also going back to his fights with the Klan. But the talk here is really dull, just reciting biographical material I mostly already knew, and the art wasn’t working for me either. So that finished the book on a down note.

Graphicalex