The Black Panther is credited as being the first black superhero, certainly the first from a major comic book publisher, and was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby at the peak of their landmark run on Fantastic Four in 1966. As he was initially intended as a supporting character, information about T’Challa’s background and history emerged slowly, with major elements of his origin story not being revealed until five years later. Little was seen of his kingdom of Wakanda at first, and we met few other Wakandan characters until the Black Panther finally received a solo feature in 1973. Still, he paved the way for a long line of black heroes and heroines to follow.
Note: The following timeline depicts the Original Marvel Universe (anchored to November 1961 as the first appearance of the Fantastic Four and proceeding forward from there. See previous posts for a detailed explanation of my rationale). Some information presented on the timeline is speculative and some is based on historical accounts. See the Notes section at the end for clarifications.
Now on the prowl with… The True History of the Black Panther!
June 1963 – T’Challa, heir to the throne of the small African nation of Wakanda, graduates from a university in the United States, where he has been pursuing an advanced degree under the pseudonym “Luke Charles.” Along with his constant companion, a cousin named B’Tumba, T’Challa then returns to Wakanda, which has been ruled in his stead by a regent, his uncle N’Baza. T’Challa has long harbored suspicions that N’Baza means to keep the throne for himself and has been scheming to get rid of T’Challa ever since he left the country to attend college following the death of his father, King T’Chaka. However, since B’Tumba is N’Baza’s son, T’Challa has kept his suspicions to himself.
Arriving outside the royal palace in Wakanda’s central village, T’Challa and B’Tumba are greeted by N’Baza with much pomp and circumstance. N’Baza announces that T’Challa must face two final challenges before becoming king, the first of which is the traditional ritual combat. For the match, N’Baza dons the sacred garb of the Black Panther, and T’Challa likewise wears a ritual mask. As numerous drummers beat out a martial rhythm, T’Challa and N’Baza each best a number of challengers before facing off in single combat. To the amazement of the crowd, T’Challa quickly defeats N’Baza and claims the title of Black Panther. When T’Challa removes his mask, the Wakandans cheer his victory, thrilled that the son of King T’Chaka has passed the first test.
After passing a night of vigil in the temple of the Panther God, T’Challa is ready to face the second challenge, which is to climb the mountain where the mysterious heart-shaped herb grows. When ingested, the herb will imbue him with the powers of the Panther God and thereby grant him the divine right to rule Wakanda. Retrieving the sacred garb of the Black Panther from the base of a large panther totem, T’Challa puts it on and heads out into the jungle alone. Having learned that B’Tumba was sent away during the night, T’Challa assumes that N’Baza is planning some treachery and wants the prince to be without his greatest ally. Fighting off various wild animals as he goes, T’Challa crosses the jungle and makes the dangerous ascent to find the heart-shaped herb. Once he has consumed it, he feels his strength and agility rapidly increasing and realizes he has truly become the Black Panther at last.
Hearing foreign voices nearby, T’Challa goes to investigate and discovers a small refinery containing highly advanced technology. It is staffed by men in strange yellow “beekeeper” uniforms who reveal themselves to be agents of an organization called Advanced Idea Mechanics (A.I.M.), though T’Challa has never heard of it. Still, it is clear they are attempting to steal a supply of vibranium, the extraterrestrial ore that is the kingdom’s most fiercely guarded secret—a crime they could not commit without the help of a Wakandan traitor. Enraged, the Black Panther attacks them, only to be defeated by a sonic cannon. He is then marched at gunpoint into the refinery, convinced that N’Baza has betrayed their people. However, T’Challa quickly learns that it is B’Tumba who has sold the secret of vibranium, having been recruited into A.I.M. when they were both in college. Tired of living in T’Challa’s shadow, B’Tumba now seeks to seize the throne for himself. Luckily, when the moment comes to murder his childhood friend, B’Tumba is unable to bring himself to do it. Instead, he frees T’Challa, intent on making A.I.M. pay for turning his youthful jealousy into mad ambition and base treachery. In the ensuing battle, the Black Panther defeats all the A.I.M. agents, but B’Tumba is mortally wounded. Dying, he declares that N’Baza was always loyal and begs T’Challa not to tell his father of his treason. Feeling ashamed of himself for suspecting N’Baza for so long, T’Challa finds it in his heart to forgive B’Tumba. The A.I.M. agents are then taken into custody to face Wakandan justice and the stolen vibranium is recovered.
Settling into his reign, T’Challa gets to know some of his royal advisors, such as N’Gassi, Taku, and Zatama. He also strikes up a friendship with W’Kabi, captain of the palace guard. The royal physician Mendinao administers the extracts of the heart-shaped herb that maintain T’Challa’s panther-powers and becomes a trusted friend. T’Challa is also reunited with his estranged half-brother Jakarra, who is an officer in the military serving under Wakanda’s foremost warrior, M’Baku. T’Challa’s other cousins, Khanata, Ishanta, Zuni, and Joshua Itobo, are busy with their own affairs and have little interest in royal matters. The new king immediately orders construction begun on a modern hospital facility near the palace and introduces other modernization initiatives, some of which are considered controversial.
July 1963 – T’Challa begins building what he refers to as a “technological jungle” in the vicinity of the royal palace, a complex of fantastic machinery of his own design. He becomes concerned late in the month when the entire sky is suddenly engulfed in flames. Though his people are terrified, T’Challa determines that the fire poses no immediate danger. When the flames vanish as mysteriously as they appeared, T’Challa suspects they may have been illusory. Other strange aerial phenomena appear in the following days, but T’Challa’s sensor scans remain inconclusive.
August 1963 – T’Challa continues to monitor the situation as a curtain of space debris circles the globe for a few days, darkening the skies with asteroids. The phenomenon ends abruptly when a gigantic alien appears in New York City and is driven off by the Fantastic Four. T’Challa is very impressed with the heroic quartet, realizing that they have just averted a global apocalypse.
October 1963 – Learning from intelligence reports that the unscrupulous Dutch scientist Ulysses Klaw is planning to make a second attempt to invade Wakanda and steal its vibranium, T’Challa remembers the disastrous events of ten years before. His father, King T’Chaka, had only just initiated him into the secrets of the sacred vibranium mound when Klaw and his army of mercenaries crossed their borders. T’Chaka led a party of warriors out to halt the invaders’ advance, only to be cut down by machine guns. Hearing the gunfire, T’Challa, then a scrawny lad of 16, slipped out of the main village as Klaw’s men stormed in and made his way to where his father’s body lay. Swearing vengeance, T’Challa ambushed a mercenary carrying a strange weapon and turned it on the invaders, discovering that it unleashed devastating sonic blasts. With their machine guns shattering under the sonic barrage, Klaw’s men fled, though they had already put the village to the torch. When Klaw tried to disarm the young prince, T’Challa fired the weapon at him, shattering his foe’s pistol and his right hand with it. Even so, before retreating into the jungle, Klaw vowed to one day return and seize control of the vibranium mound to power even more deadly sonic weapons. Now that that day has finally come, T’Challa decides to test his mettle against none other than the Fantastic Four.
Thus, he sends an emissary to deliver a specially-designed aero-car to the team’s Baxter Building headquarters in New York City. The emissary soon reports back that the Fantastic Four were duly impressed and have accepted the invitation to Wakanda. When the aero-car returns with the team aboard, T’Challa guides it to a gentle landing inside his technological jungle. He notes that the Fantastic Four have brought along a friend, college student Wyatt Wingfoot, but thinks it unlikely to upset his plans. Dressed in his sacred garb, the Black Panther then pits himself against Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, the Human Torch, and the Thing. He is relieved to see Wingfoot fleeing the scene, not wanting any harm to come to the youth. The Black Panther quickly incapacitates the Human Torch and the Invisible Girl, then tricks the Thing into refreshing himself with a special fluid that saps his great strength. Leaving the Thing stunned by a blast from a cryogenic device, the Black Panther shuts off the lights for his duel with Mister Fantastic. No sooner has he captured his last opponent, though, than the Black Panther is attacked by the Human Torch again. T’Challa realizes that Wingfoot, whom he dismissed as a threat, has helped the Fantastic Four get free and regroup. Impressed, T’Challa unmasks and introduces himself to his guests, inviting them to an elaborate feast in the royal palace.
Following the banquet, T’Challa explains to his guests about the nature of vibranium and Klaw’s plans to steal it. Mister Fantastic immediately grasps the implications of such a substance falling into the wrong hands, but the Thing merely grumbles about everything, clearly annoyed at having been brought to the country under false pretenses. Suddenly, an alarm sounds, indicating that Klaw has made his move. Learning that a defensive outpost has been destroyed, the Fantastic Four race off to investigate, only to be attacked by giant animal constructs made of solid sound. Realizing that Klaw would need a large complex of machinery to create such monsters, T’Challa decides to check out Wakanda’s largest cave system. Sure enough, the Black Panther discovers Klaw’s secret lair and confronts the villain. Klaw reveals that he now wears a sonic weapon as a prosthesis over his crippled right hand and uses it to keep the Black Panther at bay. Activating his massive sonic converter, Klaw creates a gigantic panther construct and unleashes it on T’Challa, but the king is able to outfight it with his superhuman strength and agility. Frustrated, Klaw diverts all power to the weapon on his arm, but the Black Panther causes the master control panel to overload, starting a chain reaction of explosions. Leaving Klaw trapped, the Black Panther races from the caverns as the entire hill is blown to bits by the unharnessed sonic energy. Watching the cave system collapse under tons of rubble, T’Challa is satisfied that his father’s murder has at last been avenged.
After the Fantastic Four treat the Wakandans to an exhibition of baseball, T’Challa hosts a relaxing dinner at the palace, where they are entertained by a world-renowned concert pianist. The young king also showers his guests with all manner of fabulous gifts, from the latest Paris fashions to high-tech exercise equipment. Noticing that the Human Torch has been brooding about something all day, T’Challa asks if there’s anything he can do to help. The Torch explains that his girlfriend Crystal and her people, the Inhumans, are trapped in their hidden refuge in the Himalayas by an impenetrable force field. He means to return to the site to make another attempt to free them, and when Wyatt Wingfoot volunteers to accompany the Torch on his quest, T’Challa offers them his Gyro-Cruiser, a vehicle of fantastic design. Shocked by such incredible generosity, the two young men board the Gyro-Cruiser and set off on their journey, heading north towards the Sahara Desert. Soon after, Mister Fantastic, the Invisible Girl, and the Thing take the aero-car and fly it back to New York City. Gratified to have made such wonderful friends and allies, T’Challa turns his attention back to affairs of state.
Not long after, T’Challa receives a desperate radio message from Mister Fantastic, who reveals that Klaw escaped from the cave-in, apparently by converting himself into a being composed of solid sound, and has attacked the Baxter Building. He requests that a pair of “vibranium knuckles” be sent at once, so T’Challa has the items delivered to Mister Fantastic in a matter of minutes using a high-speed mini-missile. Shortly, Mister Fantastic contacts T’Challa again to report that Klaw has been captured and the Thing has crushed his sonic weapon. T’Challa agrees to construct a special vibranium holding cell and have it shipped to New York as soon as possible, as it seems unlikely that an ordinary jail could hold Klaw for long in his new form.
November 1963 – When the notorious super-villain Doctor Doom gains cosmic powers and goes on a worldwide rampage, T’Challa sends the Fantastic Four his fastest aircraft. He then contacts them en route to Doom’s kingdom of Latveria and advises them on the ship’s capabilities. Unfortunately, Doom utterly destroys the ship as soon as it reaches him. Luckily, as T’Challa learns afterwards, the Fantastic Four were able to bail out and defeat Doctor Doom despite his new powers, which were then stripped from him. T’Challa knows that, once again, Wakanda—and, indeed, the world—owes its survival to his friends, the Fantastic Four. This starts him thinking that there must be a way for the Black Panther to be of greater service to humanity than merely reigning over a small, isolated kingdom. He decides to watch for the next few months to see if such an opportunity presents itself.
Notes:
June 1963 – We get a couple glimpses of T’Challa during his college days in flashbacks in Avengers #77 and #87. The latter issue also features extended flashbacks of T’Challa’s return to Wakanda with B’Tumba and his discovery that his old friend is an agent of A.I.M. This occurs several months before the world discovers that A.I.M. is a subversive organization in Strange Tales #149. The ritual combat with N’Baza, who is dressed as the Black Panther, is depicted in a flashback in Black Panther #8. The other Wakandans will be introduced in subsequent stories. The Panther God worshiped in Wakanda is a composite figure of the goddess Bast and her son Mahes, descendants of the primal god Thoth and therefore members of the Egyptian pantheon.
July–August 1963 – The strange aerial phenomena are created by the Watcher in an attempt to hide Earth from Galactus, as seen in Fantastic Four #48–50.
October 1963 – The Black Panther is introduced in Fantastic Four #52–54 when he draws the team into his conflict with Ulysses Klaw. Mister Fantastic then contacts T’Challa to request help against Klaw in Fantastic Four #56.
November 1963 – T’Challa again lends aid to the Fantastic Four when Doctor Doom steals the Silver Surfer’s cosmic powers in Fantastic Four #60. It is shortly after this that T’Challa would have learned of the assassination of American president John F. Kennedy, which satisfies my initial research question as far as the Black Panther is concerned.
OMU Note: The final canonical appearance of the Black Panther was in Avengers #339.
Next Issue: The Black Panther – Year Two
