10 books reviewed:
Amazing Spider-Man #596 (BUY IT)
Batman and Robin #1 (BUY IT)
Dark Avengers #5 (SPLIT VERDICT)
Black Panther #5 (DON’T BOTHER)
Skaar: Son of Hulk #11 (BUY IT)
Superman: World of New Krypton #4 (WAIT FOR THE TRADE)
Ultimate Spider-Spider #133 (BUY IT)
Punisher: Naked Kill #53 (DON’T BOTHER)
Outro, Mighty Avengers #25 & Conan #11

Agree? Disagree? Think we don’t know what the heck we’re talking about? Leave your comments below!

And if you think we your feedback doesn’t matter, you’re wrong — last time out everyone begged us to stop putting the intro in between every segment and we listened — thank God!

Special thanks to Midtown Comics for providing Jon’s books for review.

I guess this is real(?) even if I half expect to find out it’s just one in a series of “Is [fill-in-the-chick] The New Black Panther?” ads with Elektra, Black Widow, Storm and other potential mystery Pantherettes (inevitably drawn by Greg Horn…)

I really liked Echo when she debuted in Daredevil and was glad to see her show up in New Avengers, even if her inclusion there felt a bit random. But replacing T’Challa? That makes no sense to me…

(Echo by David Mack wallpaper at PCS Papes)

“Wakandans won’t respond to the idea of a female Panther in a sexist fashion, they are comfortable with strong women… It will be more ‘do you have the goods to hold the title?’”

Reggie Hudlin

“Over the course of 40 issues [over three years], we … really defined the character in a way that hadn’t been done before. … Having done that, you go: ‘How do we up the stakes?’ Marvel is great about doing really shocking changes to their character — they don’t believe in just keeping everything as status quo.”

I love the shocking, breathless tone of this article – as if this were the first time Marvel (or DC, for that matter) had ever re-created a classic character in this fashion before. To me, this sort of thing – replacing the orignal hero with a successor in the same identity only with a twist (different gender, different race, younger character, etc.) are the desperate acts of corporate publishers trying to maintain their relevance to an ever-shrinking audience.

No, Reggie Hudlin, I assure you there is absolutely NOTHING shocking about a change like this. BP is not the first character to undergo an identity change and he won’t be the last, and no one seriously expects this to stick, either. But by all means, give it the old college try. I’m sure this’ll give BP a spike in sales before shrinking back to its usual mid-level slot, treading water as usual, buoyed by the occasional crossover event or two. But it’s all good if you and Joe Quesada get your names in the mainstream press, right?

Call me when you actually have something to say.

There’s a new Black Panther leaping onto shelves this February and she—yeah, you heard us—is already making waves in the mainstream. What’s happened to T’Challa, the previous Black Panther? What does it mean for the future of the Black Panther? And just who is under that mask? For some answers and hints, the men behind this new plot twist sat down with the Washington Post in their first interview.

So who’s the woman who will wear the costume? Neither Hudlin nor Quesada would divulge the identity, but judging by their comments, the future of T’Challa — the current Black Panther — is quite bleak.

Read what Marvel Editor in Chief Joe Quesada and series writer Reginald Hudlin had to say here: http://voices.washingtonpost.com/comic-riffs/2008/10/this_just_in_for_2009_the_new.html

There’s a storm brewing in Wakanda, and it hits this February in the extra sized Black Panther #1!

Big thanks to Fred for the link.

Related: Does Reggie Hudlin have a conflict of interest regarding the BP cartoon?

Black Panther (which won’t be written by Hudlin, at least for this crossover)

Reggie Hudlin

We sat down and spoke with Reggie Hudlin, President of Entertainment of BET and Denys Cowan, Senior Vice President of BET Animation at the New York Comic Con. This particular video from that interview details Reggie’s writing of the Black Panther for Marvel. Reggie speaks about some of his goals and aims with Black Panther as well as fan reactions to his involvement amongst other things.

We’ll be back with more from our time spent with these gentlemen soon.

Which is to say that the rapper, 31, is using his publishing clout and street cred to cross-promote a dazzling array of branded goods and intellectual properties. Other rappers signed to 50’s G-Unit/Interscope record label make frequent cameos in the books; mentions of his Glaceau Mineral Water line, video games, Reebok shoes and G-Unit streetwear collection abound. Reciprocally, the rapper gives shout-outs to G-Unit Books in his songs. “There’s a whole generation of people who feel underserved by the types of books that are often categorized as ‘mainstream,’” Vibe editor Danyel Smith said. “50 and his management team are going to exploit that and hopefully serve some readers at the same time. From a marketing perspective, I think it’s genius.”

I see Black and Latina women of all ages reading so-called “urban fiction” on the subway every day; street vendors selling tablefuls of the books in high-traffic areas in the City; and remember well some of the hustling novelists (and poets) who’d hawk their own work on the subway back in the mid-90s. I see all of that, and then I see Reginald Hudlin, President of Entertainment of BET, writing Black Panther for Marvel Comics, always talking a good game about raising the profile of minority comics characters, and wonder why he’s seemingly satisfied with working on someone else’s plantation instead of building his own?

Seriously, though; while it’s always easy to tell other people how to spend their money, imagine if Hudlin and BET put some of their combined resources towards developing a publishing imprint and launched something like BET GrafLit, focusing on full-length graphic narratives like Blokhedz, Stagger Lee, Bluesman, Nat Turner, The American Way, Lance Tooks’ and Keith Knight’s work, an anthology from The Ormes Society, etc.?

If nothing else, it would offer some karmic balance for crap like Lil’ Kim: Countdown To Lockdown, Beef: The Series, and the mind-bogglingly wrongheaded web feature, B-Girls.

What. The. Fuck?

Reggie Hudlin

In other news: Class of 3000 is off to a flying start.