| Title | : | Black Panther: World of Wakanda |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 130290650X |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781302906504 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 144 |
| Publication | : | First published June 14, 2017 |
| Awards | : | Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards Best Limited Series (2018) |
Black Panther: World of Wakanda Reviews
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The winner of the Eisner award of 2018 for Best Limited Series and also now cancelled, I have heard. There are three stories here in this volume, but the last two are disconnected to the main story, and not consequential. The main story is a kind of prequel to Black Panther, where the perspective of women dominate. It's centrally a love story between The Midnight Angels, or Ayo and Aneka, of Dora Milaje, an elite task force trained to protect Black Panther, or Wakanda, or both? The action is a bit scattered, but a feminist view on emerging Wakandan politics is interesting and potentially important to the new century world of Wakanda. It didn't seem like it was worth of an Eisner award, but Gay at least can write better action sequences than Coates.
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I really wanted to like this but it read like a bad romance novel with stilted dialogue. These novelist that Marvel has come in to write comics need to know how to edit their work. The characters drone on and on. The book also takes place over everything that's happened in Wakanda from Avengers Vs. X-Men until the current Black Panther book. However, Roxanne Gay doesn't really tell you what's going on. It's written as a companion piece for A vs X, Infinity, Avengers, New Avengers, Secret Wars, and the new current Black Panther book. That's way too many comics to expect the normal comic book reader to have already read to be clued in on what is happening. To end on a brighter note, I did like the White Tiger story even though I didn't have a frame of reference for who this White Tiger was and I've read most of the Marvel comics of the last 30 years.
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It's a shame this book was cancelled however, similar to Mariko Tamaki's Hulk series, I'm shocked Marvel allowed it to get made. I'm glad it did, however.
This felt like a romance novel. The center story of this book is the romance between Aneka and Ayo and the things they go through trying to keep it. We get snapshots of what's going on in Avengers World, Black Panther's series and the beginning of T'Challa's role in the Ultimates. I haven't read those in their entirety but, considering T'Challa's had his hands in so many other things, it makes sense that the Dora Milaje got frustrated with his absence in Wakanda.
Aneka and Ayo are very interesting characters. Aneka is very dedicated and loyal to the vows she took as a Dora Milaje. It's interesting that she mentions the old requirement for the Dora to be available for marriage should the king so choose when the intro to the book says that was an archaic law. Perhaps that was meant to show a baseless reason she kept giving for restraining herself from loving Ayo? I'm unsure.
Ayo is very headstrong, stubborn and prideful. I liked that she was very outspoken about her feelings and doubts. I liked that she chased Aneka, even when she was turned away time and time again. I pray we get to see more of her character in the next Black Panther film.
I wasn't super jazzed about Folami as a character but I was interested in the arc where Aneka went after Folami's father. It was part of a larger arc that reminded me of the film in that, when the Black Panther was busy, the Dora looked after Wakanda on their own. The women stepped up and continued to the be the backbone of the society.
So, all in all, this was a wonderful book. One of a kind and one that I have not seen from Marvel before or since. It's a book where the entire cast is made of up black characters and the majority of them are women. The main romance is between two black women and their entire plot isn't them being victimized in some way. The world needs more books like this and the fact that it came from Marvel is shocking to begin with.
Anyway, I'm bummed it was cancelled. I would have loved to see Aneka and Ayo go on more adventures protecting women in Wakanda. This is a very empowering premise, especially for black women that love women, like myself.
Definitely a recommend from me. -
This came across my desk and I had to do a triple-take. I know the Black Panther movie is coming out next year and it looks like it will be amazing. (Edit, May '18: It was AMAZING! It's now my favorite Marvel movie and I want to follow Okoye around like a lovesick puppy and any movie that shows a woman taking off her high heels/wig to beat people in a fight is the best movie in my universe) Gabe's been foaming at the mouth over it forever so I know I'll be seeing it, whether I want to, or not. While I'm not familiar with the Black Panther through any first-hand experience, I've heard the entire damn story of T'Challa and T'Chaka and so I'm ready.
What I wasn't ready for was seeing
Roxane Gay credited as the author, right there on the front cover. I squeaked, internally, "NO WAY! She writes comics now?"
I should have learned my lesson with
Margaret Atwood. The answer to my question is, "No. No, she doesn't write comics. She lends credibility to the work with her name and that's about it."
Coates was a consultant for this one since this is basically the origin story for two of his Black Panther characters. Gay writes this story because it's about black female warriors who fall in love. That all makes sense...it just didn't work.
It all starts with a group of warrior woman, the Dora Milaje, pronounced "DOR-ah muh-LAH-jay...which means "Adored Ones" training their new recruits. The captain of the group, Aneka, takes an immediate dislike to one of the upstarty newbies, which is pretty standard in these stories. And as it turns out, as trite as it is, the source of dislike is really sexual attraction because of course it is. So Aneka and her rival, Ayo, become lovers.
(Edit, May '18: This Ayo
)
Yay, black female romantic relationships between fighting women. Not so yay, though: why does there always have to be a romantic plot? If there's a lead female, especially a badass lead female, she MUST fall in love, usually against her will because she knows she's strong enough to not be in love but, dammit, her latent femininity always wins out and first there's love, then there's marriage, and also usually betrayal or death or something. And drama. Always so much drama. This is no different on the drama front.
So that made me flare my nostrils in distaste. But I get it. This is good representation and I'm just a person who hates romance so we can move on.
And we do. We move on to all the standard plot developments. There's a newbie who is a mole! And then her father dies and she wants REVENGE! There are men who hit on Aneka and Ayo when they're in NYC and the ladies crush the guys' spirits and probably also their bones because that's not how you treat women! The Dora Milaje beat up bullies because they're keeping Black Panther's homeland as utopic as possible and bullying is not welcome in Wakanda. And Black Panther shows up here and there and everyone is always excited to see him because he's the real hero until he's a disappointment. And there are bonus stories at the end, too. Actually, "The People for the People" was good, both story and art. I liked that one.
Anyway, the main story is cliche and stuff but not enough to warrant 2 stars.
No, those 2 stars were for the terrible clunkiness of the whole thing.
The writing is not good. I felt like I was reading comics from the '80's. Silly dialogue, ridiculous exposition, choppy flow, and just a general sense of clumsiness, overall. It was a struggle.
And now maybe I will finally learn NOT to read comics written by authors who make their livings writing books and essays. -
I am disappointed - as a lover of graphic novels and Roxane Gay, I had high hopes. Each time you turned the page you were in a different location and had usually skipped weeks or months ahead in the story. It felt disjointed and you didn't have time to connect with any of the characters.
I also literally have NO idea what the last chapter was about or how it related to the rest of the story. Although it was in some ways the best written part of the entire book. -
(read as single issues)
*whispers* I thought the first volume of TNC's
Black Panther was really confusing and hard to follow
*normal volume* But I subscribed to this anyway, because Roxane Gay. And I was correct to do so! I loved this book, and Ayo and Aneka's romance was so fun and beautiful.
I think a person (a person who is not a die-hard Black Panther fan but is interested!) could pick this up without reading the Black Panther series that this is technically a prequel to, since honestly....that series had left me with more questions. But finishing World of Wakanda made me want to go back and revisit Black Panther. PLEASE, ROXANE GAY WRITE MORE COMICS. -
An overview of Wakanda from the perspective mostly of the royal bodyguards. The love tale is juvenile in its dialogue. There are some good tie ins to what happened behind the scenes. Artwork is somewhat good to good.
OVERALL GRADE: B minus. -
I enjoyed this! Which was great after the disappointment of America vol. 1 :'( A longer review probably in a bit, IY"H.
It reads very self-contained, so not sure why they ended up canceling it super early, why not just declare it as a six-issue miniseries from the outset? I assume the second volume would have had a completely different story, tying into the main Black Panther storyline at a later point? I am confusedddd.
I need to go back and reread the beginning of Black Panther, but my comics are still in boxes.
Content notice for rape (not shown on-page and does not occur to the queer characters) and self-injury (this is shown on-page but is also not related to the queer characters).
Source of the book: Birthday present from D Franklin \O/ -
This is solid. I'll start off with noting the protagonists of the story because I don't see this very often: Black. Lesbian. Warriors.
Ayo is a new recruit to the Dora Milaje, the protectors of the Black Panther and Wakanda. She has to learn her place, and in the process becomes enamored with her captain. This is a prequel to the Coates run of Black Panther, so we see how Wakanda is being neglected by T'Challa and what these women decide to do to protect their country.
The romance feels like it could have used another page or three to fully develop from initial attraction to full relationship - not that Gay skimped on pages, but I feel like we could have used a few more internal reflections on the buildup to the relationship. That said, their relationship itself is portrayed as troubled because one of the commitments of the Milaje is to be available as a potential bride for the Black Panther (which is its own patriarchal, empirical trope that goes unaddressed here). This troubled me a little bit but I'm ultimately okay with it because of where the rest of the relationship goes: it is accepted. It is natural. Their commander tells them to listen to their hearts. We need examples like this in pop culture.
The sixth issue included here is separate from the first five. This was jarring to me and I have no idea about the background of the White Tiger except the paragraph intro we got in this volume. That said it broadens the scope of Wakanda, its enemies, and its allies.
If you want something off the white, male, mainstream path of comics, read this. If you want more Black Panther in your life because of the trailer for the upcoming film, read this. If you enjoy women kicking ass and taking names, read this. -
A really fun read. It was great to read a Marvel comic that was so diverse and representative- it really felt like a story for the modern age.
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Aneka and Ayo had no business being the most in love lesbians and stealing my heart.
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I don’t know why it’s so hard to write a decent Black Panther story. All the cool elements are there, but for some reason no one has been able to make these latest iterations the least bit interesting.
I was stoked to get more stories about the two Dora Milaje warriors who take the law into their own hands and go all Punisher on a tribal chieftain who is enslaving girls, but it’s just meh.
The Dora Milaje are one of the more interesting creations from Christopher Priest’s run on Black Panther around the turn of the century. They were historically the female bodyguards of the king, who were also wives-in-training. Each woman was the best and brightest recruited from each tribal area of Wakanda.
As time progressed, Wakanda did away with the practice. But T’Challa (the current Black Panther) was set to marry a foreigner, one of the many things (along with his absenteeism due to his adventures with The Avengers) which caused civil unrest in Wakanda. So T’Challa rededicated himself to his country and his people, and as a show of unity he reinstated the tradition of the Dora Milaje, so that each section of the country felt like it had an equal chance for one of their daughters to become the queen, and they could all be proud that one of their own was in this respected position.
Politics, sex, the Wakandan version of Amazon warriors, personality conflicts... so much potential, made dull. Even having two of the warriors fall in love during their training so we get those conflicts of each wanting to serve their country and their king but also wanting the other to succeed, still didn’t manage to result in an interesting tale. Baffling and disappointing.
The art is mostly fine but uninspired. The back-up story about the White Tiger, which has had so many iterations I’ve lost track of them, wasn’t anything special, either. -
Awesome comic! I have to read more back and current issues of Black Panther but I really enjoyed this one.
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The stilted dialogue and awkward soap opera and comic book plotting nearly ruin the sweet romance at the heart of this story. I really wanted to like this more than I did.
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Honestly this was just really bad. The pacing is all over the place, important events happen in mere panels with little to no explanation. The dialogue is often fairly awful and cheesy, it feels like I'm reading some comic from the 1930s. Things are a little better in the comics that are not written by Roxanne Gay but even those are just ok comics that are over and done too quickly to change that the fact that the rest of this series is just really bad. The art throughout is good so it's easily the best thing about this volume but that doesn't save it or make it worth reading. Not recommended.
Main Story: 1.5/5
Secondary Stories: 3/5
Art: 4/5
Overall: 2/5 -
Oh DANG that was good. I have to admit that Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet felt a little disjointed to me, and I attributed it to Ta-Nehisi Coates being a prose writer moving into comics for the first time. But, shit, Roxane Gay did not have that problem. This was perfectly paced, a nice balance of work done by text + image, adventure and a love story and fabulous character building in a small package. The stories by Coates, Yona Harvey, and Rembert Browne about Zenzi and White Tiger were strong as well.
Highly, highly recommended. -
this is more queer than the last ones!! ayo and aneka 4eva!!
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I've been really excited to read World of Wakanda, as I have felt more interested in the characters around Black Panther than I have been in Black Panther himself. I was not let down (although I didn't think for a second that Roxane Gay even could let me down).
Aneka and Ayo are wonderful characters, both as individuals and as a couple. I loved getting to see them grow on their own and together, and ultimately become the Midnight Angels. I enjoyed seeing the characters form around the major events in Wakanda, as opposed to a recap of events from other BP stories. Reading about Zenzi and Kevin "Kasper" Cole towards the end was enjoyable as well, but I definitely didn't connect to those stories quite as much. Alitha Martinez (Dawn of the Midnight Angels) and Afua Richardson (The People for The People) both offered some incredible artwork, which had me captivated right away. I wish the series had not been canceled, as I would love to see more of these characters especially.
Definitely recommended for the Dawn of the Midnight Angels storyline. I also definitely intend to check out more work from the artists (again, especially Alitha Martinez and Afua Richardson). Always have love for what Roxane Gay writes, but I would love to see more from her in the comics industry. -
I'm not really a Black Panther fan, but a Roxanne Gay fan. And as expected, I liked this. I wish the series hadn't been cancelled because the ending of this volume was a little rushed and the last issue had nothing to do with the main heroines, but I'm glad I read the series.
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Although a number of folks out there on the Interwebs were sad when Roxane Gay's run on the Black Panther was canceled after six issues, now that I've read World of Wakanda, I can't say I'm one of them. Gay may have a slightly better handle on plotting, pacing, and character development than Ta-Nehisi Coates (the previous author of note recruited by Marvel to write for Black Panther), but her story arc is still pretty herky-jerky as she tells the backstory of Ayo and Aneka, the Midnight Angels of Wakanda. Gay traces these two figures back to their training in the Dora Milaje, and follows their developing relationship through some of the big moments in Wakanda's recent troubled past from Namor's inundation of the Golden City to Thanos' destruction of the country in the Infinity storyline and the Black Order's killing of Queen Shuri. This quick jaunt through Wakanda's past is filtered through the experiences of the two lovers from the Dora Milaje and readers unfamiliar with the Black Panther storyline may find their heads spinning. Gay ends in Issue 6 at the point where Coates had begun his work on Black Panther a few months earlier with Zenzi and Tetu's rebellion in Wakanda against T'Challa.
More love story than superhero comic, World of Wakanda is worth a read for fans of Black Panther, although T'Challa himself takes a backseat here with the spotlight on the two warriors who become the Midnight Angels. I will say, though, that I can't give Gay more than two stars here because she doesn't really help me become invested in the lives of these two women. I suppose I was hoping for something a little more epic along the lines of Achilles and Patroclus, as unfair as that may be on my part. Maybe if Gay had been given more time to work with their characters, I might have cared more, but Ayo and Aneka come across here as more like a couple of co-dependent dopes working through their troubles on a talk show than a pair of star-crossed warrior lovers torn between the obligations of their personal and public lives as they struggle with how to balance the needs of the country with their own desires. And, although I'm sure nobody will agree with me, the two shorter pieces at the end of the volume giving some backstory to Zenzi, leader of the people's revolution in Wakanda, and then showing Kasper Cole's return to the White Tiger might both be a tad more successful than Roxane Gay's origin story of Ayo and Aneka. -
Estoy más atrasada que nada en la serie principal porque Ta-Neshi Coates es confuso, odio a todos y sobre todo me caga T'Challa (lol perdón), pero aquí la historia principal está decente. Las últimas dos issues inconexas... just no.
https://www.neapoulain.com/2019/06/es...
World of Wakanda es una serie limitada que se publicó como spin-off de A Nation Under Our Feet, la primera parte del run de Ta-Nehisi Coates con Black Panther. Si la van a leer, lo ideal es que conozcan un poco de la historia de A Nation Under Our Feet, pero tampoco es de huevo. De todos modos, aquí sólo les voy a hablar de las primeras cuatro grapas del volumen, las que están escritas por Roxane Gay e ilustradas por Alitha E. Martinez. Cuentan la historia de dos personajes secundarios en A Nation Under Our Feet, The Midnight Angels, Ayo y Aneka, creadas por Ta-Nehisi Coates. Antes de convertirse en Los ángeles de la medianoche, fueron Dora Milaje, parte de las fuerzas de élite que estaban entrenadas para proteger a la corona a cualquier costo.
En las primeras cuatro grapas las conocemos y conocemos su relación. De hecho, el foco principal en la historia que cuenta Roxane Gay lo tiene su relación, sus sentimientos y cómo están atravesadas por su deber como ciudadanas de Wakanda y como Dora Milaje. Me gustó mucho conocerlas de esta manera, porque una de mis quejas con A Nation Under Our Feet es que había demasiado cast, demasiada información, demasiadas cosas y a todo parecía faltarle espacio (que es la razón por la cual creo que existe esta historia...). Además, algo que me dio bastante tranquilidad es que Roxane Gay se adaptó bastante bien (aunque no de manera perfecta) al medio y le hizo bastante justicia a los personajes. Si están interesados en Wakanda, lean esta historia. -
An introduction to The World of Wakanda with a powerful, independent native African cast of women. Starting off rushed and sporadic, gets really good and then introduces two completely new storylines...
With the new Black Panther movie looming I thought I’d give this comic a go, as I’ve never really delved into the world of wakanda or black panther.
The story begins with training a select group of women to become the next protectors of wakanda and the royal family, which leads to an underlying romance and conflict of power.
I’ve heard great things about Roxanne Gay so I was excited to read something by her.
Regarding the storyline itself, for me the scenes change too often, from page to page we are introduced to a new time, place and it’s feels like the writer was given a bullet point list of topics to cover and she has indeed covered them, but in a rushed, forced fashion resulting in it feeling extremely contrived.
The series also touches on struggles many women face on a daily basis, sexual advances, rape. With the outcomes of the situations being female empowerment which I loved reading.
My favourite scene - a show of powerful female empowerment by putting two sleezy guys in their place, Aneko and Ayo are a complete badass power couple!
Overall I was let down by the sporadic nature at the beginning with too much trying to be introduced, to then really liking the storyline, as soon as I liked it two brand new storylines were introduced with a loose relevance - I wanted more from Aneka and Ayo but was let down by the final two irrelevant issues. I hope there is more to come. -
I love the premise of this book, and there is interesting stuff here, but I feel like so much of the plot had to happen between events that it felt pretty disjointed. We got lots of glimpses of short moments between/behind the main Black Panther scenes, which was cool, but I almost always was left wanting more.
Also, this is more of a personal preference thing, but I don’t really enjoy love stories where the love interests are always in conflict. It felt like they were fighting 80% of the time and making flowery over-the-stop statements the other 20%. Which, maybe that’s just ~romance~, but I found it stressful? I just want to see them chill or work together. -
I felt like I was reading deleted scenes for a film I hadn't seen.
I didn't realise that this was not a standalone, but rather a companion series - so many of the major plot points occur in the current series run of Black Panther, and it was really quite jarring to see characters reacting to monumental events that you had no idea had happened.
Having said that, I did enjoy the love story between Ayo and Aneka and it was cool to see the training process of the Dora Milaje. I am sure I would have enjoyed this series more if I had read any recent Black Panther! -
2.5
This is a side story to that leads into the first issue of Coates' run on Black Panther. It takes place over a pretty wide long time span, and refers to events in other comics that if you have not read will leave you confused.
I think it would have been better as a novel for at times the main story feels very, very rushed and there is really not much character development. However, Gay and Coates do address some of the issues/questions about the Wakandan culture. -
Idk if this is part of getting old and crotchety, but comics have been so underwhelming lately.
I wish I could erase my brain and reread Naruto. After you read the best comic, everything else just seems boring. -
I went into this book knowing nothing about it and so glad I did! I had no idea I was going to get this beautiful Black WLW story amidst a bigger Wakandan story. This prompted great discussions on tradition and loyalty vs. trusting yourself and your intution. I hope to read more about these characters in other books.
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I loved The Midnight Angels when they were introduced in the current BLACK PANTHER and this trade fills in the their romance nicely. A few more exciting pieces add to how Wakanda is right now.
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Малко скучновато, но в края на краищата историята не беше супер тъпа. Очаквах по-интересни герои.
