Black Panther #39 Review

It’s Black Panther vs. Iron Fist in ‘Nuff Said combat! The karate king of K’un L’un is back, but he’s not quite the Iron Fist you remember! Black Panther battles a murderously unhinged Danny Rand while time runs out for Everett K. Ross and, quite possibly, the world! It’s super silent fisticuffs between two of the greatest fighters of the Marvel Universe!

Summary

Iron Fist and Black Panther fight all over New York while Everett Ross trapped in the Black Dragon’s body starts undergoing uncontrollable shape shifting. After the Panther manages to purge the black dragon essence from Iron Fist, the dragon takes back his body from Ross and prepares to destroy both the Panther and Fist.

The Good

Cover-Black Panther vs Iron Fist in smooth, slick and crisp colors, I like it!

Art- Very suited to the massive amount of action that takes place from start to finish in this issue.

The fight- This is the fight that most Panther haters always use in forums online. What I don’t get is how and why this fight was a bad showing for T’challa? From the start of the fight underwater T’challa managed to avoid getting hit white tagging Fist multiple times. T’challa is not even trying to kill his opponent while Fist is. All it would take to kill Fist was one well placed strike (and T’challa had multiple chances); T’challa instead though is trying to work out purging the Black dragon essence from his friend while remaining alive. Also if the winner of a fight is based on TKO then this is nothing but a draw at best: both were knocked out for awhile and a win for T’challa at worst since he hits the floor after Iron Fist and is the first to recover.  How is this a bad showing for T’challa? I don’t get it!

Nuff Said– This issue came out a months after marvel was changed to create a story without words. It was run throughout all the books for this month but I can honestly say this issue worked perfectly without dialogue. A fight spanning the whole issue really never needed much exposition from the get go so Priest really knocks it out the ballpark with this unique wordless one off tale!

The Bad

No Complaints.

The Ugly

All in all this was a very enjoyable read with Panther showing both his skills as a martial artist and resident brain. Christopher Priest after all these years is still the premier writer for Black Panther! 4/5 Solid on so many levels!