You may have noticed in recent days that there have been a lot more film and TV show reviews coming your way and that to a large extent has been intentional. Although a lot of my original followers joined because of the comic book reviews, the films and TV shows bring in a bigger crowd. That being said, sometimes you have a day off and you just want to revel in the stories that can’t or won’t be told on the screen. I thought I would return to a series that for the most part has struggled to get my attention; Black Panther!
‘A Nation Under Our Feet Book 3’ sees the return of Shuri from the afterlife and together with her brother, the two must deal with the consequences of two separate rebellions in Wakanda. As seen in the first two books, two revolutionaries, Tetu and Zenzi are leading a group known as ‘The People’ who are attempting to bring down the throne of Wakanda. However, there is also an uprising elsewhere as the Midnight angels, who are form Dora Milaje are looking to gain their own independence and fight for the rights of the women they represent. Initially there is talks of a treaty between the two factions, against T’Challa and the rest of his elite guard. However, it soon appears to the Midnight Angels that Tetu’s forces will not protect them either and they’re left with a difficult choice. Despite it seeming against the odds, T’Challa and Shuri come up with a plan to settle the wider issue of a potential revolution by going to the man whose philosophies influenced Tetu and Zenzi; Changamire. T’Challa convinces Changamire to help the nation by giving a speech. Despite the fact that this eases the minds of some of the revolutionaries, Zenzi unleashes a magic to spurn on the remaining warriors. However, with their numbers halved and the lack of backup from the Midnight Angels, ‘The People’ are defeated by T’Challa and his forces. As T’Challa sits down to restore order to his land, he must make a few difficult choices and reminisce on difficult decisions. The latter half of the novel deals with an alternate Earth where Namor, along with other high ranking members of the Illuminati have wiped out other Worlds to keep theirs from being destroyed. But for both T’Challa and Namor difficult decisions have difficult consequences.
I think straight off the bat, I have to say that this novel was a certain improvement over the previous two in this series. Perhaps it was because the first two were setting up the real story and then here we get all the plots playing out at once in a coherent manner. An observation I’ve also made is that some characters require particular supporting characters in order to be the versions of themselves that we all know and love. For T’Challa, I wonder if that supporting character is his sister. Since Shuri plays an integral role in this novel, acting almost as ruler in certain bits, it leaves T’Challa to think on his thoughts and come up with a good game plan. In terms of negatives, I think the only thing lacking was action. There was a lot going on, but I’d have liked to see more action panels.
The artwork was not bad, but compared to other aspects of this novel, I found it to be rather average. The covers were a little more disappointing, this cover being the only one I liked. Overall, however, I think this series really shot up from where it was before and that’s saying something. I’m glad though because there are a lot more novels in this series left!
Favourite Panel:
Oof. Powerful words from Shuri. I wonder if this is the route Marvel wish to take her MCU character!
Favourite Character:
Despite everything going on around him, T’challa steps up in this novel as both a warrior and king and it was pretty good!
Rating:
Story Arc: ★★★
Character Development: ★★★★
Artwork: ★★★
Enjoyability: ★★★½
Re-readability: ★★½
Level: Intermediate