There was a time when Black Panther was my favorite character. But I can't tell you exactly how he became my favorite character. Unlike the way John Byrne's Fantastic Four and Walt Simonson's Thor led me directly to the Lee/Kirby runs, my path to Black Panther was less direct and decidedly non-linear. However it was I got there, I got there. On the Old Board I led an "Early Black Panther" discussion which traced every BP appearance in chronological order but it stopped at "Panther's Rage." It had been my intention, at the time, to do "Panther's Rage" (1973), "Panther's Quest" (1989) and "Panther's Prey" (1991) as separate discussions, but I took a break after when I got to Jungle Action and never came back to it.
Skip ahead to 2024. Even 1991 seems "early" now. Lately I have been working toward fulfilling a resolution to actually read some of those collected editions I've been buying (you may have noticed if you've been reading my recent posts ans threads), because (say it with me now), "buying new comics and not reading them is stupid." Back in the '80s (and even in my previous "Early Black Panther" discussion), I had to make my way through the originals. But now, because we live in the "Golden Age of Reprints," I am able to cover an entire decade (1966 through 1976) between the two covers of a single omnibus. (Man, comic book collectors have it easy these days!) I hate to repeat myself (even if that old discussion is no longer available), but I bought the Black Panther: The Early Years omnibus back in 2022 and I have yet to read it.
I don't plan to post every day, maybe every couple of days, but we'll see. Rather than cover every single appearance of the Black Panther as I did last time, I plan to follow the format of the omnibus and hit just the key appearances. If my resolve holds, I plan to take this discussion beyond the omnibus all the way up to "Panther's Prey."
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Also, they were referring to T'Challa as just "The Panther" due to rise of the real-life Black Panthers political group. This would follow the character for the next few years.
[The Avengers # 73] centers around the racist group "The Sons of the Serpent" as well as black liberal talk-show host Montague Hale and white conservative talk-show host Dan Dunn. When I got up to this point in my discussion on the old board, Commander Benson stepped in to provide some color commentary on the IRL personalities these characters were based on. As is my wont in such cases, I usually make a hardcopy of those posts and file them along with either the comic book between the bag and the board, or between pages of the collected edition . . . However, in this case, I must have neglected to do so because I checked both places and could not find it. At this point I would like to impose upon Commander Benson to recreate his original comments (and I promise I'll keep better track of them this time). Let me just set off this Silver Age Emergency Beacon... there.
Signal received, friend Jeff. I've never figured out which real-life personage was represented by the story's Montague Hale character. But the character of Dan Dunn clearly represented the real-world Joe Pyne. Mr. Pyne was a right-wing radio and television talk-show host known for his confrontational interviewing style. As such, he was the precursor of similar intolerant insult hosts like Morton Downey, Jr., and Wally George. Pyne had served in World War II as a Marine in the South Pacific, earning three battle stars and the Purple Heart. He often challenged those who had not served in the military for a lack of credential.
As the story depicts Dan Dunn, it doesn't quite copy the attitude of Joe Pyne accurately (though within the general perception of him). Unlike Dan Dunn, Joe Pyne spoke out against racism, and he was against such white supremacist groups as the Ku Klux Klan. At the same time, he equally disapproved of such radical black groups as the Black Panthers, feeling that they were too extreme and violent.
That said, Mr. Pyne was no nature's nobleman. He had no tolerance for hippies, liberals, homosexuals, and feminists, often ridiculing them in general or guests of such categories in person on air. Pyne's brand of vitriol caused his critics to taint him with a large brush, condeming him for what he was and what he wasn't.
It didn't help that Pyne encouraged conflict on his show. He often invited controversial guests who were ideologically opposed to each other to appear at the same time. He would have members of legitmate religious orders appear across the table from devil-worshipers and atheists, or have members of the KKK dispute with members of the Black Panthers. In another episode, he brought followers of Charles Manson to debate officials of law-enforcement and family members of Manson's victims. Pyne's own questions and remarks were couched in a way to deliver insult and incite violence to the side with which he disagreed. The violence could extend beyond shouting and pounding the table. Microphones and chairs were occasionally thrown, either at guests of the opposing viewpoint or at Pyne himself. If things got too out of hand, burly guards were standing by to "escort" a particularly enraged guest off the set.
The most controversial of Pyne's episodes occurred in 1965, during the Watts riots in Los Angeles. His sole guest that night was a black militant who supported the violent behaviour of the rioters. Mid-way through the show, Pyne unbuttoned his suit jacket to reveal that he was carrying a handgun. In response, the guest did the same, showing that he was also carrying a pistol. Consequently, the L.A. station carrying Pyne's show (KTTV) suspended Pyne for a week and the FCC debated pulling KTTV's licence (ultimately, it didn't). It paid off for Pyne, though. Shortly after that, The Joe Pyne Show went into nationwide distribution.
For my part, I watched the show a few times, but the novelty of the confrontational approach and the threat of (and sometimes actual) physical violence wore thin. I distinctly recall how, at his introduction, he would come out on set, limping slightly on his wooden left leg (having lost his real one below the knee to cancer), and taking his chair at the head of the discussion table.
If some of you are having a hard time recalling Joe Pyne, it's probably because his time on the public stage was short. He died of lung cancer in 1970, at the age of forty-five.
Hope this helps, Jeff.
Interesting. I never heard of Joe Pyne, but then,I would only have been around six or sevne when he died.
Thank you very much, Commander. You went into even more detail this time than I remember from before.
Now let's take a look what Roy Thomas had to say about the concusion of this two-parter...
AVENGERS #74:
Roy Thomas on Avengers #74: "With #74, I was delighted--despite my admiration for the worl of Sal B. and Frank G.--to see the return of John Buscema, who had been yanked off the title in 1968 so he could concentrate on penciling The Silver Surfer. The icing on the cake this time was that he was inked by an amazing new talent, Tom Palmer, who had debuted over Gene Colan's pencils on that same year's Dr. Strange #172. Buscema and Palmer made as a stellar combination as Colan and Palmer. I know John liked the combo, too... anf John was definitely not a penciler who liked most of the inking her received at Marvel.
"A few folks took exception to my revelation at the end of the issue (SPOILER WARNING!) that the Supreme Serpent was actually two men alternating in his costume--one white, the other black--who truly didn't care "for anyone--any cause--except power for ourselves!" These sould insisted that the leader should have been a white man, pure and simple... but I felt Stan and don had already done that in the first Serpents story arc. I prefered to point out that it is possible, even likely, for unscupulous man of every race to use the ugly specter of racism to their own advantage."
AVENGERS #77:
Cornelius van Lunt, a kind of prototype Justin Hammer, is putting the financial squeeze on Stark Industries and forcing the Avengers to become "Heroes for Hire!" This strikes me as a very "DC" type premise, arising, perhaps, from a Julius Schwartz "springboard" cover. This issue is significant for the Black Panther in that we learn T'Challa attended the best schools in Europe and America, and that he recently took a job teaching in "a certain ghetto high school."
Roy Thomas: "Avengers #77 was an offbeat exploit, without any costumed villain for a change. Perhaps the most memorable thing about it, in the long run, was its title: 'Heroes for Hire!' A couple of years later, when Stan was looking for a title for a new comic starring an African-America super hero but didn't want a traditional super-hero name, I singularized it and suggested Hero for Hire. To me, the best-looking thing about this issue, and several other issues of The Avengers during this second John Buscema go-round, turned out to be the various scenes spotlighting Goliath. In my non-humble opinion, John was better than Jack Kirby or anyone else at showing the estwhile Giant-Man in relation to normal-size human beings. In the space of #77 alone, we have Goliath realistically smashing a building on the splash page--holding a man on the palm of his hand on p.4--and relaxed and sprawled out on p.9. John did those scenes as throwaway bits--things another artist might have felt compelled to turn into over-size panels or even full-page shots just to demonstrate how clever he was being."
Even T'Challa's "secret identity" of Luke Charles evokes Hero For Hire's Luke Cage!
I don't know if I've told this before, but I own the first appearance of Black Panther. I bought it from my LCS either very late 90s or early 00s. The owner pretty much regretted it immediately, and he has been trying to buy it back from me ever since. I consider it the crown jewel of my collection. It is the one item I have signed by Stan Lee and it is personalized:
"To Titanic Travis - Stan Lee"
I think back then it was $70-80. I wonder what its worth is now?
I paid $25 back then. Last time I looked it was over $500
AVENGERS #78:
This issue sees the return of the Man-Ape (from #62) and Monica Lynne (from #73). Oddly, though, Man-Ape attacks Captain America (whom he has never met) rather than T'Challa. That is because his strategy is part of a coordinated attack by the newly-formed Lethal Legion, which also includes the Living Laser, Power Man, Swordsman and the Grim Reaper (from #52).
Roy Thomas on Avengers #78: "John's second tenure on 'some of Earth's Mightiest Heroes' was interrupted for some long-forgotten reason when issue 378 was penciled by Sal, this time as inked by Palmer. Actually, though, the three introductory pages of the story had been done quite a few months earlier... for Sal had done them as a sample of his penciling to show Stan, so that he could get away from being 'just' an inker. They'd gotten him the job, but the pages had sat around on a shelf for a while. I'd always intended to use them in an actual story, though, and this was my chance, for I wanted to bring back the villain John B. and I had co-created a while before.
"This time, though, the Man Ape was the head of a grouping of bad-guys I termed 'the Lethal Legion.' (At least, I think that name was mine. The only other candidate for its christening would be Stan--and since Smiley's memory is not the equal of his scripting or his editing prowess, I'd probably be safe staking out a definite claim.) Stan has always had a theory that there were villains who weren't really good enough to be featured on their own--especially against a whole gang of heroes--but if you teamed them up, the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. So it was with the Lethal Legion--although I always felt the Grim Reaper's costume alone made him stand out above the likes of the Living Laser, the Swordsman, and the original Power Man,"
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