The First Black Superhero
The Black Panther made his debut on the cover of the July 1966 issue of Fantastic Four: an agile, black-garbed human figure springing triumphantly above the titular characters, who were busy exploring a strange and tangled jungle of circuitry. In a curious historical coincidence, Stan Lee and Jack Kirby invented the character around the same moment as activists working to get out the Black vote in Lowndes County, Alabama, adopted a black panther as their logo. A few months later, in October 1966, that logo inspired the formation of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense in Oakland, California.
While Marvel’s Black Panther proved popular with readers, his fame was soon eclipsed by the Party, when Black Panthers entered the California State Capitol, fully armed, to protest a proposed change in gun regulations. They made it as far as the floor of the Assembly chamber before being disarmed and escorted from the building. 
Party members would later claim that the group did not intend to commandeer the legislative process that day, but merely took a wrong turn on their way to the visitors gallery. Blunder or not, the optics of an armed coup were irresistible to the news media: “Capitol Is Invaded,” ran the full-width banner headline on the Sacramento Bee’s front page. Keep this context in mind as you read the two-issue story that introduced Marvel’s Black Panther.
Reading: Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, “The Black Panther” and “The Way It Began,” Fantastic Four #52 & #53.
Writing: Respond to ONE of the following prompts. Keep your response short, posting as a reply under the appropriate heading in the comments section:
- Can this comic-book hero be seen as an exponent of “Black Power”? Focus our attention on a particular image or plot event as evidence.
- Does this comic book confirm colonialist stereotypes about Africa? Or does it problematize them? Focus our attention on a particular image or plot event as evidence.