Black Panther: A Nation Under Our Feet (2024)

Ta-Nehisi Coates and Brian Stelfreeze, Black Panther #1-12 (2016-2017) The most political Black Panther comic there is. Coates opens with a reluctant king using force against a democratic uprising led by the warrior Tetu and the prophet Zenzi, whose movement is pointedly called The People, and asks whether a monarchy can deserve its subjects at all. The title comes from a Pulitzer Prize-winning history of African American political struggle, which tells you the register. Early chapters are talky and slow to orient newcomers, but no run treats Wakanda more seriously as a state.