When a
Great Plan Comes Together
Written By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Art By: Chris Sprouse, Karl Story, Laura Martin
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: September 14, 2016
Review By: Christian Faulds
**NON
SPOILERS AND SCORE AT THE BOTTOM**
T’Challa has been having
problems recently within his country of Wakanda. The flames of revolution have
started to consume the kingdom. T’Challa has been set up to fail, and had a
smear campaign waged against him. However, you can’t keep the chosen of Bast down.
Let us find dig in to see how he wrestles his way out of this situation.
Explain
It!
This issue starts with
T’Challa and his closest advisors getting briefed on the current state of
affairs. It seems some time has passed since our last issue, since the man who
started this revolution has gone so far as to address the UN with what T’Challa
was “advised” to do, in an attempt to paint T’Challa as one of the world’s
worst dictators. During this address, T’Challa reveals that he knows who is
behind it all and waits to attack when the two instigators are together again.
Hatut Zeraze troops are
getting a Total War-esque style speech.
They get attacked by T’Challa’s military, and there’s a cool “war is hell”
scene where a trooper saves the Captain’s life and tries to say something
badass, but is shot dead. They look like they are about to be overrun by T’Challa’s
army, when Tetu and Zenzi show up and give T’Challa’s men a big case of the
feels. Tetu and Zenzi take the soldiers prisoner, and the Hatut Zeraze pledge
their help to Tetu and Zenzi.
Later, T’Challa is skyping
Tony Stark. T’Challa has asked for his help in verifying the origins of the
tech that was found on the suicide bombers. After Tony confirms that it is
indeed Zeke, he goes on a bit of a monologue about how Zeke is an old school
type of villain who likes to monologue himself. I honestly liked this scene,
anytime we get heroes helping other heroes it helps make the universe feel more
real.
T’Challa prepares to take down
the Big Bad Evil Guy of this 6-issue arc. As he makes his preparation, he talks
about how, though his duties include being a king and the Black Panther, his
real passion is science. It really highlights how smart he is, and his desire
to always learn and study more. This is how I have always seen him: the
philosopher king that Plato wrote about in The
Republic. T’Challa injects some nanites into his blood that were invented
by another bad ass king, Dr. Doom.
We go back to Shuri and the
lesson she is being taught in the Djalia. It gets a bit heavy-handed, as Shuri learns
about a woman who was sold into slavery. A woman who, even though was a slave,
always kept the hope of freedom in her heart. A woman who, when she had chance,
freed herself from slavery. This story is something we have all heard before,
and it wasn’t presented with anything new or different. It wasn’t wasted space,
because I am pretty sure it is set up for future stories in this series, but it
is a wasted opportunity to do something interesting.
T’Challa attacks The People,
the movement at the heart of the rebellion. He puts up an awesome fight, but gets
taken prisoner...which is all part of the plan. The nanites in his circulatory system
record everything that T’Challa is seeing, and as the villain begins
monologuing (just like Tony said he would), his words get sent to T’Challa’s
people, who then broadcastin them all over the internet. The issue concludes by
setting up some great things, since Luke Cage, Storm, Manifold and others are
there reuniting The Crew.
This is a pretty good issue. It
wrapped up a sub-par arc, and set up something awesome. T’Challa is back to
being a smart cookie, and Tony Stark plays a role. I hope the next arc and
issue can start delivering on the seeds it has sown.
7.5/10
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