Black Panther’s son is WHAT?! in Marvel Knights: The World to Come #1

The king of Wakanda is dead, leaving unguarded the world’s most advanced technology, most precious metal and a cryptic vault of dark secrets while triggering global conflicts. With T’Challa gone, the future will be determined by a final tribal challenge for the throne and the mysterious victor who will change Wakanda, and the Marvel Universe, forever. Marvel Knights: The World to Come #1 is written by Christopher Priest, drawn by Joe Quesada, colored by Richard Isanove and lettered by Tyler Smith.

In the throes of a breakup, a friend gave me the best advice I could bear to hear, advice that still ranks among the best I’ve ever gotten. 

“You broke up with her for a reason,” she reminded me, “so when you remember all the good times, don’t forget that there were bad times, too. Don’t forget that things happen for a reason.”

And sometimes, bad things happen for no reason at all.

The World to Come encapsulates the best and worst of recent Christopher Priest comics: Priest loves to put his characters — and their fans — through bits of discomfort. He loves to answer questions — with a sardonic sarcasm — that others would never want to ask. 

This is the same man who wanted to make Damian Wayne Deathstroke’s son; the same man who teased Clark cheating on Lois. 

A white child for T’Challa, then (as is implied on the last page)? Light work. 

This ambivalence for precedence can make for his greatest comics but often just leaves fans frustrated. This is why sometimes it’s better to leave that greatness alone.

The World to Come, beautifully illustrated by Joe Quesada, is pegged as a continuation of Priest’s Marvel Knights Black Panther run, so there’s likely no Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda, let alone a Shuri. There’s simply an imperfect man whose fall we’re witnessing, from the mouth of an unreliable narrator. 

The timeline jumps back and forth, from the past, where we can see where things diverged from our stock knowledge, to a future 16 years from an inflection point (“The World to Come”).

The best of Priest comes in the form of how he handles Storm: She’s died in a “Race War” (which race is left ambiguous), and the King’s erected a shrine to his ex-wife. A shrine his mother mourns in. A shrine his now wife (the now living singer Monica Lynne) and child’s mother must look at daily.

The shrine makes Storm a larger-than-life impediment to growth. His family is tied to her; any future loves will have to compete with her for the affection of the Panther (and the reader). This slyness, delivered in a nuanced way, is, dare I say, a better and more interesting alt-universe interrogation of T’Challa (character and perception) than we’ve seen in the new Ultimate Universe. One may not agree with this position (I don’t!), but one can appreciate the positioning and its presence. 

Also, note how the fight that frames this issue — father against son — is framed as pointlessly ritualistic. That he didn’t kill his “son” is pegged as a problem; that killing his son is a possible solution shows how problematic things are. This is more of what Priest is great at: pushing and prodding actions to their logical conclusions to show how illogical those conventions are as they break.

Still, in a world where Black comics are thin and Black romance is thinner, the implication of a white son in the series is bound to leave a sour taste in some readers’ mouths. 

Priest will likely employ more subversion to answer why the son is (or at least looks) white. Those who object to the character should probably wait until then before fully expressing frustration. 

This introduction to “The World to Come” does its job: It introduces the timeline divergences, introduces the drama and asks the reader to leave their suppositions at the door if they want to fully enjoy and embrace the ride. 

Will they? Should they? There’s intrigue here. Possibility. Still, some fires shouldn’t be rekindled, and there’s not enough in one direction or the other to suggest whether Priest’s return to his love is fruitious … or folly.

Buy Marvel Knights: The World to Come #1 here. (Disclaimer: As an Amazon Associate, ComicsXF may earn from qualifying purchases.)

Jude Jones

A proud New Orleanian living in the District of Columbia, Jude Jones is a professional thinker, amateur photographer, burgeoning runner and lover of Black culture, love and life. Magneto and Cyclops (and Killmonger) were right. Learn more about Jude at SaintJudeJones.com.