Ta-Nehisi Coates has been working his magic on Black Panther for a couple of years now, and 2018 saw arguably its best chapter yet, as Evan Narcisse joined him on Rise of the Black Panther - a comic that told the story of T'Challa's beginnings, and serves as the perfect introduction to the world of Wakanda, its history and its inhabitants.
Coates has obviously been doing tremendous things on the main Black Panther comic this year too, but Rise's world-building is phenomenal, as is its refreshing approach to T'Challa's origin. Coates and Narcisse spotlight two characters specifically, King T'Chaka (T'Challa's father), and N'Yami, T'Chaka's first wife and the mother of the man who we know today as the Black Panther.
Rise is a special book, and great credit must be given to artist Paul Renaud, who displays Wakanda in stunning fashion. It's one of the best looking Marvel books on shelves, and having recently been collected in one edition, it's also a perfect read to bookend the year - both for newcomers and longtime fans of the character.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
