10 Essential Black Panther Comics

by Ewan Paterson

1. Black Panther By Christopher Priest

Black Panther The Client Christopher Priest
Marvel Comics

Christopher Priest is the guy when it comes Black Panther, and a legend of the comics medium all around too.

Having took the reigns on Black Panther's third volume in 1998, Priest pretty much wrote the book on the character as he is today, pulling T'Challa into New York in a series chockfull of political intrigue, melodrama and action. It introduced characters like Everett Ross, dove into the internal workings of the Dora Milaje, and was generally breathtaking from start to finish.

The Client, Enemy of the State and its sequel are some of the best Panther arcs of all time, let alone Marvel's, with no other Panther scribe able to boast as great an influence on the character as he.

No doubt the folks at Marvel Studios will have looked towards Priest's work in formulating their cinematic Panther, but so should every comics fan, really. It's one of the all-time greats of the medium, and with a full collection to read published, ready and waiting to be read, Priest's Black Panther should be the first port of call for fans everywhere.

It's just that good.

What Black Panther comics would you recommend to new readers? Excited for Black Panther? Be sure to let us know in the comments below!

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Content Producer/Presenter

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.