10 Marvel Graphic Novels You Must Read Before You Die
6. Black Panther: The Client
Marvel Comics
Christopher Priest's Black Panther is the most definitive incarnation of the character, with its influence set to be felt in the MCU, among many other places.
Priest's run on the character pretty much wrote the book on Wakanda, the lore of the character more generally and made staples of Everett Ross (portrayed by Martin Freeman in the MCU) and White Tiger, as well as villains Killmonger and Venomm. It's seminal in so many ways, and while the character has had his fair share of dynamite runs over the years (Ta-Nehisi Coates is a testament to that), none have managed to eclipse Priest's.
While it took a while for Marvel to alert to that fact (the series has been out of print as recently as 2015), fans of Priest's saga won't need reminding that the book - satirical, tense and jam-packed with drama - is one of Marvel's very best.
The first volume, The Client, even looks to be influencing the plot of the upcoming Black Panther film, so be sure to get in on the hype before it releases come next February.
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.
