8 Real-Life Events That Forced Comics To Change
5. The Black Panther Party – Fantastic Four #119 (1972)
In October 1966, Bobby Seale and Huey Newton formed a Black Power movement called The Black Panther Party. The organisation encouraged their members to carry firearms in public to avoid police officers from misusing their power against African-Americans.
Because the Marvel superhero, Black Panther, shares the same moniker as Seale's group, many readers assumed he was deliberately named as a reference to the BPP. But since the king of Wakanda debuted in the comics months before The Black Panther Party was founded, there's no question their shared name is, in the words of Stan Lee, "a strange coincidence".
But by 1970, the Party had offices in 68 cities and thousands of members, causing people to associate the term "Black Panther" more with the political movement than the superhero. To distance themselves from the BPP, Marvel decided to change T'Challa's superhero name to Black Leopard. However, to avoid having to explain over and over why his name was changed, T'Challa was usually referred to by his real name.
As The Black Panther Party's influence declined in the 1970s, T'Challa took on his former title once more.