Black Panther and the Agents Of Wakanda #2: Review

Oct 2019

Jim Zubkavich, Lan Medina

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Story Name:

Eye of the storm: part 2 of 2

Review & Comments

Rating:

Black Panther and the Agents Of Wakanda #2 Review by Rob Johnson (November 1, 2019)

Bucking the trend for long story arcs, typically trade paperback length, this title is so far going for 2-part stories. At least for this story and the next 2 issues, which is as far as we can tell at the moment.

It can't be a total coincidence that Wasp's hallucination involves Tony Stark merged with Iron Man by Ultron when that's exactly the situation in the current IM story arc. So maybe this is set after that story because it seems from future solicits that Tony may be stuck that way for a while.

Abigail Brand was introduced in Astonishing X-Men (2004) #3 as head of SWORD, a subdivision of SHIELD concentrating on alien threats. In the post-Secret Wars III universe Alpha Flight station has taken over from SWORD and Brand runs *that*, reporting to Captain Marvel, as revealed in the CM (2016) series. The station was destroyed during Secret Empire but it was rebuilt by the time of Jessica Jones #14 and Avengers #675.

From Our Blog:

Gwen Stacy, beauty queen of Standard High School, was Peter Parker's (alias Spider-Man) first great love.

Gwen Stacy: Classic Beauty

Synopsis / Summary / Plot

Black Panther and the Agents Of Wakanda #2 Synopsis by Rob Johnson

Black Panther has led a team of his Agents Of Wakanda (Fat Cobra, Okoye and Wasp) to Pawhuska, Oklahoma where they found the town surrounded by a cloaking shield and inside 'demons' menacing the populace. Cobra fought his way through to the centre of town where he found Sentry.

Meanwhile the others have been separated with their comms down and are falling prey to hallucinations. Okoye is walking through a deserted part of town when Panther seemingly stabs her in the back with a spear.

Wasp thinks she's sunbathing and goes indoors to call her boyfriend Tony Stark away from his work in his basement lab. But 'Tony' turns out to be her ex-husband Henry Pym only slightly merged with Ultron (rather than half and half as he is these days). And the robot he was working on turns out to be Tony merged with his Iron Man armour (as he is in the current IM storyline).

A voice in Okoye's head says her liege has attacked her because she's not worthy to be a Dora Milaje or the head of the Agents. And 'Panther' agrees, bringing up her previous 'failures'. Then 'T'Challa' is exposed as herself in the Panther costume. Okoye admits her doubts and fears but overcomes them to pull the spear out of her body and kill the false Panther. The body dissolves to dust as the real T'Challa approaches to tell her that *his* Panther uniform is protecting him from the hallucinations. He's sent out a call for backup but doesn't know if it got through.

Both cyborgs are now menacing Janet Van Dyne. But she shrinks to Wasp and flies into Ultron's mouth to blast him apart from inside. And she does something similar to Iron Tony. Those bodies dissolve too as BP and Okoye join her.

Fat Cobra confronts the meditating Sentry who is currently merged with his evil half the Void. He introduces himself as 1 of the Immortal Weapons and tells Sentry that he's disrupting reality in the town and causing suffering. Sentry doesn't believe him because he's 'better' now that he's absorbed the Void. But demons drag Cobra into an hallucination where the *Immortal* Weapon sees all the lovers and children he's outlived. But he has long come to terms with that and uses his chi powers to dispel them into dust.

The other 3 hero(in)es arrive. Sentry tells T'Challa that he is keeping the Void at peace. But Cobra tells BP that Sentry's madness won't let him see what's happening in the world around him. Panther gets a garbled message from the helicarrier that someone is in position overhead. BP tells them to 'drop the hammer' ...

... and Thor lands with a Mjolnir-blow to Sentry's head. But Sentry fights back and everyone bar Fat Cobra piles in. He tells them to weaken the foe until the time is right. Then when the 'fates are aligned' he strikes and Void is forced out of Sentry's body. In its small weakened state Cobra is able to swallow it.

Now Void-less Sentry apologises for what's happened and zooms off to think on it. T'Challa contacts the Alpha Flight space station where Commander Abigail Brand confirms that he's headed off into deep space. The people of Pawhuska recover and the heroes return to the Wakandan helicarrier. Dr Strange is called in to check Fat Cobra for ill effects. Stephen Strange can't find any trace of Void within him, and Cobra says it's not the 1st 'dark idol' he's eaten.

Then Panther gets a call from Broo who is upgrading a satellite with Gorilla-Man (as we saw last issue). They've noticed something they think he should come deal with - "the Moon is hungry".

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