A review by depreydeprey
Black Panther: The Client by Mark Texeira, Christopher J. Priest

3.0

This graphic novel made me nervous. I was nervous in the introduction about Christopher Priest's frankness about race and comics and nervous it was going to go off the rails in some but it didn't. While far from my favorite Black Panther story I respect the distance this book gave the title character. We often have a front row seat into the thoughts of heroes and judging this one by his actions alone was a welcome relief. My only major criticisms of the title are that I felt the story wrapped up entirely too quickly after what felt like four and a half issues of set up and world building and the character of Ross, based on Chandler from Friend, feels extraordinarily dated (this collection came out in 2001 and his jokes fall flat. That said my initial nervousness was gone by this volume's conclusion. Priest walks a tightrope and emerges on the other side of this volume the better for it.