Original Kirby design that never made it to print:
Original, rejected debut cover, showcasing his skin color and also using more gray tones:
Actual debut, Fantastic Four #52-53:
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| Fantastic Four #53 |
When he joined the Avengers, his costume changed to more of a dark blue, the cape was gone, and his mask changed to showcase that he was indeed, African.
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| Avengers #52 |
Starting with Avengers #56, T'challa went back to the full mask and this look (black and blue, no cape, full mask) would be his standard costume until essentially Priest outside of rare exceptions.
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| Avengers #56 |
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| Avengers #62 |
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| Avengers #87 |
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| Jungle Action #7 |
Gillis run not only brought back the short cape to go along with the blue-ish costume, but also changed the mask to look much more feline and be much more expressive. He also added a shoulder strap for... reasons?
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| Gillis #4 |
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| Gillis #1 |
Priest run took similar notes from Gillis era in regards to the large collared cape, darkened the suit a ton, and then also in gold accents around the neck, waist, wrists, and claws along with glowing eyes.
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| Priest #1 |
There was also a cape-less version of the same suit
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| Priest #28 |
Towards the end of Priest's run, we also saw the return of the more "cat like" facial mask for a bit. Current Black Panther is on the left, Happy Pants time displaced Panther is on the right, sporting the old school original look.
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| Priest #47 |
Hudlin went with a throw back look of the original Black Panther costume first seen in F4 52 for the most part. His most notable addition early in his run were the eyes... you could actually see them and the skin around them. And the suit was actually more... black. T'challa should have been called the "Dark Blue Panther" most of his runs.
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| Hudlin #6 |
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| Hudlin #8 |
The Wedding to Storm saw a combination of the Priest suit (gold accents, long cape) and the Hudlin suit (mask, gloves, color)
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| Hudlin #18 |
The ridiculously tight mask even made an appearance in the run
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| Hudlin #23 |
His suit seen towards the end of volume 4 has become the "default" suit these days... despite it really not making an appearance in his solo runs until now. This is simply the all black suit with white eyes with no cape look. About as simplistic yet iconic as you can get.
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| Hudlin #34 |
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| Hudlin #37 |
See Wakanda and Die gave us his classic look with red eyes which worked great for this style of art.
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| volume 4, #40 (See Wakanda and Die) |
Ceremonial outfit worn when meeting Namor about the rise of the Cabal
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| vol 5, #1 |
The Liss era went with a vested look. The vest varied with various shades of black to light grey depending on the artist.
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| Liss #519 |
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| Liss #523.1 |
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| Liss #525 |
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| Liss #528 |
AvX returned the cape while having some aspects of Liss era in the bilateral shoulder straps.
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| Avengers vs X-Men #7 |
The title of King of the Dead returned T'challa to the full length cape + classic habit look of Hudlin, but with the white eyed mask. However, the biggest addition Hickman provided was the white/silver neck piece. This is actually the first appearance of it to my recollection and has become a staple of the habit ever sense. Even showing up in the MCU.
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| Fantastic Four #608 |
Hickman kept the habit simple, as it was basically the Hudlin suit at the end of volume 4, with the addition of the neck piece. The neck piece would vary in shape and color and how much it moved during the run, but the silver necklace style was the most common.
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| New Avengers, vol 3, #1 |
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| New Avengers, vol 3, #24 |
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| Secret War #9 |
The neck piece actually did disappear for a couple issues randomly.
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| New Avengers, vol 3, #28 |
We even got a random appearance of the tighter, my face like mask. Along with the gold neck piece.
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| Avengers, vol 5, #40 |
Hickman also provided us another ceremonial habit, when meeting Namor once again
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| New Avengers, vol 3, #2 |
Ultimates initially went with the "tight face" mask but kept the rest of the habit simple and black
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| Ultimates #1 |
We also got a weird ass funky looking ceremonial habit at the end of Ultimates.
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| Ultimates #12 |
Coates version of the habit has been very consistent for his run as well as guest appearances and kept very simple. He made the mask much more cat like with the ears and more "sleek" for lack of a better word that really only varies based on the strength of the artist. The rest of the costume is mostly just full black. The neck piece has been pretty much standardized for the run as well.
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| Coates #2 |
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| Coates #5 |
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| Coates #11 |
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| Coates #15 |
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| Captain America #25 |
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| Ms. Marvel, vol 4, #18 |
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| Deadpool, vol 4, #15 |
Ultimates² just went straight black with the habit with nothing breaking it up as traditionally seen.
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| Ultimates² #4 |
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| Ultimates² #9 |
Nice for those of us who have not read the comics to see this progression of design! As an artist, I'm fascinated by how a visual medium like the coics translates to another, but very different visual medium, film. I love what they did in the film, but that would be really impossible to draw!
ReplyDeletethanks for stopping by.
DeleteIt is on my to-do list to add in some more habits. including Alternate realities, cartoons, other black panthers, ect. Just have to sit down and do it.