Alitha E. Martinez

Whether or not you’ve kept up with the current continuity of Black Panther comics, this is a great supplemental book which focuses on the background stories of a few of the female characters as well as revisiting a character we haven’t seen recently. The stand-out story is Gay’s five issue arc about Ayo and Aneka, the two warriors who basically start a rebellion of the Dora Milaje against King T’Challa (A.K.A. Black Panther). The story shows how they met and become lovers and their show more growing dissatisfaction with the way T’Challa rules Wakanda. (The three invasions in a row really didn’t help matters.) Next we have Harvey and Coates’ story about the mysterious Zenzi and her strange powers. Lastly, though he hasn’t really been seen since Christopher Priest’s run on The Crew ended in 2004, we find Kaspar Cole focusing on making detective when T’Challa asks him to take on the White Tiger persona again as a favor.
As I said, the best part of this is Ayo and Aneka’s story. Theirs is not an easy romance, as Aneka is constantly concerned with always doing the right and proper thing, and Ayo is a little more brash, to say the least. Still, it’s sweet to watch the two women fall in love. Through this story, we can see exactly why the Dora Milaje lost faith in their king over time, leading us to where the story starts in issue # 1 of Black Panther (2016-). If you’ve been reading Black Panther, you absolutely should read World of Wakanda. I’m just sorry that the series was cancelled after only 7 issues, because I really would have liked to read more stories from Wakanda. show less

I wanted to love this book so fiercely that I'm sure to some extent I set myself up for disappointment. On the other hand, maybe it would have also helped to have known more about this book going in. As it was, I was not really prepared for how much of this was a retread of Coates's arc of Black Panther. I kept getting to pieces and thinking, "Wait, didn't this already happen? Haven't I already read this? Why am I reading it again?" I did like the back story on Ayo and Aneka, but given how show more much of this was basically a repeat, there just wasn't enough here to make this feel satisfying as its own story. show less

I would call this the weak point of the first four books of the series. I believe a story should be judged on its own merits even if it adheres to plenty of genre cliches, but this felt too on-the-nose with the "Twilight" school of storytelling. Considering that Twilight's the blueprint for all of the My Boyfriend Is A Monster stories, my negative comparison is not made in passing. While I appreciated the brief interlude of the English class discussing Vonnegut, the story was too show more cookie-cutter and Vanessa was too much of a blank slate to be interesting. All of the interesting developments happen at the end of the last act; why couldn't the story have begun there instead? show less

The story gets a little lost at first amidst the introduction of twenty or so Amazons with one-trait personalities, but once the conflict settled down to a struggle for control of the severed head of the legendary Medusa I started to engage more with Nubia and her closest batch of allies -- who have at least two personality traits each! But it was still lukewarm at best.

The main story wrapped up in five chapters, with the sixth chapter actually being the second chapter of a crossover event show more called Trial of the Amazons. So that was a little jarring. But the crossover looks promising, and I have it on hand to read soon.

FOR REFERENCE

Contents:
• [Four-page selection], Infinite Frontier #0 / Becky Cloonan and Michael, writers; Alitha Martinez, penciler; Mark Morales, inker
• Paradise Lost, Nubia & the Amazons #1 / Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala, story; Stephanie Williams, script; Alitha Martinez, pencils; Mark Morales, inks
• Pride of a Lion, Nubia & the Amazons #2 / Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala, story; Stephanie Williams, script; Alitha Martinez, pencils; Mark Morales and Alitha Martinez, inks
• What Is Truth, Nubia & the Amazons #3 / Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala, story; Stephanie Williams, script; Alitha Martinez and Domo Stanton, pencils; Mark Morales, inks
• The Ties That Bind, Nubia & the Amazons #4 / Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala, story; Stephanie Williams, script; Alitha Martinez and Darryl Banks, pencils; Mark Morales, Darryl Banks, and Alitha Martinez, inks
• A Champion's Last Quest, Nubia & the Amazons #5 / Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala, story; Stephanie Williams, script; Alitha Martinez, pencils; Mark Morales, inks
• Trial of the Amazons: Part 2, Nubia & the Amazons #6 / Stephanie Williams and Vita Ayala, story; Stephanie Williams, script; Alitha Martinez, pencils; Mark Morales and Alitha Martinez, inks
• Covers, Variant Covers & Design Gallery / Alitha Martinez, Darryl Banks, Sozomaika, Jamal Campbell, Brittney Williams, Juni Ba, Joshua Swaby, Alexis Franklin, Kyle Baker, and Julliet Nneka, illustrators show less