I'd never seen this Two-Gun Kid #77 (top left & center) & thought "Gosh this Lee-Ayers 'The Panther' which debuted before T'Challa sure looks like Kirby's 'Black Panther'" but then I thought: no more than they both look like DC's Golden Age 'Wildcat' (top right) especially considering Jack originally had intended T'Challa's face to show (bottom left, alt FF #52 cover) like Wildcat's and on other hand the Ayers face looks more catlike like Wildcat's mask, whereas Jack's mask is stylized, simple, elegant. I have wondered why Marvel went with full mask on Black Panther instead (FF# 52 cover, bottom center). Did Lee or publisher not want readers to know from cover that Black Panther's actually a black man? Or was it an artistic choice from Jack? The original blurb verbiage from unused cover hints at Marvel doing something surprising the competition had not yet done, so that also seems possibly a more deliberate reference to race than on finished cover. And, neither 'The Panther' from Ayers, the 'Black Panther' from Kirby, nor DC's 'Wildcat' look like Jack's original costume design for T'Challa (bottom left) from when character was purportedly to be called 'The Coal Tiger.' Then, having thought all this, for some reason I threw together this collage.
No comments:
Post a Comment