Not Who You Think / One-Shot Hero: BLACK PANTHER

Prince T'Challa, Marvel's first Black superhero, ruler of Wakanda, husband of Storm, a Mighty Avenger...

WTF???

1) Who is he?

2) Where did he come from??

3) What are his powers???

4) Why does he have a tail????

Of all those questions, we can only answer #3: Agile as a cat (obviously), expert in hand-to-hand combat, and probably good with the knife he carries.

Since he only made one appearance, in Centaur's Stars & Stripes #3 (1941), we will never know what his creator, writer/artist Paul Gustavson, had in mind for him.

Gustavson, though not a "big" name, did contribute several long-running characters to Golden Age comics history at Timely (Marvel), Quality, and Centaur, including The Fantom of the Fair (FantoMan), The Human Bomb, The Angel, two archer-heroes; The Arrow and Alias the Spider, and Man of War.

He also worked on Blackhawk, Uncle Sam, and other Quality Comics characters.

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Black Panther

Reading Room: NOT WHO YOU THINK: THE ARROW "Correcting the Colonel's Court-Martial"

No, he's not the guy currently on the CW...

...since that character is based on Green Arrow, who was given that colorful name to avoid confusion with this guy, comics' first archer superhero, as detailed HERE!

Ironically, the CW superhero visually-resembles this character more than DC's Green Arrow,  whose back-story has been Smallville-ized for the tv series.

Written and illustrated by Paul Gustavson (who also created another archer hero who predated Green Arrow...Quality's Alias the Spider), this tale appeared twice in Centaur titles, first in Funny Pages V2#12 (1938), then in FantoMan #2 (1940), which was actually the short-lived title's first issue.

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Reading Room: NOT WHO YOU THINK: THE ARROW "Smashing the Protection Racket"

No, he's not the guy currently on the CW...

...since that character is based on Green Arrow, who was given that colorful name to avoid confusion with this guy, comics' first archer superhero, as detailed HERE!

Ironically, the CW superhero visually-resembles this character more than DC's Green Arrow,  whose back-story has been Smallville-ized for the tv series.

This tale was written and illustrated by Paul Gustavson, who also created another archer hero who predated Green Arrow...Quality's Alias the Spider!

And, as pointed out by reader DarkMark, this never-reprinted tale appeared in Centaur's Funny Pages V4 #1 (1940).
I had listed another appearance, also written and illustrated by Gustavson.
(This is what happens when you drink the last of the holiday eggnog and then keyboard a blog entry...)

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