Inside the 1970s comics story that reinvented black panther

Welcome to the website of comedian Nick Peron. It is the ground zero of his comedic writing. The character became popular enough with readers that Marvel took a risk giving the Black Panther his own solo title. The idea of a black superhero having his own comic book series put out by a major publisher back then was a gamble because there was fear they would alienate racist readers, who apparently were enough of a profit loss.

At the time, Marvel had rebooted Jungle Action an anthology title from the Atlas era that featured — you guessed it — jungle adventure stories. The first four issues featured reprints of Atlas era characters like Lorna the Jungle Queen, Lo-Zar Lord of the Jungle, and Jann of the Jungle as well as one-off stories about jungle animals.

There were a number of cosmetic changes made to these stories with artwork touched up to make the African characters less stereotype-y.

Inside the 1970s comics story that reinvented black panther: With Ryan Coogler's movie out

Lo-Zar oddly had his named changed to Tharn and his hair went from blonde to red. There were also some topical changes to villains to make them more generic. At the time, Don McGregor was editing the book and thought the title could be better utilized than reprinting dated jungle stories from the 50s. As he stated in his introduction to a Marvel Masterworks collection of Black Panther stories, he suggested that they instead use the title to showcase an African character.