I read Issue 7 a little while ago, and I think Ridley should've titled his first arc "The Long Con" instead of "The Long Shadow". I had such high hopes after reading the first issue, but that's all but evaporated now. The seventh issue fully descends into Coates's territory, and perhaps is even worse because Coates was more up front about his self-flagellation masquerading as comic book writing. About the only thing I think worked for this issue was the artwork. Overall, I've liked the artwork for Ridley's run, though I enjoyed the artwork in the Coates's books I've read, seen, more.
Spoiler (click to reveal)
Basically everyone dumps on T'Challa in this issue, and he generally agrees with them, begs the Dora Milaje for help and promises that he will not return to the throne, which seals the deal for them. Ridley does slide a little verbiage in later that gave T'Challa some wiggle room around that promise and would allow a more Machiavellian take on the character to take advantage of, but I don't see Ridley's T'Challa has being that cunning.
His T'Challa mostly sits on his hands, is "broken" as Shuri describes him, and lets people front on him. Ridley, perhaps at the behest of the X-Office explicitly states that T'Challa and Storm are friends and no longer partners, and for a parting shot, she refuses to forgive her "love" after he asks for forgiveness. Look, I haven't read a good deal of T'Challa's stories under the pens of Hickman, Aaron, or Coates, and others of the Coates's era but I don't get what T'Challa has done that is so bad that he has to apologize so darn much, and everyone is dumping on him like this. He's not pushing back at all, plus I feel like he's magnifying the threat posed by Akili, who is a lackluster villain.
I got a January 6th vibe from this issue, and it feels like Ridley is trying to contort Wakanda to express his thoughts on that, but Akili is far less a compelling and charismatic ignitor, and the motivations are barely there to have a robust, thought-provoking examination of what led to January 6th. It's just T'Challa's bad and just about everyone says so. The prime minister puts the blame at the feet of both T'Challa and Akili, two "men" she makes clear to point out.
Ridley provides a poor reason, and another dig at T'Challa to explain away the absence of the Avengers. Seems like he would call on them, and that they would help, but I take it that Ridley's T'Challa wants to keep things in house to better cover up his failures. The idea that the Avengers would let Wakanda be taken over by Akili and not lift a finger, or that T'Challa (who is depicted as very desperate) would not even ask for help, also makes him very vain, prideful, and foolish. Ridley's Storm isn't doing much either or offering the X-Men. She's just there to be another person taking him down. (I will give Ridley this that he has Akili say that T'Challa is in league with mutants, but I would rather have had Storm offer help and T'Challa reject it, or even Storm offer and then rescind it because the X-Men's involvement would play into Akili's hands, but we didn't get that; we only got Akili's accusation but no build up that would give that charge any validity).
Tosin also jumps into the fray to defend Wakanda's democracy. He's the only male character that's allowed to push back (and not be labeled a failure, screw up, or bad), and I reason that's because he's Ridley's pet character. It's like Ridley is chumping T'Challa to put Tosin on. And I feel like Ridley should be writing a Tosin series, a kind of World of Wakanda book, rather than the mainline BP title.
Seven issues in and we have yet another civil war, more male vs. female strife, T'Challa has lost his throne and is considered either a traitor or a failure. There are no cool new supervillains, nothing that really builds on T'Challa as Black Panther. It's just been a lot of taking away. I am glad this arc will finally be over in the eighth issue, but after that, I don't know where Ridley will go with the book after. He's torched a great deal.
I speculate that Wakanda will be a full democracy, and T'Challa might go into exile or rejoin the Avengers. Tosin, with Shuri's aid, will become the new defenders of Wakanda.
A few other things...
Spoiler (click to reveal)
What's the deal with the Wakandan with blonde hair? That came off like a nod to the intersectional BLM/"woke" wave in black entertainment these days. People I surmise would on board with deconstructing the toxic black male T'Challa.
Also, when I think about Storm refusing to forgive T'Challa. She has a right not too, but I wonder has she ever drawn as hard a line against any mutant? She's got freaking Magneto on her X-Men: Red team right now. She's willing to forgive him enough to work with him, but not the man she still calls her "love"?
I do feel this story should've been no longer than 5 issues and if Omolola had been the villain that might have worked better. She had more of a personal, easier to understand, stake in exposing the sleepers and getting revenge against T'Challa that would've spared us another coup/civil war storyline. Or the resolution of that arc could've then led to the second arc where we see T'Challa exposed, Wakanda embarrassed
Spoiler (click to reveal)
and we could then have Akili more logically turn his back on T'Challa as well as the Prime Minister
. That doesn't change their point of contention, their differing visions of Wakanda, but it sets it up better IMO. I do think it was a mistake as well though not to just have Hunter as the mastermind behind everything and we could've had a Black Panther/Captain America team up by now.
