I Did Not Expect This

I was looking through Marvel's solicitations for April, and I stumbled across one that rather surprised me. Black Panther #3 says that Morlun is on his way to Wakanda. And here I thought nobody was going to use anything from JMS' run on Amazing Spider-Man.

I have to give it up for Morlun, though. This is only his 3rd storyline, but he already appears to have mastered the antagonistic art of appearing to die, only to reappear later. First time round he was clearly not enjoying absorbing the radiation coming off that sludge Spidey injected himself with, then he was shot, and seemingly decomposed. Second time around, he was stabbed with stinger things and had his head bitten off. But here he is again, assuming this isn't the story where we learn there are actually a whole species of Morluns all of which look the alike. I can't imagine it would be a very abundant species though. How many totems can there to go around?

Still, it's not a bad idea. It seems like the idea of the Black Panther being a representative of the Panther God has been fairly prominent in his run on the title*. That sounds like a totem to me, and Morlun has to drain the life of a totem every so often to keep going. While the Black Panther probably isn't the easiest target, she likely is the most easily found one, being a head of state and all.

Should be a diiferent sort of challenge for Morlun, going from hunting Spider-Man, the guy who fights alone, to someone who theoretically has an army at their disposal. I say theoretically for a couple of reasons. One, I'm sure the Black Panther is expected to lead the charge, so she won't really be throwing a wall of bodies in between herself and Morlun. Two, I'm not sure whether the people are going to be totally supportive of their new Black Panther. I don't know that they won't be, but this is the Marvel Universe. If all her citizens loved her, that would be too easy, wouldn't it?

* Though I haven't really read his run, just going off general impressions I have.