Avengers, Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Season 1, Episode 11: Panther's Quest
Ah, we finally get to actually having Black Panther interact with the main cast! And keep in mind that this was before the Black Panther movie that shook the public perception, so this is probably some people's first introduction to the King of Wakanda as a character. It's a pretty neat episode, following up on the events established from "Man in the Ant Hill", and basically handwaves Black Panther's relative absence since then as him just watching the Avengers to see if they are worthy. It is a bit odd just why Captain America takes so long to inform the others about the mysterious man in a black catsuit, but eh.
Black Panther introduces himself to the group by basically blindsiding everyone and beating everyone (but Thor, who's absent for the entire episode) single-handedly. Again, like Captain America introduction, the heroes aren't exactly aiming to take down Black Panther, but it's still a pretty cool introduction. Black Panther quickly asks the Avengers' aid to dethrone M'Baku, and there's a neat bit where Captain America tells T'Challa that if the people elected M'Baku by their own rules, then it's just democracy. T'Challa retorts that it's the people that is the problem... and, well, as much as it might sound like abandoning your culture, T'Challa isn't wrong for the simple fact that M'Baku is proven to be a brutish leader and is willing to weaponize Wakanda's huge source of Vibranium. It does paint basically everyone in Wakanda but T'Challa as kind of morons, but I suppose it's a "honour before reason" deal going on here. Plus, y'know, Black Panther has obvious photos showing that Ulysses Klaue and the Grim Reaper are working alongside M'Baku to mine the Vibranium.
Iron Man ends up being a gigantic shitbag in this episode by insisting multiple times that his technology is superior to silly Wakandan villagers and it's pretty entertaining to see him proven wrong literally every single time. It is a bit bizarre that Black Panther recruits the Avengers and then immediately leaves them behind to challenge Man-Ape on his own, and, again, tighter scripting would make this leg of the episode feel less awkward. Black Panther basically spends a majority of the episode fighting Man-Ape in hand-to-hand combat, while Captain America just shows up to make sure that the fight between the two is done fairly.
Of course, for all of M'Baku's talk about how T'Challa is weak for accepting aid from outsiders, he cheats by using one of Klaue's sonic emitters. T'Challa basically just powers through it with nothing but sheer willpower, noting that he's not the same with his father because "MY RAGE IS GREATER!" It's a pretty badass line as T'Challa straight-up beats down M'Baku, heavily implied to kill him -- after all, it's a fight to the death, and I'm informed that M'Baku never really shows up after this.
Concurrently, the rest of the Avengers just fight Hydra, although they catch Hydra with their pants down when Grim Reaper tries to kill Klaue when he asks for more money. The three-way battle between the Avengers, Hydra and Klaue ends up causing Klaue to transform into Klaw, a giant purple sonic monster when the Vibranium cannon he's using sort of blasts everything back into himself. Klaw ends up being defeated by Iron Man and Ant-Man working together, sort of the 'bigger picture' threat of this episode while T'Challa brings down Man-Ape in the foreground. While I had criticized the setup, it does lead to a pretty powerful climax as multiple villains that have been built up in previous episodes clash against our heroes, with two meeting seemingly final ends.
Black Panther turns Wakanda into a more democratic country, before finally accepting the offer to join the Avengers, and it's a pretty cool storyline and debut for everyone's favourite king of Wakanda. Not really much to say about this episode -- it's a very, very solid one, and the final scene quickly leads into the next two-parter, showing a group of Hulkbuster soldiers being attacked by gamma monsters.
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