Black Panther: Battle For Wakanda

Bought this for the Kiddo at a bookstore in Hub Mall here in Shanghai.

Title: Black Panther: Battle For Wakanda
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: 2019
Writer: Brandon T. Snider

Another of the Mighty Marvel Chapter Books series. While it's a prose story, it is full of color illustrations, but unfortunately, the artists are not credited (at least I was not able to get the information from the Amazon or Goodreads entries for the book and, as noted below, the credits on the copy we bought were not in English). This is the, well, I guess the phrasing would be English language Chinese edition, which we purchased in China. All of the story text is in English, but the credits, copyright and publisher information, and there are vocabulary footnotes in Chinese, which seem to be aimed at English language learners.

The Chinese edition covers for this series look awesome, by the way.

The story involves a plot to stir up trouble in Wakanda every time T'Challa is off doing Avengers things with the Avengers, which is currently more often than usual because there is an imposter Black Panther running around sabotaging SHIELD installations and beating up SHIELD-agent jobbers.

T'Challa makes some questionable decisions in order to move the plot along, but it eventually builds into a big confrontation with Klaw back in Wakanda, and a chance for T'Challa to regain the confidence of his people.

Several Avengers guest-star, and Shuri gets a decent supporting role.

Those picky about continuity should note that this is based more on comic storyline than the MCU version, but like the Gamora book in this series (I reviewed it here), it definitely tries to play to fans who have seen the films, but have not read the comics.

There were some editing issues, including a mess of a pronoun problem at one point, and the plot left a fair number of unanswered questions.

Still, it did the flavor of the characters well, and hit the right emotional notes in the end.

Rating: 5.5/10

Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora's Galactic Showdown

The Kiddo bought this at our school's recent book fair.

Title: Guardians of the Galaxy: Gamora's Galactic Showdown
Publisher: Marvel Comics
Date: 2017
Writer: Brandon T. Snider
Artist: Pascale Qualano, Chris Sotomayor

Not a comic. This is a novel for young readers, part of the Mighty Marvel Chapter Books series. While it's a prose story, it is full of color illustrations from the team of Qualano and Sotomayor.

The story involves a mysterious box that belonged to Thanos, but which appears to be keyed so that only Gamora can open it. Gamora wants to find the box in the hopes of furthering her quest to make peace with her past. But her sister, Nebula, is also interested in the box, lured by the possibility of it containing an item of power, and possibly also just out of spite to keep it from her sister.

Gamora's quest brings her into contact with a whole array of Marvel's cosmic characters, from her friends in the Guardians of the Galaxy, to Pip the Troll, the Collector, Captain Marvel, and Adam Warlock. Unfortunately, the effort to cram the book full of cameos detracts a bit from the story. It would have worked perfectly well with just Gamora, Nebula, Warlock (who does have an important role here) and maybe one or two others thrown in as sidekicks.

The bloated cast takes the focus off of Gamora too much, which is unfortunate, because Gamora's inner struggle is actually really interesting. Her search to resolve the conflicting loyalties of her abusive family situation with Thanos and Nebula and her loving (if dysfunctional at times) chosen families of the Guardians and the Infinity Watch is the true conflict in the story. And when it is the focus, the story works really well.

The violence is kept to a toned-down PG level, and some of the emotional issues are a bit overexplained, but the central quest is handled well, and Gamora shines in the parts of the story where she's in the spotlight.

Rating: 7/10