“Black Panther” Cartoon

BET announced this week that they will be producing a “Black Panther” animated series, based on the Marvel hero, for the first quarter of 2009. The Black Panther is a title bestowed upon the king of the fictional African nation of Wakanda, a constitutional monarchy rich in the fictional metal, Vibranium (one of the elements in Captain America’s shield). T’Challa is the present Black Panther, who made his debut in the July 1966 Fantastic Four #52.

This could be a really cool series if they base the whole plot on either Don McGregor’s arc from the 1970’s or Christopher Priest’s run on the Marvel Knights Black Panther series. The present series is good, but something tells me they’d run into a logistical nightmare working in his marriage to Storm from the X-Men. Past experience says they’ll probably just take the idea for the comic and make their own plots up to make it politically relevant, but we can dream, can’t we?