In 1998, Marvel was in a tough spot. A string of real-world events (the Image Revolution, the Heroes World Distribution fiasco, Chapter 11 bankruptcy and ultimately a takeover by Toy Biz in 1997) and storylines of wildly varying quality ("The Clone Saga," "Heroes Reborn," "Onslaught") had left the biggest publisher in comics reeling and in desperate need of new blood. Luckily, they found some.

Similar to how Marvel had farmed out "Heroes Reborn" to Rob Liefeld's Extreme Studios and Jim Lee's Wildstorm two years earlier, the publisher reached out to Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti, the founders of Event Comics, then flying high on the success of Ash, Painkiller Jane and George Perez's Crimson Plague. Seeing which way the wind was blowing, Marvel brass contracted the duo to create a new line focusing on second-tier Marvel heroes who weren't as overexposed as Spider-Man or the X-Men, and gave them complete creative control.

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The result was Marvel Knights, which launched in November 1998 with three titles: Daredevil by Kevin Smith and Quesada, Inhumans by Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee, and Black Panther by Christopher Priest and Mark Texeira. All three titles were critically acclaimed and commercially successful, leading to Daredevil and Black Panther getting higher profiles both inside the Marvel Universe and among fans. The success was so great, it eventually paved the way for other beloved runs like the Brian Michael Bendis/Alex Maleev Daredevil and the Garth Ennis/Steve Dillon Punisher.

But among the many successes of Marvel Knights, the Priest era of Black Panther (illustrated by Texeira, Sal Velluto, Dan Fraga, Norm Breyfogle and others) stands out, if for nothing else, because it didn't remain under the imprint for very long. Indeed, acclaim and sales were so high that a letter from Priest was published at the end of #12 explaining that the book would move to the mainstream Marvel line of titles "because J[oe] & J[immy] are money grabbing jackals who want to conquer the market with new #1's" and that this was "not a painful decision."

In that same letter, Priest -- already a pioneer as the first long-lasting African-American writer for the Big Two, with runs on Green Lantern, Conan the Barbarian, Heroes for Hire and more under his belt -- talked at length about being a black writer in a largely white industry.

"I hate to bring this up," the letter begins, "but, yes, I'm black...Sure, it's a double standard: I get to make cracks about racial issues that a white writer would be strung up for. But that's not why I do it. Nobody sat me down and told me to make Black Panther about race. And it's not.

"It's about family, and loyalty and being true to oneself," Priest continues. "It's about devotion to country and duty, being honorable when everyone around you is not...it's about The Noblest Guy In The World."

Indeed, Priest's T'Challa proves, again and again, and at great risk over the 62 issues of the third volume of Black Panther (of which Priest wrote all but 2), that he is indeed a honorable man. Moreover, he values and cherishes that honor above all else, no matter the cost. And there is a lot of cost T'Challa has to bear.

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The run starts out in probably one of the most ignoble ways in Marvel history. Everett K. Ross, a State Department agent, a complete dope, and the guy assigned as T'Challa's government liaison. The king of Wakanda is in NYC investigating the death of a child connected to a foundation he'd founded, has been left by his client in a squalid Harlem roach trap with only a giant W'kandan royal guardsman named Zuri and "Buster, a rat so big you could put a saddle on him."

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And things only get worse from there for poor Ross. He loses his pants right before he meets Mephisto and is dragged to Hell; he gets chased by the President with a hockey stick; he even winds up being appointed as Acting Regent of Wakanda.

T'Challa fares no better. He winds up being manipulated by both Mephisto and the sinister demagogue Achebe, briefly loses his connection to Bast, the Panther God who gives him his powers and even (after a gorgeous hours-long fight scene drawn beautifully by Velluto and inker Bob Almond that shows action from both their points of view) loses the title of Chief of the Panther Clan (and thus the role of Black Panther) to his thought long-dead mortal enemy, the vicious Erik Killmonger. Oh, and he also sends the world's economy into a freefall and nearly starts World War III between Atlantis, Deviant Leimuria (another underwater nation home to the human-adjacent Deviants), Latveria, Genosha (which still existed and was ruled by Magneto at the time) and Wakanda.

And this is all in the first thirty issues.

It only gets crazier from there. But through it all, Priest and his cohorts lay out what was then a return to form for cape comics after the ridiculous grim'n'gritty excesses of the early '90s. Their story doesn't just keep the action moving -- it ties every single fight and interaction together to create a real portrait of a superhero who's forever alone. He's separated from his heroic peers by virtue of being a king; he's isolated from his American loved ones culturally, geographically and intellectually, and he's even alone among fellow superpowered heads of state like Namor or Magneto because of his purely upright nature.

But despite the sheer isolation of his position, Priest and his cohorts (particularly Texeira and Velutto) show that T'Challa is a hero and someone worth rooting for. They do this brilliantly through the audience surrogate, and general issue narrator, Ross. A complete and hopeless schmuck (far from the somewhat reserved version of the character Martin Freeman plays in the MCU), he's thrown way in over his head with T'Challa and it winds up costing him. Combine that with Ross' penchant for telling  his stories out of order (a trick Priest first used on the original run of Quantum & Woody, which he co-created, and was also in vogue with a post-Pulp Fiction storytelling world) and plenty of great action and humor and you've got a run that not only defies all '90s comic stereotypes but can easily be seen--and should be--as perhaps the first truly essential Black Panther run in Marvel history.