Issue(s): Jungle Action #19
Cover Date: Jan 76
Title: "Blood and sacrifices!"
Credits:
Don McGregor - Writer
Billy Graham - Penciler
Bob McLeod - Inker

Review/plot:
Even though i loved Don McGregor and (mostly) Billy Graham's Panther's Rage arc in Jungle Action, it took me a while to pick up the remainder of the series, because this Panther vs. the Klan arc winds up unfinished, or at least wrapped up some time later by a different creative team.

The premise of this second arc is obviously quite different from the first. It takes the Black Panther out of the element that makes him special and he winds up being pretty passive and incidental to the storyline here. In the previous arc we got a lot of insight into the Panther's Wakandan kingdom and saw him putting down a rebellion that included some super-villain-like characters. In this story, the Panther is in America, Monica Lynne's southern hometown in Georgia, investigating the death of Monica's sister Angela, which was purportedly a suicide. The Panther remains in full costume for the majority of the issues, which makes him seem a bit out of place, and the plot is revealed very slowly over the course of the five issues by McGregor, and as noted above, isn't resolved.

Whether by McGregor's design or due to Code or libel concerns or something else, there's a bit of a misdirection regarding who the antagonists of the arc are. The cover of this issue shows the Panther fighting a group of white robed (seemingly) Klansman, but the blurb refers to them as "the Clan" with a C, and when we open the issue we find that the Clan wear multi-color robes and a multi-racial membership.

The real Klan do figure into this story. They are never called the Klu Klux Klan but they are the Klan, with white robes, and in a later issue it'll be noted that their name was based on the Greek word for circle (kyklos) so there's no doubting that it's who they were meant to be.

The multi-colored Clan are officially called the Dragon Circle. But ultimately you have two groups of guys in robes and pointy hoods in this story, and that puts you at the mercy of coloring errors (and i extend sympathies to anyone reading this in the b&w Essentials).

The story begins with Monica at her sister's tombstone. The Black Panther fights off a Clan attack with the help of an idealistic liberal reporter named Kevin Trublood.

Trublood believes that Angela uncovered some real estate corruption involving the Klan before she died, and that her death wasn't a suicide.

The Clan members are dropped off with Sheriff Roderick Tate, and then we meet Monica's parents.

Monica's solitaire addicted father adds some quirky humor to the book.

The Lynne house is attacked by members of both C/Klans. The Panther drives them off...

...and that wraps up the issues.

Pronunciation guide for T'Challa:

So far, not a lot to go on, plotwise. It's a decent set-up with some good character introductions but it's a little weak on the actual story and that's a problem because the clock is ticking for this series. McGregor does seem to have restrained himself a bit in terms of his verbose narration but he's still wordy even by 1970s standards. Graham's art is nice. The lack of the grandiose and exotic setting of Wakanda hurts the book, although that has to be weighed against the more politically impactful premise of this story.

Quality Rating: B-

Historical Significance Rating: 1

Chronological Placement Considerations: Next issue takes place at least three weeks after this one, and since the Panther is in the US already he could potentially appear in other books if necessary. That said, the Panther's schedule is pretty light outside this series at this time (just an appearance in Daredevil annual #4).

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

KKK costumes weren't always uniformly white(but I doubt any were all blue, though), most of them had different types of colored decorations on them, and their leaders would have weird titles--Grand Dragon, Grand Cyclops, etc.

The pronunciation panel is weird.

If he's saying the proper pronunciation of his name, and never mentions the 'T', where did Kevin find out his name has a 'T' in it?

Maybe he's showing his Wakandan ID in the car?

I'm no linguist, but it's my understanding that the use of apostrophes in this way was invented so Europeans could transcribe languages without vowels, like ancient Hebrew. So in this case the T and the CH sounds are distinct, but without the "ah" or "uh" sound an English speaker would instinctively want to add. Listen to Ta-Nehisi Coates pronounce the name; somehow he keeps the consonants separate without any intervening vowel.

Believe it or not, I discussed the pronunciation of the "T" in T'Challa with a linguist on west african dialects many years ago. From what I recall, theres a lot more to it but the /t/ phoneme should be very light with a glottal stop after it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glottal_stop

So Macgregor was basically trying to simplify it as the /t/ would be so feint an English speaker would have to strain to notice it.(which is a good amount of attention to being correct).

Despite the initial strained dialogue attempting to establish him as a "good ol' boy", I for one am glad McGregor resisted portraying Roderick Tate as a stereotypical southern sheriff. Also glad McG did not make him a ripoff of the real-life, vice-and-corruption-busting McNairy County, TN sheriff Buford Pusser (1937-1974). The ex-pro wrestler's career in law enforcement is well documented, particularly in the 1973 box office smash WALKING TALL starring Joe Don Baker as Pusser, in addition to two sequels with Bo Swenson in the role. Considering the time period these stories came out and Sheriff Pusser's ongoing posthumous popularity, that would definitely be the easy route for the character.