Issue(s): Jungle Action #9
Cover Date: May 74
Title: "But now the spears are broken"
Credits:
Don McGregor - Writer
Gil Kane - Penciler
Klaus Janson - Inker

Review/plot:
Rich Buckler leaves the series and is replaced by Gil Kane. However, Janson's inks are so dominant that the book still looks like the previous issues, and not at all (to my eyes) like Kane's usual stuff.

In a nod to the sort of stories that were previously reprinted in Jungle Action, the Black Panther rescues the child of a rural couple from a charging rhino.

The gratefulness of the father is contrasted with the hatred of the mother for T'Challa's affair with Monica. Monica is dealing with this hatred everywhere, especially from the handmaiden Tanzika, who also gave the Falcon's girlfriend Leila Taylor a hard time during the Secret Empire storyline in Captain America.

Monica and T'Challa's dinner is interrupted by reports of a Baron Macabre haunting a burial site. The Black Panther investigates and finds himself attacked by zombies and the corpselike Macabre.

The Panther flees. Returning home, he finds that his subject Zatama has been murdered, and Monica Lynne's fingerprints were found on the murder weapon.

Quality Rating: A-

Historical Significance Rating: 2

Chronological Placement Considerations: N/A

References: N/A

Crossover: N/A

Continuity Insert? N

My Reprint: N/A

Kane's Panther is majestic, yet forceful. Janson really was working magic early in his career.

Regarding the two-page spread scan above, while the character is supposed to be seven feet tall and gaunt, Baron Macabre's legs are so skinny the top half of his body could sue them for non-support. Also, regarding Klaus Janson's brushwork over Gil Kane's pencils, I've said it before and I'll say it again: What a difference an inker can make!