Black and White, Chapter 5

The Black Panther (Kevin “Kasper” Cole) has broken into the offices of the PR firm Grace & Kimbal, a front for the 66 Bridges Gang. There he tries to hack into one of the computers when he is caught by Triage (Nigel Blacque) the leader of the Bridges. Unsurprised to see the hero in his office, Blacque freely gives him the password onto his system. However, he questions the need since he is certain that the Panther’s Avengers clearance would have allowed him to pull the data he needed off CIA satellites.[1]

The Panther explains that he is there to collect information on Sal Anthony, the crooked cop that he’s trying to nail.[2] Triage is dismissive of this, saying that taking down Sal Anthony is nothing to him because there are hundreds of other dirty cops that he can choose from to replace Sal. Taking off his shirt, Nigel reveals that he has a number of long scars across his torso. He then puts on a pair of smart glasses that allow him to scan the Black Panther and learn his vital statistics. His speech then goes on to how the criminals of today don’t wear costumes and taunt the police. They are businessmen who are protected by the highest levels of power in government. He then offers to give Sal up in exchange for ending further hostilities.

This then leads into a story about Kibuka, the Keeper of the Six. Its a story about how the ruler of the African nation of Baganda asked the heavens for help fighting a war. The gods sent him Kibuka. However, Kibuka had one rule that could not be broken: He was to leave the mortal women alone. However, Kibuka did not listen and soon impregnated a female prisoner who bore him a son. His other mistake was in telling her his weakness, that he could firing arrows into the cloud where he was hiding. Fatally wounded, Kibuka fled to die and a temple was build in the very spot where he fell. The people of Baganda also believed in superhuman spirits, one of which were the Balubaale. The legends say that these men whose exceptional skills followed them in death. These warriors all merged their power when falling in battle to resurrect Kibuka, making him the guardian of their immortal souls — hence the name Keeper of the Six.

As he tells this tale, he picks up a ceremonial dagger off the shelf and gets up close to the Panther pointing the blade. Kasper reponds by aiming one of his guns. Triage concludes his story by admitting he believes that their struggle is allegorical to that tale. But, he doesn’t know who is the good guy and who is the bad guy in the tale. He then thinks that perhaps they are just great men trying to embrace the global village. This is the motto of Wakanda, and in saying this Nigel questions if this Black Panther is King T’Challa.

Turning the blade in his hand around and offering its hilt, Triage asks the Panther if he will accept his deal. That’s when Kevin notices that T’Challa has somehow sneaked into the room and is watching this confrontation from a nearby couch. [3] That’s when a stun grenade goes off that temporarily incapacitates Kasper. This allows Triage to get in close and try to remove Kevin’s mask. If Blacque discovers who he really is, the lives of his mother, his girlfriend Gwen, and their unborn child will be in forfeit. Luckily, Cole recovers enough to throw Triage off of him. He then begins opening fire on his foe, but Nigel shrugs off the bullets because his skin is lined with bullet proofing Armorex. When Triage flees, the Black Panther prusues.

Suddenly, he hears the voice of T’Challa in his head telling him to stop this useless attack. Thinking the voice is coming from a transceiver in his suit, Kasper refuses to back down.[4] After exchanging gunfire with Triage’s goons, Kasper notices his foe fleeing in a military helicopter. Despite T’Challa’s warnings, Kevin leaps out the window and tries to grab onto the chopper but misses by mere inches. Falling to the streets below, he tries to break his fall by grabbing onto a flagpole, having seen Spider-Man and Daredevil do this move all the time. Unfortunately, Cole is falling to fast and the pole snaps off and the flag begins blinding him. He just barely manages to cut through the flag with his claws before he impacts on the hood of a taxi on the street below. Thanks to the Vibranium weave of his costume, the Black Panther survives the fall instead of becoming street pizza.

That’s when a man approaches him an offers some coffee. Kasper instantly recognizes the man as a part of the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Branch. His name is Captain Franklin De LaGuardia. He also happens to know that this Black Panther is also Kasper Cole. They both climb into a squad car where Franklin (who insists on being called Delay) tells him to get his mask off. IAB has been investigating Sal Anthony this entire time. He says that Kasper’s only card left is Sal Anthony’s mistaken belief that Francis Tork is the Black Panther.[5] The more Delay looks into the case the more it seems like someone is pressing Sal Anthony to lean on Kasper. What he wants Cole to do is to sit the rest of this out for the safety of himself and his family and let IAB do its job. The Captain then tells Cole that his double-identity is known only to him and that IAB finding out all depends on what Kasper does next.

When they pull up to Cole’s apartment building, he asks LaGuardia who actually put the hit out on his father, Black Jack Cole.[6] All Franklin will tell him is that his father was not just a good cop — one of the best — he was also a crook who got what’s coming to him. He then informs Kasper that Sal Anthony captured Francis Tork and managed to dump the IAB surveillance that was following him. He also knows that Tork gave himself up as the Black Panther, likely to protect Kasper. Assuming that Tork is dead, Delay figures that it’s only a matter of time before Sal Anthony and his boys realize who the real Black Panther is.[7]

Kasper is horrified to learn all of this and drives out to the outskirts of town to check a spot where he threatened a drug dealer named Dre at the beginning of all of this.[8] When he arrives on the scene, he sees Francis’ trademark shotgun and police badge being used as a marker of a freshly dug grave. Frantically digging it up, Kasper is horrified to discover Tork’s body beneath the dirt of this shallow grave. He then puts on a Kippah and recites a Jewish prayer to his friend.

When Kasper returns home, his mother Ruth and girlfriend Gwen are bickering again over toilet paper. In his current mood he just ignores them and heads to the bathroom to take a shower and think.[9] Later, Cole goes down to the police station and goes through Tork’s locker. Inside, he finds the file on Sal Anthony as well as a gun and a stack of cash. He realizes what’s going on and confronts Sal Anthony about it in his office. He knows that he’s going to use this as evidence to pin Francis’ murder on Dre, who is also dead, and then ruin Tork’s memory by making everyone think he is a dirty cop. Kasper realizes that this is to pressure him into working with Sal. He then pulls out the file on Anthony, and knows that this was all bullshit fabricated by Sal to see if Kasper was going to rat him out. He insists that he isn’t going to rat Sal out. Pleased by this, and thinking he’s got Kasper on his side, Anthony tells him to pick up a woman at Dyker Beach and take her to Grand Army Plaza. Doing so will ensure that there is enduring peace on the streets. Kasper will only agree to do this once he is taken off the traffic cop beat. As he leaves the office to do what is asked of him, Cole then tells Sal that if he harms his father again, he’ll kill him.

Kasper then goes to visit his father at the State Pen, as he has been released from intensive care. Pushing his father around the visitors yard in a wheelchair he tells Black Jack about the drama at home. However, Jack Cole has a pretty good idea what is going on in his son’s life and warns Kasper not to be like Sal Anthony. Kasper then meets with Hunter — T’Challa’s adopted brother and the White Wolf of the Hatute Zuraze — on the bus ride back into the city.[10] They go over the files stolen from Triage’s computer and he comes across a line in Luganda dialect that means “two brothers”. Cole realizes this must tie in with the legend of Kibuka and that Triage is being led by his father. Kasper then tells Hunter to cut the shit and tell him who is gunning after his father. Hunter insists that he doesn’t know who it is, even if Kasper doesn’t believe him. That’s when Cole wonders how long it will take this mystery person to find out that the new Black Panther and the cop he is trying to turn are the same man.

As Kasper returns to the city, he is unaware that his father has been brought to a private room in the prison. There, he gets up out of his wheelchair — his injuries apparently a sham — he then sits down at a computer and begins chatting with Triage. As it turns out, Black Jack Cole is the mysterious Kibuka. He tells Triage to be patient as matters will soon will come to their conclusion.

Recurring Characters

Black Panther, T’Challa, Francis Tork, T’Challa, Ruth Cole, Gwen, Hunter, 66 Bridges (Triage, Black Jack Cole), Franklin de LaGuardia

Continuity Notes

1. T’Challa has had an on-again-off-again membership with the Avengers since he first joined in Avengers #52. Obviously, this Black Panther isn’t because he’s not the same guy. Kasper has been operating as the Panther since Black Panther (vol. 3) #50. The reason why T’Challa is not in the role presently is because he is recovering from a head injury sustained in issue #39. At the time, T’Challa believes he is dying, but he’ll be all healed up again by the time he shows up in Black Panther (vol. 4) #1.

2. Sal Anthony is a crooked cop in the back pocket of 66 Bridges. When he couldn’t buy Kasper’s loyalty, he set him and his team up for a fall. It ended with his narco unit killed and Cole on a five day suspension. As seen in issue #50

3. The reason why Kasper is operating as the Black Panther is because T’Challa is recovering from head injuries sustained in Black Panther (vol. 3) #39 and thinks that he is dying. However, he will soon fully recover from these injuries as we’ll see in Black Panther (vol. 4) #1. Kasper had stumbled into the role when he found a damaged Panther costume in the home of his friend Francis Tork in issue #50.

4. This suggests that T’Challa has telepathic abilities which suggests that he is becoming like his Reality-1145 counterpart. First seen in Black Panther (vol. 3) #35, this version of T’Challa came from some 10 years in the future where his head injury never healed. This gave him telepathic powers but he was living on borrowed time. This was all explained in Black Panther (vol. 3) #48-49, the same issues where this T’Challa died, prompting T’Challa-616 to leave the Wakandan throne and retire as the Black Panther. If T’Challa is developing telepathic powers here, he will eventually lose them when he recovers from his injuries (at least that’s the best explanation I can come up with since official sources tend to shy away from an actual explanation of what happened between volume 3 and 4 of Black Panther) The reality designation of Black Panther-1145 in Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe A-Z #4.

5. Sal Anthony misinterpreted the evidence he has been gathering on the Black Panther over the last two issues, which led him to believe that the Panther was Francis Tork.

6. As we learned in Black Panther (vol. 3) #53, “Black Jack” Cole was a cop who was seemingly framed for drug possession and sent to prison a number of years earlier. In that same issue, someone put a failed hit on Black Jack in jail. While Jack survived the attempt, he was seriously injured and hospitalized… Or so it seemed! Keep reading!

7. We were lead to believe Francis Tork was killed between last issue and this one. However, Tork manages to survive and his death was faked, as we’ll learn in Black Panther (vol. 3) #62.

8. Dre was a pusher from 66 Bridges who Kasper threatened into helping him try and get evidence to take down Sal Anthony in Black Panther (vol. 3) #50. He did so by forcing Dre to dig a grave and threatened to kill him. However, Dre got caught in issue #52, and executed the following issue.

9. Gwen complains a bout Kasper losing his cellphone. That’s because he threw it out a window in frustration about the frequent calls from either his mother or Gwen. See issue #53.

10. Hunter mentions that he is the adopted brother of T’Challa. As revealed in Black Panther (vol. 3) #10, when Hunter was an infant, a plane carrying him and his parents crashed in Wakanda. The lone surviver, Hunter was adopted by T’Chaka who raised the boy as his own.

Topical References

• Triage specifically refers to his personal computer as a Mac. This should be considered topical as this is a real world computer company.

• Blacque states that his penthouse is worth 12 million dollars. Adjusting for inflation that’d be worth about 19 million in 2024. However, real estate prices have gotten ridiculiously more expensive. A penthouse in Manhattan goes for about 35 million as I write this.

• Tirage states the NYPD has 40,000 officers in 76 precincts and that there are about 200 people in the same rank as Sal Anthony. These figures are relative to the year this comic was originally published (2003). Surprisingly, looking it up today (Jan. 2024), there are less cops now at 36,000 officers policing 77 precincts across the the 8 boroughs.

• While making his villain speech, Triage makes references to the Penguin, the Riddler, and Chief O’Hara. These are all characters from the Batman franchise of comic books and ancillary media. Chief O’Hara in particular only appeared in the Batman television series that ran from 1966 to 1968. These characters are all owned by DC Comics. Their reference here does not seem to be topical as the DC franchise is tangentially attached the grater fictional Omniverse that the Marvel Universe finds itself in. There is a level of awareness that even boils down to the DC pop-culture. You could argue that the reference to Chief O’Hara is topical since the character hasn’t appeared outside of the TV show and might not be as well known anymore. You do you.

• Kasper identifies Triage’s escape helicopter as a Blackhawk. This is the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk, a military helicopter used by the United States since 1974 as well as other nations. I’m not a huge military buff but I assume that this depiction is of the model commonly used in 2003. This should be considered topical as military equipment will change over time and the Blackhawk type seen here will eventually be retired out.

• Some of the data pulled from Triage’s computer is identified as ICQ journal. ICQ was an instant messenger that was all the rage in 2003 in the days before social media. The program came out in 1996 and maintained popularity until the early 2000s. Its still around today, run by a Russian company, which is not sus at all. Anyway, its reference here should be considered topical.

• When trying to find out Kibuka, he wonders if he plays golf with Bush. This is reference to George W. Bush, who was the President of the United States when this story was originally published. This should be considered topical as Dubya’s Presidency ended in 2009.

Translations

• When finding “Tork’s” body, Kasper says a prayer in Hebrew, it reads “Elohaynu veilohay avoteinu v'imoteinu... ...Adonai natan v'Adonai lakach. Yhiyi shem Adonai mivorach”, this translates to “Our God and God of our fathers and mothers... ...The Lord gives, and the Lord takes. Blessed be the name of the Lord."

• Later, while Black Jack and Triage are chatting with one another, they greet each other in Luganda.

  • “Oslibye otya nno?” = “How was your day?”

  • “Bulungi” = “Good”