Black Panther (vol. 4) #41

Nov 30

Nov 30 Black Panther (vol. 4) #41

See Wakanda and Die, Part 3

The Skrulls have launched a massive invasion of Earth. Part of this invasion included a military unit being sent to capture the African nation of Wakanda.[1] Although some of the spies sent to infiltrate the country were discovered by its ruler, the Black Panther (T’Challa), the Skrulls have won the ensuing ground war.[2] Now, Commander K’vvvr looks over the dead bodies in the field of battle and hopes that this is the last war he will ever fight.

Returning to his ship, he sees all the wounded soldiers, some of them young and fresh, trying to process the horrors of war. K’vvvr remembers this well, recalling his first kill, a young Kree boy. The youth and every other person he had killed over the years used to haunt his dreams until he became so cold and number to the carnage that he stopped dreaming all together. As he reaches his command post, one of K’vvvr’s subordinates tells him that the prisoners are prepared. He is glad, as he wants to put Wakanda behind him once and for all.

In the ship’s torture room, the Black Panther and his wife, Storm (Ororo Monroe), are shackled upright. Storm is forced to wear an inhibitor collar that prevents her from using her mutant powers. When Commander K’vvvr enters the room, he is flanked with other Skrulls who are eager to use their instruments of torture on the two captured humans. T’Challa warns K’vvvr that if any harm comes to his wife, he will hunt down the Skrulls to extinction. The commander tells the Panther that she will be beaten beyond recognition unless the king surrenders his kingdom to the Skrull Empire. K’vvvr retorts by saying that the conquest of Earth was a foregone conclusion and that any further resistance will be seen as a trifle at best.

When given the opportunity to surrender once more, T’Challa — at Storm’s insistence — tells the Skrulls to go to hell. In response, the two Wakandan royals are subject to a brutal beating. After which, K’vvvr asks them again to surrender. T’Challa and Ororo never lose the icy stares in their eyes during the beating and continue to give them as they tell him to go to hell once more. The torture then continues and it seems that T’Challa shows a sign of weakness by looking over at what his wife is enduring and he begins to scream.

These screams are so loud, they can be heard by the surviving Wakandans outside. T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, asks her Uncle S’Yan if they should do something about this. However, this is all according to the Black Panther’s plan and he tells Shuri to trust in her brother as he knows what he is doing.

Back inside the ship, the torture continues on and on. K’vvvr gets fed up of waiting for surrender and tells the torturers to alert him once T’Challa is ready to give in. He then goes up to the bridge to contact his wife. This is something he finds difficult to do because he promised her that his final mission would be an easy one and he could finally settle down and live out his retirement. Now he knows different, he knows that the Wakandans will never surrender and he will be forced to remain until all of them have been eradicated. Commander K’vvvr is interrupted by a progress report.

As he is being told that the prisoners are continuing to resist, the chief torturer has begun a deeper examination because they are begin repeating the same phrase in a delirium. He discovers a strange device in the Black Panther’s throat and removes it. Looking at it, it appears to be some kind of vocal manipulator. That’s when the prisoner begins insisting that he is not the real Black Panther, but the one put on duty to guard him. They then remove flesh manipulators and confirm what he was claiming all along, that they were Skrulls. This is all reported up to Commander K’vvvr, who can’t hear much over all the screaming from the torture patients, and the soldiers who reporting to him about souls. As he turns away from the two soldiers, they drop their holographic disguises. They were the Black Panther and Storm this entire time. As it turns out, they knew about all the Skrulls infiltrators all along. While the Skrulls could hide their true identities to all mortal forms of discovery, the same could not have been said about the Panther God. This was all a huge set up, and with the truth finally out in the open, T’Challa and Ororo run K’vvvr through with their swords.

Storm then uses her mutant powers to cause a lightning strike outside, the signal for the warriors of Wakanda to attack once more. This causes the Skrulls to panic, and when some come up to the bridge to get orders, they are slaughtered by the Panther and Storm. Clinging to life, K’vvvr’s last act is to write a letter back home to his wife. He claims that he will be fighting longer than expected and paints a rosy picture that suggests that they will be victorious in battle. However, he is wrong, and K’vvvr and his soldiers are all killed. Their bodies are loaded up in their ship. Then, the ship is launched back into space in a return course to the Skrull galaxy. Inside, the bodies have been piled up around a wall where the words “This is what happens when you invade Wakanda” scrawled in blood.

Recurring Characters

Black Panther, Storm, Skrulls (K’vvvr)

Continuity Notes

The Skrulls have infiltrated Earth for months, seeking to conquer the planet and just sprung their invasion. This is primarily told in the pages of Secret Invasion #1-8 and various crossover issues and limited series. See below for a full listing and read order.
Wakanda was tipped off to the Skrulls infiltration in Black Panther (vol. 3) #38, and they fought over the last two issues.