Avengers, The #87

Issue Details

Synopsis

"Look Homeward, Avenger!" During a quiet evening at Avengers Mansion, the group spends the downtime together. They soon find their fellow Avenger, Black Panther, is troubled and manage to talk him into tell them his origins: T'Challa is the son of the Wakandan chief T'Chaka, who raised him to be a brave and just warrior. One the explorers named Klaw came to their land seeking to exploit the excess amounts of Vibranium in the region, and killed T'Chaka in the process. T'Challa vowed to one day get revenge on the man who killed his father. Taken in by the father of his childhood friend B'Tumba, T'Challa the two of them were sent to America to get an education, where the two were always in competition with one another, T'Challa always overshadowing the efforts of B'Tumba. When their schooling was over, B'Tumba went his own way while T'Challa returned to his homeland where he went through the tests to become the next Black Panther of the Wakandan people. The first test is to fight a dozen of Wakanda's finest warriors, the next is to spend the night in the temple of the panther god. After being awarded the costume of the Black Panther, T'Challa is sent on his third mission: to collect a rare heart-shaped herb that grows in the wilds that would grant T'Challa great powers. Searching for the herb, T'Challa stumbles upon a number of members of Advanced Idea Mechanics, seeking to steal Vibranium for their own twisted purposes. Being spotted, T'Challa is easily captured by A.I.M. and is held prisoner. They soon reveal to T'Challa, that they plan to use the Vibranium to construct devices to rule the Earth from space. Black Panther also learns that one of the A.I.M. members is B'Tumba. Ordered to execute T'Challa, B'Tumba finds that he cannot do it, and frees the Black Panther and joins him in battling the A.I.M. soldiers. During the combat, B'Tumba is fatally wounded, and after A.I.M. retreats, B'Tumba apologizes to Black Panther before dying. Finishing his story, T'Challa explains the reason his mind was on the past was that he had just received word that N'Baza had died, and that he must choose to return to Wakanda to rule, or renounce his title forever.