Jack Kirby's Grandson Reveals The Legendary Artist's First Sketch Of BLACK PANTHER
Earlier this week, Black Panther became the first superhero movie in history to earn a "Best Picture" nomination at the Oscars and Jeremy Kirby has now shared his grandfather's first sketch of the hero.
Black Panther made his comic book debut in the pages of 1966's Fantastic Four #52 but T'Challa could have had a very different appearance.
As you can see below, legendary comic book artist Jack Kirby's first take on the hero was a lot more colourful and if you're wondering why there's a "T" on his suit, it's because Kirby's original concept named him "Coal Tiger."
That was ultimately scrapped and he obviously became known as Black Panther instead, but the cape was carried over into the final design (it's easy to forget that the King of Wakanda used to wear one of those on a regular basis).
The Black Panther movie picked up an impressive seven Oscar nominations earlier this week, including "Best Picture" which is a first for a superhero movie (not even The Dark Knight managed to land a spot in that category back in 2009). It's a shame that neither Stan Lee or Jack Kirby are here to see that, but you just know they're smiling down at that news.
What are your thoughts on this early Black Panther design? Share your thoughts in the usual place.
About The Author:
A lifelong comic book fan who grew up on Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the '90s, Josh Wilding has been contributing to ComicBookMovie.com since 2009.
While he's also written for websites like Batman-News, HeyUGuys, and WhatCulture, Josh is CBM's Rotten Tomatoes-approved critic and the site's #1 contributor with nearly two decades of experience covering film and TV news (including interviews with Tom Holland, Chris Pratt, Gary Oldman, Halle Berry, Jon Bernthal, Tom Welling, and hundreds more).
Based in the UK with his wife, Josh is also an avid WWE and Formula 1 fan and writes about those passions on CBM's sister sites, TheRingReport.com and FullThrottleHQ.com. Favourite superhero? Spider-Man. Favourite pro wrestler? CM Punk. Favourite F1 driver? Max Verstappen.