In anticipation of the Black Panther film, I picked up the third volume in the “A Nation Under Our Feet” story line. We see more of T’Challa’s sister, Shuri, her leadership and the unique abilities she learned during her time in the Djalia, a spiritual plane. “A Nation Under Our Feet” is a great, thoughtful iteration of the Black Panther narrative that takes a more philosophical approach. But, I feel it also lacks the urgency and pacing to keep things exciting from panel to panel. ( )

Ah yes, just what I wanted, another book of everyone telling the Midnight Angels that they were wrong to go help women who were being assaulted. I feel like I was reading a very different book than he wanted me to be reading. ( )

This instillation comes some way toward justifying the previous two - the problem with the presentation of A Nation Under Our Feet is the way it was chopped into chunks that don't come close to standing on their own, and - more importantly - with the assumption that any good writer can write good comics. 95% of aNUOF is conversations. List your top 10 favorite comics based on conversations. If it's tricky, this one might make the final cut for you. Preacher had issues of conversation. Sandman, even, may have done so for a few issues. But both of those books had comics professionals at the helm (even if it's one of Neil's earlier efforts - he was born and bred on comics).

Anyway - I'll stop whining (see my reviews for books 1 and 2 for that).

One improvement in this trade paperback is that they didn't fill 20% of it with alternative covers. What are fans doing with all these covers? How about reading a book... how would that be? (stopping myself from heading backing into whining now)

There's a fault in the book in that it gives a slapdash effort to put elements from 3 New Avengers issues into it to remind readers of critical events in that series that lead to conditions in this one. It isn't enough to give you a story - so it's for reminder purposes only. If you'd made it through the whole book without these "reminders", they'll do you no good reading them at the end. So - foolish and lacking publishing integrity again, Marvel's selling you unwanted printed pages.

The action sequences in this book go by too quickly, with no sense of narrative art timing. That said, they at least held attention better than the previous two books. The philosophical elements are more enjoyable in this book - as they are doing their intended job of paying off for all the build up. I like them. I went to 3 stars in Vol 3 (vs. 2 stars for previous). It also shows that the Eisner nomination wasn't strictly an elitist gentrification thing. There was a good story here after all.

Coates was given a hard job - to establish a new order and clean up all the well-intended but confusing and choppy efforts to write Wakanda in recent years. We're left with a nation intact, with struggles and a vision. Best of all, we got the single page that leads readers to believe we may even get a reversal on one of the most nonsensical break-ups in comics history (really saying something for a company that proudly broke up Peter and Mary Jane). That alone gives me reason to check out Vol. 4.

I didn't love this book, but I liked it - and it did make some sense of Volumes 1 and 2. It was something of a necessary evil, handled by a capable writer. Even though that writer is NOT a capable comics writer (yet).
( )

There are some issues of pacing and there is still a surfeit of 'talking head' scenes, but this book has grown on me. It continues being an intelligent, introspective, personally and politically insightful examination of a superhero who is also the leader of his own nation. The large cast of characters feels more better managed in these issues and I find myself more invested in the events as I find my bearings in the complex landscape presented here. ( )

Revolution, civil war, death and destruction. And I could not be more bored. ( )