What Classic Black Panther Story Was Originally Meant as a Crossover?

Summary

Christopher Priest's Black Panther series was originally part of Marvel Knights, a publishing initiative that gave Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti control over four Marvel titles
Black Panther's place in the Marvel Universe was complicated since it was first part of Marvel Knights
"Enemy of the State II" was a major storyline that almost became a crossover with Iron Man, but the plans changed, although it was still a critical success.

Welcome to the 911st installment of Comic Book Legends Revealed, a column where we examine three comic book myths, rumors and legends and confirm or debunk them. This time, in our second legend, we look at what classic Black Panther story was originally intended to be a crossover.

When Christopher Priest launched his Black Panther series in 1998, it was part of a bit of an unusual publishing initiative by Marvel called Marvel Knights. The idea was to replicate the idea of the Heroes Reborn publishing initiative, where Jim Lee and Rob Liefeld's respective studios were given control of four of Marvel's most famous superhero titles (Avengers, Fantastic Four, Iron Man and Captain America) and allowed to essentially create the comic books themselves, and they would just be published by Marvel. So Lee and Liefeld would have effectively complete creative control, and Marvel would basically be "farming the comics out."

Whatever else you think about Heroes Reborn, it clearly sold a lot more copies of those particular titles than Marvel had been selling before that point. So Marvel was interested in trying the idea again, only instead of putting the books into their own continuity, Event Comics would be given control of four titles that would be placed within the Marvel Universe still. Event Comics was Joe Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti's company that launched the hit series, Ash. The four characters that Event (doing business at Marvel as Marvel Knights) picked up were Daredevil, The Inhumans, Punisher and Black Panther.

The cover to Black Panther's Marvel Knights debut

However, while these books were set in the Marvel Universe, as you might imagine, it's a bit weird doing crossovers with the Marvel Universe when you're sort of being published by your own separate company, and that peculiar situation especially resonated for Priest's Black Panther, which was very much part of the Marvel Universe and also NOT really part of the Marvel Universe, even though it was close enough that one of its most famous story arcs was almost an Iron Man crossover!

What was Black Panther's issue with the Marvel Universe?

The big problem for Priest when it came to Black Panther's place within the greater Marvel Universe is that, to be frank, while the Marvel Universe could naturally have a major impact on Black Panther, it was less likely that Black Panther would have an impact on the Marvel Universe. For instance, the revelation in an early issue of the series that T'Challa had joined the Avengers, in part, to spy on them, could have easily had major repercussions on the rest of the Marvel Universe...

Or it could just be mostly ignored (it was mostly just ignored, although obviously some of the more attentive writers did something with it. I believe Kurt Busiek did, for instance). After the first twelve issues of Black Panther were done as part of Marvel Knights, the series then moved to Marvel editorial with its 13th issue (so that Marvel Knights could launch some more series), and new editor Ruben Diaz really pushed Priest to try to make the book more "mainstream," which meant LOTs of guest stars from throughout the Marvel Universe (the series also finally gained a regular art team of Sal Velluto and Bob Almond)...

When Tom Brevoort then took over the editing duties on the title, Brevoort wanted to find a better middle ground. Definitely don't take Black Panther out of the Marvel Universe, by any means, but also don't push the Panther in TOO much. Priest was doing great stories on the series, keep that up, and don't worry as much about artificially goosing up the interaction with the rest of the Marvel Universe. Let it flow more naturally.

The most notable example of this would be the storyline, "Stürm und Drang: A Story of Love & War," which involved political machinations involving T'Challa, Latveria, Lemuria and Genosha, allowing Doctor Doom, Namor and Storm to all guest-star in the twisty, fascinating arc...

Black Panther and Storm have a romantic moment

This, though, led to the continued frustration that Priest had that whatever big plots he had on the book, it didn't seem like the rest of the Marvel Universe ever acknowledged it. Panther might have Storm appear in HIS comic, but Panther wasn't appearing in Uncanny X-Men, ya know? So that led to the plans for a major crossover between Black Panther and another book Tom Brevoort edited at the time, Iron Man, which was being written by Frank Tieri. Priest had a major storyline that involved T'Challa and Tony Stark being at odds with each other, trying to one-up each other, and allowing the story to crossover with Iron Man would have been a big deal for the book.

What story was nearly an Iron Man crossover?

The only problem is that Tieri was replaced on Iron Man by Mike Grell right before the storyline would have begun. Priest felt that it would have been unfair to force Grell to have a crossover so soon into his run, so instead, Brevoort worked out a deal where Priest could just get the use of Iron Man and the crossover would instead simply take place just in Black Panther's comic.

The result, "Enemy of the State II," was a big critical success...

The cover that kicked off Enemy of the State II

Priest later noted how grateful he was that Brevoort trusted him with another book's hero for such a big story. Sadly, since it WASN'T a crossover, it probably didn't have the impact on Iron Man that it could have.

Amusingly, I asked Frank Tieri about the crossover that wasn't, and he vaguely remembered it (as the late, great Len Wein told me once, it's hard enough remembering the stories that DID happen, let alone the ones that DIDN'T happen), but the tricky thing for him was that the other major guest star in the arc was Wolverine (as T'Challa's plans involved Canada) and Tieri was writing Wolverine's comic, as well, so he couldn't recall if the proposed crossover was going to be with Wolverine or Iron Man. Priest, though, notes it was Iron Man, and he went into such great detail about Brevoort helping him out at the time, I tend to believe him.

"Enemy of the State II" was a great story, but boy, it would have been a fascinating crossover.