The Black Panther
Marvel Comics' first Black superhero, the Black Panther, debuted in 1966 in Fantastic Four #52. The character capped off an immense period of creativity by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, following on from The Inhumans, Galactus and the Silver Surfer, and the standalone classic, "This Man, This Monster" in Fantastic Four #51. Whilst he wasn't the first ever Black superhero - that honour goes to the short-lived Lion Man created by George & Orrin Evans in 1947 - he was certainly the first to appear regularly in mainstream comics in the U.S. The story of his creation began in 1965. Martin Goodman, the owner of Marvel Comics, decided he wanted to expand their line of comics and tasked editor Stan Lee with devising some new characters. Lee, in turn, went to the man he had come to rely on so heavily by then - Jack Kirby. There are two possible reasons why Goodman was suddenly so keen to expand the Marvel line at that time; one is that Kirby's former partner with whom he...