BIOGRAPHY - page 18
An opportunity came in the form of T'Challa's old comrade, Matt Murdock. As Daredevil, Murdock had recently fallen from grace after taking over the Hand and being possessed by the demonic Beast at the core of the ninja clan. He brought the Hand citadel of Shadowland to Hell's Kitchen in an effort to enforce ultimate order on his neighborhood, but lost control and had to be brought down by his fellow heroes. Murdock needed time away from New York to recuperate, but he didn't want to leave Hell's Kitchen without a protector.
T'Challa saw Hell's Kitchen as an opportunity to prove himself independently of Wakanda and the mantle of the Black Panther. And so, he accepted Murdock's request that T'Challa guard Hell's Kitchen in his absence. With the help of Murdock's law partner Foggy Nelson, T'Challa had a new identity constructed for him as Mr. Okonkwo from the Democratic Republic of Congo. He took over management of a diner called the Devil's Kitchen in order to establish himself among the people of Hell's Kitchen, hiring a local young man named Brian and a Serbian expatriate named Sofija as his wait staff. In order to ensure this test validated his skills as he wanted, T'Challa instructed Ororo and Shuri to leave him to meet this challenge alone. [Daredevil (1st series) #512, Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513]
In his new role as simply "the Panther," T'Challa first major threat was Vlad the Impaler, an up-and-coming mob boss working with his son Nicolae to fill the recent gap left by the Kingpin in Hell's Kitchen. Vlad was a Romanian immigrant and recipient of a super-soldier program in his homeland. Each stalked the other like prey as they circled around one another. Vlad traced the Panther's activities to the same block as the Devil's Kitchen, and staged a bank robbery nearby to draw T'Challa into a trap. Vlad appeared personally for the heist, and killed a police officer as well as T'Challa's employee Brian as he passed by. The struggle depleted the charge of Vlad's bio-
energy, however, and he was forced to flee before killing the Panther. When the Panther tracked Vlad to his home address, he inadvertently arrived just after a serial killer had murdered Vlad's wife, leading the Impaler to believe the Panther had killed his wife in revenge for their earlier encounter. This made their conflict deeply personal instead of the mere business it started as. [Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #513-515]
T'Challa's setbacks drew the attention of other heroes in New York like Luke Cage and Spider-Man, who were concerned he couldn't maintain control of Hell's Kitchen. T'Challa was unaccustomed to answering to people, and was brusque towards Cage and the others butting in on his test of mettle. With some reluctant assistance, the Panther disabled many of Vlad's associates and business ventures while also proving for the police that a renegade social worker had killed Vlad's wife for abusing his younger son. Vlad refused to believe this and, after identifying Panther as Okonkwo, went to the diner to confront him. Vlad built his bio-energy charge to create an explosion designed to kill everyone present. He didn't release the charge until it was too late to realize that Nicolae was also in the diner waiting for a shot at Okonkwo.
Vlad seriously wounded his son in the blast and went completely mad, killing Nicolae for showing weakness before continuing to attack the Panther. The police arrived and forced Vlad to retreat again. Sofija had learned of T'Challa's secret identity and became his confidant, helping gather the materials he needed to confront Vlad. The Panther used his scientific knowledge to construct 
tools that neutralized Vlad's abilities. T'Challa fought Vlad through the city and finally disabled him as his bio-charge depleted itself. He turned New York's latest intended crime lord over to the police, proving himself worthy as defender of Hell's Kitchen. T'Challa and Sofija returned to rebuild the Devil's Kitchen and prepare for the next threat. [Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #516-518]
The Panther discovered Brian was still alive and had been subjected to paranormal experiments by a doctor at the hospital before escaping. He attempted to locate his ex-employee and bring him to safety, but the doctor hired Kraven the Hunter to stalk the Panther and retrieve Brian for her. Their chase through the city was caught on the news, and Storm finally had enough. She saw her husband in danger and had Pixie teleport her from Utopia to assist him. T'Challa was initially nonplussed at being rescued by his wife, as he still wanted to prove himself independently. Still, he quickly swallowed his pride and worked with Ororo for the rest of the mission. Kraven was dealt with, Brian was made safe again and the doctor was turned over to the authorities. [Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #519-520] Perhaps as part of an apology, T'Challa rejected membership in the Avengers when Captain America came looking for him a few weeks later. Instead, he nominated his wife as a good candidate for Earth's Mightiest Heroes in his place. [Avengers (4th series) #19]
As a wave of fear crossed over the world thanks to the Asgardian God of Fear called “the Serpent,” T'Challa found himself and other immigrants targeted in New York City. A local racist had become the new Hate Monger during the crisis, stirring up the general public against outsiders with the manipulative use of fear and hate. He also warped an unstable police officer into his personal champion, the American Panther. T'Challa's immigration papers as Mr. Okonkwo were challenged, forcing him and Foggy Nelson to answer to the police as the former owner of the 
Devil's Kitchen worked with Hate Monger to reclaim "his property" after the bank foreclosed on his ownership. As fear swept the city, the Hate Monger used hate to claim his own beachhead in the chaos. The Panther and Sofija retook the police station the Hate Monger co-opted, and T'Challa electronically purged the Hate Monger's powers from him. He then wiped any records of the investigation into his immigration status. [Black Panther: The Man Without Fear #521-523]
T'Challa's victories as the Panther came back to haunt him when someone began targeting and killing women he had earlier saved. T'Challa recognized the handiwork of Hunter, the White Wolf, trying to call him out for a duel. T'Challa predicted Hunter's next target and positioned Sofija in her place for a trap. Sofija removed the bullets from Hunter's gun, forcing him to face the Panther hand-to-hand. Hunter believed this would finally prove he was superior, since T'Challa no longer 
had the Panther God and the heart-shaped herb to bolster his abilities. Hunter believed he would defeat T'Challa and prove he should have been Black Panther. Hunter was wrong. T'Challa struck down his brother and left him for the police. [Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive #523.1]
While patrolling Hell's Kitchen, the Panther discovered the Kingpin of Crime and the Hand intended to make a play for the Bank of Wakanda. Debts had risen greatly in Wakanda after the Serpent War and the Vibranium crisis. Princess Shuri had requested the bank give additional time to those in arrears, for the bank could technically foreclose on millions of acres of Wakandan land. The Kingpin intended a hostile takeover of the Bank to force those foreclosures and claim a sizeable percentage of Wakanda for himself. Along with Shuri, Luke Cage, Falcon and his other allies, the Panther defended his kingdom and prevented Fisk from tainting his country. He also
accessed Fisk's financial database and exposed many of his illegal dealings to the police, significantly humbling the Kingpin. In doing so, T'Challa regained his confidence and completed his journey in Hell's Kitchen. He turned guardianship of the neighborhood back over to Matt Murdock and journeyed back to his wife and his homeland. [Black Panther: The Most Dangerous Man Alive #524-529]
T'Challa returned to Wakanda, establishing himself as a welcome member of the royal family under Queen Shuri, the Black Panther. Unrest came to Wakanda, however, when the undead servants of the jackal god Anubis began assaulting the kingdom. Wakanda was founded on the heart of knowledge of Amun-Ra, fallen patriarch of the Egyptian dynasty, who hid his heart from the treacherous Anubis when it was spirited away by the Egyptian goddess Bast, the earlier incarnation of the Panther God. Millennia later, Anubis had finally located the heart in Wakanda, and sought to claim it.
T'Challa requested the presence of Reed Richards in Wakanda to address the threat, but Reed misunderstood the invitation and brought along his class of brilliant prodigies, the Future Foundation. Reed thought they were there to brainstorm ways to save the Wakandan economy after the destruction of most of the country's cash crop, the Vibranium. After a moment to collect 
his thoughts, T'Challa politely pointed out to Reed that the Wakandans were economically savvy enough to have diversified their portfolio of interests for generations, and even without a regular supply of Vibranium their nation made trillions of dollars a year, a trifle of which was donated to the United States of America annually to help with their own staggering deficit. So. Anyway.
Once Reed understood the true purpose for his visit, he accompanied T'Challa to the gates of the Wakandan Necropolis, the final resting place of all Wakandan kings and Black Panthers throughout the ages. Shuri, Ororo and Susan Richards faced down the jackal god himself, but T'Challa and Reed faced a trial of the spirit instead. Inside the Necropolis, T'Challa was brought face-to-face with Bast and forced to declare his intentions. T'Challa admitted that he wanted to be Black Panther again, although he had no desire to take the throne or power from his worthy sister Shuri. Bast warned T'Challa of times of great peril to come in the days ahead, far beyond the threat of Anubis. When he insisted he was ready to face these trials, Bast presented T'Challa with 
her blessing as a second Black Panther. While Shuri would continue as Black Panther and Queen of Wakanda, land of the living, T'Challa would rule as king of the Wakandan Necropolis, the land of the honored dead. He was fully restored and now became capable of directly summoning the knowledge and skills of his father and forefathers, the living vessel for all Black Panthers in history. [Fantastic Four (1st series) #607-608]