BLACK PANTHER: Page 22 of 26

Publication Date: 29th Aug 2020
Written By: Monolith.
Image Work: Douglas Mangum.
Biography

BIOGRAPHY - page 22

And then they woke up. The life raft emerged from a form of stasis on an Earth-like world, with Stephen Strange of the Illuminati there to meet them. Strange informed them that, in the end, Victor von Doom had done what they could not. He confronted the Beyonders themselves, killing the Ivory Kings and claiming their power for himself as God. Doom drew together lingering fragments of various realities, preserved at the Incursion sites, and fashioned them into the only planet in existence, the composite Battleworld. However, the Cabal had also survived, emerging from their own life raft from Earth-1610. When Doom learned that Richards and the others still lived, and their memories threatened his divinity, Strange knew his friends would not be spared. He sacrificed his life defying Doom, scattering the survivors of Earth-616 across Battleworld. [Secret Wars #3-4]

T'Challa found himself in an unlikely alliance with Namor, of all people. After all the betrayals, the two men found grudges to be useless and put the past behind them. With the Key of Agamotto, they found a secret treasure trove of Strange's on an island retreat he maintained on Battleworld. Although he had served God Doom loyally for years, Strange had nevertheless prepared several contingency plans. The secret room contained a Siege Courageous, a portal for moving across vast distances, and a functional Infinity Gauntlet, keyed to the fragment of reality where Doom made his castle at Doomstadt. [Secret Wars #5-6]

One of the perils of Battleworld, beyond the Shield, were the Deadlands. This patch of desolate land was filled with zombies, Ultrons and the Annihilation Wave. As the battle for Doomstadt began, Black Panther stepped into his position as lord of the Wakandan Necropolis and King of the Dead. He traveled to the Shield to rally the zombies of the Deadlands to his cause, funneling them through the Siege Courageous to Doomstadt. This surging army overwhelmed God Doom's forces, helping turn the tide. With the Infinity Gauntlet at hand, T'Challa challenged Doom to combat of the Gods. Doom's omnipotence and experience wielding it eventually allowed him to triumph over T'Challa, but it did not matter.

The Black Panther's entire gamut had been a distraction so Reed Richards could reach the source of Doom's power for himself. Richards claimed that power and used it in a manner Doom never dreamed to recreate the lost universe. As reality was reordered, T'Challa used the last remaining power of the Infinity Gauntlet to roll back time to the day of the first Incursion. He greeted the winning Makers as before and, with no Black Swan to interrupt, these young pioneers were given their original mission to take Wakanda to the stars. [Secret Wars #7-9]

A new order was necessary. T'Challa was now the sole Black Panther and King of Wakanda again after his sister's fall. To rebuild Wakanda, he made alliances with several nations for the greater good. In New York harbor, Wakanda established the Triskelion building. The Wakandan embassy was now located in one of the structure's three wings. The second acted as ground control for the Alpha Flight space program, a joint venture among the nations of the world, chiefly supported by Wakanda, America and Canada, to act as interplanetary ambassadors and defense for the planet Earth. Finally, the third wing housed the Ultimates program. In the final days of the Incursion crisis, Adam Brashear (The Blue Marvel) challenged T'Challa and Reed Richards over the secrecy they kept surrounding the Incursions. By acting alone and refusing to ask for help, their arrogance in the Illuminati severely limited the options and ideas at play. The Ultimates would be a new form of cosmic troubleshooters, assessing future existential threats to reality, but doing so in the public eye, with full disclosure of their activities to the United Nations and the people of Earth through broadcast logs of their work. [Ultimates (2nd series) #1]

For their first mission, the Ultimates shot for the stars. Black Panther, Blue Marvel, Spectrum, America Chavez and Captain Marvel of Alpha Flight decided to solve Galactus. They retrieved the birthing creche which first transformed Galan of Taa from the Sixth Cosmos into Galactus the World-Eater of the Seventh. By enveloping Galactus into the birthing chamber again and recharging it through the power of Iso-8 (an energy source unique to this new Eighth Cosmos), they accelerated Galactus' maturity from Devourer to Lifebringer. Galactus would consume living planets no longer -- instead, he had the power to bring life back to dead worlds. The Ultimates succeeded where nobody else in the universe had: they ended the threat of Galactus. [Ultimates (2nd series) #2]

Hot from their victory, Black Panther and Blue Marvel wanted to pursue an even greater quest: fixing the broken nature of time itself. Although the Incursion crisis had created the Eighth Cosmos, lingering issues from the Seventh remained, such as a breakdown of temporal laws due to multiple mass examples of time travel. Using the Abeona exo-craft, they wanted to leave the universe entirely and observe it from a remote point, seeing the "patient" from the outside to properly assess the damage. However, even with Ms. America's star-portals for transport and hyperdensity Pym Particles reinforcing the hull, the trek out past the Neutral Zone proved perilous. Outside of space and time, beyond Eternity himself, the Ultimates proved incapable of completing their journey. They crossed paths with the immensely powerful Anti-Man in the Neutral Zone and captured him, but tried to travel even further. They would have been annihilated in the cosmic nothingness if Galactus hadn't responded to their plight and guided them back into recognizable space. [Ultimates (2nd series) #3-6]

Black Panther and the Ultimates were on hand when the Inhumans reported the imminent return of Thanos to Earth, searching for a Cosmic Cube. Thanos was defeated and housed under the Triskelion with Anti-Man, but it was the way the Inhumans knew he was coming that proved intriguing. A NuHuman named Ulysses had developed the ability to perceive the future, experiencing vivid and accurate visions of upcoming threats. Captain Marvel was highly interested in Ulysses' abilities, and wanted to incorporate him into the Ultimates' mandate of anticipating and stopping threats before they happened.

Black Panther initially supported the Ulysses Initiative, but was concerned by the zeal with which Carol Danvers pursued it. A vision of a deadly Hulk manifestation led to the murder of Bruce Banner before he could prove dangerous. When one of Ulysses' visions of a terrorist attack in New York proved wrong, Carol continued pursuing charges against the identified suspect, Alison Green, despite the lack of any evidence against her. The Ultimates came to blows over this last incident, with America and Blue Marvel actively rejecting a predictive crime model like this if it was flawed. The escape of Thanos and Anti-Man from their cells ended the in-fighting for the moment, but the Ultimates' bond was strained to the breaking point.

The final break came mere hours later. After learning about Alison Green and the fallibility of Ulysses' model, Iron Man led a band of heroes to free her from the Triskelion and actively oppose Captain Marvel's actions. At a critical moment in the conflict, Black Panther made a show of visibly changing sides and denouncing Captain Marvel's behavior. This was a tactical political maneuver designed to have the maximum effect in undermining Carol before the world. Ulysses soon ascended to a higher state of being, making much of it moot, but the damage was done. American and Wakandan relations were strained and the Ultimates program was shut down by executive order. The order was deemed necessary because the Ultimates as a group were considered too powerful to operate without oversight. [Civil War II #1-9, Ultimates (2nd series) #7-12]