BIOGRAPHY - page 6
The Black Panther was approached by Mr. Abner Little of the Collectors, a group of rich and eccentric individuals dedicated to acquiring unique items of value, and had little regard for fair play or the rights of others. Mr. Little got T'Challa's attention by referencing his grandfather Azzari the Wise, who once owned King Solomon's Frog, a statuette liberated from the tomb of that king before falling into the Wakandan's possession. The frog was actually an unstable time machine and, while Azzari was too wise to use it, others in the Collectors were inclined to do so.
T'Challa accompanied Mr. Little in his search for the frog's current location, for Little agreed to return the frog to King Solomon's tomb once they retrieved it. Their quest led them into conflict with Princess Zanda, another of the Collectors, and the mysterious Hatch-22, an evolved man summoned from the future by the frog with the power to lay waste to the planet. Mr. Little and T'Challa reasoned the frog was part of a set, and a second frog found in the tomb could be used 
to send Hatch-22 and the other displaced beings back home. Black Panther, Mr. Little and Zanda found the second frog in King Solomon's Tomb and used it to smooth out the timeline. T'Challa then forced his greedy companions to abandon the tomb filled with riches before a chain reaction destroyed the entire site. [Black Panther (1st series) #1-4]
T'Challa had no love for the Collectors and attempted to rid himself of them. Instead, Princess Zanda forced him into a second quest by threatening to launch nuclear missiles at Wakanda. The Black Panther and Mr. Little journeyed to the fabled Samurai City to find water from a version of the Fountain of Youth. T'Challa approached the samurai with honor though and, when Mr. Little tried to steal some of the water, T'Challa negotiated for their departure only, leaving the water behind. He left the Collectors to squabble over a small vial of the liquid Little secreted on his person, disgusted with their avarice. [Black Panther (1st series) #5-7]
As Black Panther was returning to Wakanda, however, his half-brother General Jakarra resurfaced and tried to stage a coup against the regent, N'Gassi. Jakarra wanted to claim a greater piece of his heritage, and believed he could restore the powers he once had by exposing himself to raw, unprocessed Vibranium. He ignored N'Gassi's warning about the old tales of early Wakandans who tried the same thing and emerged as monsters. Sure enough, Jakarra mutated into a hideous Vibranium creature and began terrorizing the population. In T'Challa's absence, four cousins of the royal family came together as the "Black Musketeers" to fight Jakarra. The 
doctor Joshua Itobo developed an anti-serum that would remove Jakarra's power, which T'Challa arrived in time to retrieve before confronting Jakarra. His half-brother was being guided towards the Great Vibranium Mound, and the combination of the mound and his new powers could be potentially apocalyptic. It was a very near thing, but Black Panther caught Jakarra and administered the injection before he could fully destabilize the mound, and with it the world. [Black Panther (1st series) #8-10]
[Note: Jakarra is referred to here as a child from T'Chaka's second marriage. However, subsequent stories would rewrite this and establish T'Chaka's second marriage was to Ramonda, T'Challa's step-mother. Jakarra's mother was a third woman who birthed him out of wedlock from a tryst when T'Chaka was mourning the loss of N'Yami, before meeting Ramonda. Additionally, while Jakarra mutated for the first time in the original story, retroactive continuity from the Rise of the Black Panther series showed he had previously assumed this form once before.]
A small eruption still occurred at the Great Vibranium Mound and Jakarra was seemingly killed in the backlash created by his strange powers. The energies also had a peculiar effect on T'Challa - - the Vibranium caused a mutation in the Black Panther which led to extra-sensory perception, sight beyond sight. This became clear when his cousin Khanata was kidnapped by agents of Kiber the Cruel on the outskirts of Wakanda, and T'Challa dreamed about the event before it even happened. In search of Khanata, the Black Panther fought Kiber's immaterial agents and was taken back to his home on Kiber Island.
T'Challa discovered Kiber was kidnapping victims to transform them into pure energy, allowing him to feed off of their living force in this manner. Black Panther telepathically orchestrated a revolt among the captives with Khanata while he pursued the real Kiber. T'Challa determined that 
the Kiber who appeared before them was not a man with ghostly powers, but a holographic projection. He found the real Kiber horribly disfigured and fused to the floor of his laboratory in Kiber Island, a side effect of his own matter transmitter experiments. Deprived of his android servants and equipment, T'Challa left Kiber to perish in his lab before getting Khanata to safety. [Black Panther (1st series) #11-13]
On impulse, T'Challa used his kingly right to annex Kiber Island on behalf of the nation of Wakanda, claiming it as a protectorate of his nation. In a flash of insight, T'Challa decided it was truly time to end Wakanda's isolation policies and move more fully onto the world stage. While he had declared Wakanda's existence to the United Nations years ago, the Black Panther now took the extra step of establishing a Wakandan Consulate in New York City, an official presence in the world at large. Although the American state officials in his host country were most worried about political and national ramifications, T'Challa assured them that his interests were primarily in the realm of commercial opportunities for Wakanda. [Black Panther (1st series) #14-15]
[Note: With Black Panther (1st series) #14, a soft retcon occurred where T'Challa no longer considered himself to have ESP. He re-described the change merely as an enhanced “insight” and then no further mention was made of the change ever again. Writer Christopher Priest addressed the ESP again only years later... after a fashion.]
One day, outside the Wakandan consulate, Black Panther was attacked by a strange and unfamiliar opponent named Windeagle. His arrival coincided with that of two equally unfamiliar faces named Monica Lynne and Kevin Trublood. While speaking with his guests, T'Challa came to recall his previous encounter with the Dragon Circle. The Black Panther had been captured by the cult after his first encounter with Windeagle months earlier. They had tried to brainwash him into their service, but were only successful in blocking out his memories of their activities. In the process, T'Challa had completely forgotten Monica Lynne had existed.
Windeagle was shot and killed outside the consulate by a sniper, leaving mysteries in his wake. The Black Panther investigated further and discovered a growing war between the Ku Klux Klan and the Dragon Circle. T'Challa's work uncovered the real killer of Angela Lynne and brought down Reverend Blackburn and his Dragon Circle. However, in his absence, Monica had become 
close with Kevin Trublood when it seemed T'Challa had simply run out on her and her family's problems. Not willing to strain the situation to fight for the love of a woman he was only now starting to remember, T'Challa lightly stepped aside and blessed Monica and Kevin's relationship. [Marvel Premiere #51-53]
Black Panther was present in New York when Avengers began vanishing around the country, leading Iron Man to summon the reserves and associates to get to the bottom of the matter. Nearly the entire Avengers roster to date was soon together after they were rescued from the Collector, only to face the mysterious threat of “the Enemy,” about whom the Collector had tried to warn them. T'Challa and the Avengers soon confronted the Enemy, Michael Korvac, a being who had stolen omnipotent cosmic power from Galactus. During the fight in Michael's unassuming Forest Hills Gardens home, several Avengers were killed in a matter of seconds. Seeing an opportunity, the Avengers chairman Iron Man ordered T'Challa to grab Michael's wife Carina as a bargaining chip. T'Challa refused to take such a dishonorable act, and was killed moments later by Michael. Only after Michael suffered heartbreak when Carina rejected him did he will himself to die and bring the Avengers back to life in his final act. As the Avengers' roster reorganized shortly thereafter, Black Panther refused to join the active membership, as he remained committed to ruling his country. [Avengers (1st series) #172-181]
T'Challa's efforts to open up Wakanda to the wider world may have been misinterpreted by some of his more entrepreneurial subjects. Smugglers became a problem for the country, as precious Vibranium and advanced technology based on the mineral were being extracted from Wakanda and sold to other buyers. The Black Panther discovered Kiber Island being used as a meeting point between some smugglers and Atlantean buyers. In pursuit of the Atlanteans and the stolen Wakandan goods, T'Challa discovered these were no mere thieves, but members of the Atlantean navy, who captured his small craft and brought it aboard their warship.
Although Prince Namor was not aware of his soldiers' actions (and indeed opposed them), they were operating under broad interpretation of a royal mandate Namor had neglected to properly define. Therefore, the Sub-Mariner felt inclined to defend the actions of his men against the Black Panther's rebuke. This led to a heated exchange and physical combat between the two monarchs, as well as a fight through Atlantis that riled Namor's guest Bruce Banner, stirring the Hulk's rage. The air-filled corridors were broken open, sending T'Challa into the waters where his countrymen recovered the injured king. On war-footing after this, the Wakandans tracked the Hulk bursting out of Atlantis on one of his mighty leaps and mistook him for a missile being aimed at Wakanda. The military fired back with their own nuclear missile, one which would continue onwards to Atlantis 
itself once the Hulk dropped out of his anticipated trajectory. A revived T'Challa quickly called Namor and warned him about the incoming missile. The Sub-Mariner redirected the attack towards the uninhabited Kiber Island, which was destroyed in the nuclear blast. First contact relations between Atlantis and Wakanda had brought the world to the brink of war, and the two rulers would have a cautious and chilled relationship in the political negotiations that followed. [Defenders (1st series) #84]
One day, T'Challa received a most unexpected visitor at the Wakandan Embassy in New York. The child Ororo he had known as a boy had grown to become Storm, leader of the X-Men. As they reconnected, Ororo informed him that she had been targeted by an assassin from their old foe, Andreas de Ruyter. The first attacker directed them to a Long Island estate where de Ruyter planned to kill them with a robot he controlled via a neural link. When Storm sent it crashing through the floor, the feedback overwhelmed de Ruyter's old, weakened body, killing him. A lifetime dedicated to revenge for a single meeting ended in one night. T'Challa and Ororo thought back fondly on their time together in Kenya, but saw how their lives had taken different paths. They silently agreed to leave the past behind them, and remained only friends. [Marvel Team-Up (1st series) #100]
While preparing to open a joint manufacturing plant with Stark International in Wakanda, T'Challa's facility was attacked by terrorists and saboteurs. Tony Stark and Iron Man arrived on a 
goodwill mission to open the plant, while secretly working with T'Challa to uncover the saboteurs. The Black Panther faked his death in an assassination attempt, drawing out the shocking mastermind... Erik Killmonger. Feigning remorse over T'Challa's death, Killmonger seized power by words alone, claiming unity with the Wakandans to drive out the “foreign invaders,” who were surely responsible for their king's demise. Iron Man and Black Panther worked together to stop Killmonger's forces from claiming the Vibranium and T'Challa retook his throne. When he was defeated, Killmonger reverted back to a lifeless corpse, his body apparently restored from afar and controlled by the Mandarin and one of his rings. [Iron Man Annual #5]
One day, while wrestling a rhinoceros for a preserve, the Black Panther was confronted by a pair of natural black panthers. Shockingly, the big cats attacked T'Challa, forcing him to defend himself against his namesake. This cast doubt on T'Challa's rule among the Wakandans, fearing their king had lost the support of the Panther God. Mendiano proposed the trial of the White Gorilla to prove T'Challa's fitness to rule. During the task, T'Challa could feel the Panther spirit had left him. Although he succeeded, it was revealed one of T'Challa's council had aided him without his consent, and so T'Challa was stripped of the cape of regency until further review could be made by the tribal council.
At the same time, the neighboring nation of Azania began a revolution from its black population against white supremacist rule. A man-cat killed several prominent white political figures, prompting the Azanians to accuse T'Challa of invading their nation and sowing revolt. T'Challa 
broadcast a denial of his involvement and preached non-violent resistance to the Azanians, which upset both sides of the crisis even further. Eventually, T'Challa WAS forced to invade Azania to stop a white general from launching a nuclear missile at Wakanda as "retaliation." T'Challa forced the missile off course, saving Wakanda, and his actions forced the white government of Azania to declare armistice and actively begin negotiating with their black citizens for equal rights.
All was not resolved, however. T'Challa learned the man-cat invading Azania was the Panther spirit inhabiting a new host, and he was forced to confront his god's new vessel to prove worthy of his rule. The Panther spirit could not recognize or condone T'Challa's modern ways of supporting the Africans of Azania through money and economics, yet denying them his strong right arm. T'Challa was unable to best the Panther spirit in physical combat, so he led his opponent into Wakanda's techno-jungle habitat. By attacking the Panther spirit's host with hidden drugs and neuro-paralyzers, T'Challa thought to prevent the god from acting through his vessel. The Panther 
spirit yet continued to strike at him, but T'Challa remained defiant. Though his ways were modern, they were the best way to preserve his people in Wakanda and elsewhere in Africa. He would continue to worship the Panther God, but refused to adopt its methods. And with that, the Panther God declared T'Challa had passed his test. T'Challa was deemed Black Panther and chieftain of Wakanda once more. [Black Panther (2nd series) #1-4]