BIOGRAPHY - page 7
Black Panther remained in contact with his fellow Avengers while his rule of Wakanda continued. The West Coast Avengers came to his assistance when several groups loyal to the High Evolutionary attacked Wakanda to seize the power of Vibranium. [West Coast Avengers Annual #3] He briefly assisted the Avengers East after Captain America reconsolidated the team 
membership [Avengers (1st series) #305-308] and also helped Avengers West with the installation of new security measures at their Compound after an intrusion by Project: Vigilance. [Avengers West Coast #47] And of course, when his good friend Captain America needed a new shield, T'Challa proudly presented Cap with one of Wakandan design, forged of pure Vibranium to replace his original shield. [Captain America (1st series) #342]
T'Challa also entertained Victor von Doom, a monarch-in-exile after being overthrown by his own ward, Kristoff. Despite their past enmity, T'Challa gave Doom the respect of another monarch and heard out his request for aid in reclaiming his throne. Doom repeatedly tested the Black Panther's hospitality, however, and attacked the Fantastic Four and X-Factor in T'Challa's presence. Instead of gaining allies, Doom angered the Black Panther and ensured that bad feelings between the two would continue. [Fantastic Four (1st series) #311-313]
One day, T'Challa received notice from a man named Patrick Slade, who claimed to know where his mother was. Slade had the name Ramonda, the significance of which was not known outside of Wakanda. Shocked and curious, T'Challa agreed to a secret meeting with Slade in South Africa. Slade had gotten greedy, though, and also informed Ramonda's captor Anton Pretorius that he knew about her. He planned an auction of sorts, to see whether Pretorius valued his silence more than T'Challa valued answers. Pretorius decided to silence Slade permanently, and his top mercenaries led by Elmer “Sex 'n' Violence” Gore were there to interrupt the meeting between Slade and T'Challa.
The Black Panther escaped from Gore, but was sliced apart by some barbed wire in his flight and severely wounded. He collapsed on the side of the road near a township, and was discovered by a worker named Zanti Chikane. Zanti was a good man who helped T'Challa, despite the risk to him and his family (although he wasn't at all above complaining about it). Slade had escaped from 
Gore as well, and so T'Challa and Zanti sought him out back at his family store. Slade wasn't there, but Pretorius' mercenaries and the local magistrates arrived searching for the Black Panther. Their tear gas spraying vehicle nearly ran over a young boy before T'Challa saved him, creating a full international incident as he fought the ruling government's army in broad daylight and was arrested temporarily.
T'Challa and Zanti followed one of Gore's black informants back to his home, but a fight broke out over the man as a local mob tried to murder the informant as a collaborator, and then another group struck back at them for creating trouble for the township. In the melee, the Black Panther 
was set on fire with gasoline, and the same boy he saved earlier got involved, dragging T'Challa to a water pump to put out the flames. All the gasoline in the area went up, however, and the boy was caught in the flames and fatally burned. The Black Panther ran the boy to a local whites-only hospital but, even with their forced and reluctant assistance, the boy did not survive.
Distraught over all his actions had caused, T'Challa was ready to give up. Zanti encouraged him to continue fighting, for his mother's sake if not for his own. Black Panther had left word with Slade's wife earlier to arrange a meet back at the store that night, but Gore and his men were also waiting. In the fight that followed, Patrick Slade was killed before he could reveal what he knew about Ramonda. The players scattered again when the military fell upon the store, but T'Challa returned later to speak with Slade's widow. She gave him a letter one of the mercenary's had left with her. It was in Ramonda's handwriting, telling her son she did not want to see him and he should go home before he created even more of a mess of the country.
Although he was momentarily shaken by the letter, it also helped T'Challa put the pieces together and recognize that Anton Pretorius was the man behind the entire affair. The minister of communications had been on television denouncing T'Challa's “rampage of terror” through South 
Africa, but his reports began far too quickly after T'Challa's arrival and revealed details of Wakanda he could not have easily found out in such a short time. Pretorius knew T'Challa was coming beforehand, and T'Challa now understood why. T'Challa said goodbye to Zanti, who had proven himself a true friend in this ordeal, and moved on to confront his enemy.
At Pretorius' estate, the Black Panther faced further trials such as attack dogs and bear traps before winning his final bout with Elmer Gore. Inside the mansion, T'Challa found his mother chained to the posts of Pretorius' bed, still proud and defiant towards her captor despite over 20 years with him. Ramonda explained her story to T'Challa and begged forgiveness for the letter, for Pretorius had convinced her T'Challa would die in South Africa eventually if he wasn't compelled 
to abandon his quest. When Pretorius himself entered the room, the Black Panther was prepared to hurl him to his death from the balcony, but Ramonda stayed his hand. She struck Pretorius down herself but did not kill him, leaving the sick man to his obsessions and unfulfilled fantasies as her revenge. [Marvel Comics Presents (1st series) #16-37]
[Note: Throughout this story, Ramonda was treated as if she were T'Challa's birth mother. However, the Marvel Handbooks had previously given his mother the name N'Yami. Black Panther (3rd series) #1 would eventually reconcile these two accounts by confirming N'Yami died in childbirth and Ramonda was T'Challa's stepmother, the only mother he had ever known.]
T'Challa returned to Wakanda with Ramonda, and allowed his mother to mourn her husband at the tomb of T'Chaka. He was forced to deal with internal strife in the country as a man named Solomon Prey orchestrated the arrival of crack cocaine into Wakanda, along with the other Western influences T'Challa incorporated. Kantu, who had grown uncomfortably into the role of folk hero after his attack on Killmonger at Warrior Falls, had become a drug user and dealer on the palace grounds. The Black Panther tried to get through to Kantu after he found out, but the disillusioned boy rejected help and died tragically at the palace while trying to get high.
The Black Panther investigated Solomon Prey's network and discovered ties to his own Wakandan Embassy in Washington D.C. Prey had unearthed Killmonger's old tunnels to steal 
Vibranium from the mound, selling the rare metal in the States in exchange for the drugs in order to weaken T'Challa's rule from many angles. During this, Taku also discovered Wakanda's computers were compromised. Clifford Scott, an American corporate technical liaison, was revealed as a CIA spy also trying to steal Wakanda's secrets through this computer tap.
Throughout all this intrigue, Black Panther repeatedly suffered injuries that threatened his death, if not welcoming it. As chief of security, W'Kabi felt the need to broach the uncomfortable subject that T'Challa (and therefore Wakanda) lacked an heir. It was T'Challa's duty as king to acquire a queen and ensure his dynasty had a foundation for the future. W'Kabi found T'Challa agreeable to his concerns, but failed to anticipate where T'Challa's mind would go. While W'Kabi would have 
preferred that a tribeswoman from Wakanda catch his chieftain's eye, T'Challa could only remember the end of his relationship with Monica Lynne. The circumstances for their separation were less than typical, and the Black Panther decided to renew their association... with a marriage proposal.
T'Challa approached Monica at her apartment in D.C. and made his proposal. Monica was reluctant at first, both due to her previous experiences of Wakandan xenophobia and her lingering dream of building her own career as a singer. T'Challa promised to address her concerns and won her over, so he and Monica announced their engagement by satellite broadcast from the Washington Embassy. Tanzika, who had escaped imprisonment on Panther Island and begun sleeping with Solomon Prey, was infuriated by the announcement. She had always secretly (and irrationally) believed she would claim T'Challa and power in Wakanda one day, and prompted Solomon to move against T'Challa. The Black Panther faced his opponent when he returned to Wakanda, and prevented the bombing of the Great Vibranium Mound. Solomon Prey died in their fight, and Tanzika was taken into custody after Monica personally knocked her down, a small revenge for when Tanzika framed her for murder years ago. [Black Panther: Panther's Prey #1-4]
Black Panther joined forces with the Knights of the Pendragon to prevent ivory poachers from attacking hippos on the Congo river. T'Challa and the Knight Union Jack moved on to Hong Kong chasing a lead on the Bane, eternal foes of the Knights who served the Red Lord. The Bane mercenary Dolph attacked and brutally beat the two men, and Union Jack sacrificed his life to save T'Challa by placing the king in his computer-guided motorcycle and sending him to the nearest hospital. While Jack died, he was reborn in Avalon to defend the Green Knight from the final assault by the Red Lord and his armies. T'Challa was among those chose by the Pendragon spirit to come to Avalon and fight alongside the Knights of all ages, and even learned archery tips from Little John of Sherwood Forest. [Knights of Pendragon (1st series) #14-18]
T'Challa remained alert to potential threats to Wakanda's monopoly on Vibranium in the world. Another attempt to shake that status came from the corporate energy giant, RoXXon. The corporation claimed to have discovered a way to synthesize Vibranium for themselves, making this "Nuform" cheaply available for profit to anyone, and potentially destabilizing Wakanda's economy. The Black Panther investigated RoXXon's claims along with Iron Man and Spider-Man, and they discovered many less scrupulous interested parties as well, such as Ultron-13, the Kingpin and the Ghost. It ultimately came to light that RoXXon's synthetic Wakandan Vibranium would degrade over time into the metal-melting Antarctic Vibranium, making its use potentially catastrophic if that fact was kept from prospective buyers. The skirmishing over Nuform brought this to light as the entire research lab at Empire State University melted inwards, destroying the Nuform and making a PR disaster too large for RoXXon to ignore. Nuform would not proceed to market, and Wakanda's Vibranium monopoly was maintained. [Vibranium Vendetta crossover]