Warning! Spoilers for Black Panther #10 ahead!Marvel has been intentional about grounding its recent Black superhero-led series in resonant social-historical context, and nowhere is that more clear than with Black Panther. In the series piloted by John Ridley, T'Challa comes face to face with an antagonist whose name hearkens back over a century to a particular battalion of Black American soldiers.
Black Panther #10 by Ridley and Germán Peralta continues the drama of T'Challa's deposition as king of Wakanda, the Panther's removal as their protector, and his exile from the country as the Wakandan people pursue a democratic overhaul to their government. As such, T'Challa has sought refuge among his old allies the Avengers, but the timing coincides with the arrival of a certain intergalactic menace known as the Colonialist who's made it his mission to "liberate" free worlds from freedom. As the Avengers are occupied with his army, Black Panther takes it upon himself to address the Colonialist's swarm of mindless beasts currently ravaging the nearby town, which is when he runs into a mysterious gunman calling himself Buffalo Soldier.
This self-assured cowboy, riding a massive bison, interjects himself between Panther and the waveform generator he needs to send the aliens back to their home (or whatever base of operations the Colonialist uses). Panther thinks little of him until his weaponry proves capable of piercing vibranium. T'Challa takes a tactical retreat and s his sister Shuri, who sends him information about Earth's own real-life Buffalo Soldiers. What T'Challa learns surprises and pains him, but also proves necessary in reasoning with his new enemy.
Black Panther's New Villain Evokes A Complicated Legacy
Just a year after the end of the American Civil War, the military began to create separate units for Black soldiers. The 10th Cavalry Regiment was one of these, and due to their stationing, they often came into conflict with Indigenous American tribes. Though the exact origin of the term is still debated, most scholars concur that at some point the tribespeople began to refer to the regiment as "buffalo soldiers" because of their coarse hair. However, their complicity in the death of so many indigenous people leaves a significant stain on their legacy. And just like the soldiers from whom he takes his name, Marvel's Buffalo Soldier and his people were used as weapons to purge another disenfranchised group, so the Colonialist could reap their natural resources. When T'Challa reveals this, Buffalo Soldier decides to assist him in clearing out the Colonialist's monsters, though it costs his life.
In just one issue, Ridley creates an allegory for the ways that people of a socio-political minority can be made to perceive each other as enemies when they are in fact both the mark in a long-form con; both obligors in the same crooked contract. Buffalo Soldier is by no means T'Challa's worst enemy, but his brief appearance continues the current trend of Black Panther stories being vessels for meaningful morals.
