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The Black Panther may not be the mightiest superhero on the planet, but he’s certainly among the coolest.

Created in 1966, he was the first black superhero in mainstream comics. While his cape-wearing peers spend their off hours slogging away at mundane day jobs — reporter at a major metropolitan newspaper, say — the Panther is a king, the sovereign ruler of Wakanda, the fictional, technologically advanced African nation. And then there’s his costume: skintight and jet black from head to toe. Not to mention, his former wife, Ororo Munroe (Storm of the X-Men), can summon hurricanes.

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Even so, the Panther has never enjoyed the popularity of many of his superpowered colleagues. That looks to change, however, thanks to a confluence of events that begin with the much-anticipated release, this week, of the new Marvel comic book series Black Panther.

Most comics don’t generate that much buzz, but then again, most comics aren’t written by Ta-Nehisi Coates, a national correspondent for The Atlantic and the best-selling author of Between the World and Me, which won the National Book Award last year. One of the most celebrated authors about race in America writing about a black superhero who has pummelled Captain America and members of the Ku Klux Klan?