Black Panther (TV series)

Black Panther is an American cartoon series by Marvel Animation in partnership with BET, based on the popular Marvel Comics superhero of the same name. It was the first animated television series produced by BET since Hey Monie!. Each of the six episodes of the series was 20 minutes in length.

The series was broadcast on the Australian children's channel ABC3 in January 2010 and in the United States on BET in November 2011.

Plot
Upon becoming the new Black Panther after the assassination of his father T'Chaka, T'Challa deals with the jealousy in the Wakandan royal court while looking for the man who killed his father. Unbeknownst to Black Panther, Klaw (the man who assassinated T'Chaka) has assembled a group of villains consisting of Batroc the Leaper, Juggernaut, the Vatican Black Knight, and the Russian Radioactive Man to help him take over Wakanda.

Cast

 * Djimon Hounsou - Black Panther/T'Challa
 * Stan Lee - General Wallace
 * Kerry Washington - Princess Shuri
 * Alfre Woodard - Dondi Reese, Queen Mother
 * Carl Lumbly - Uncle S'Yan
 * Jill Scott - Storm
 * Stephen Stanton - Klaw

Additional voices

 * Jonathan Adams - T'Chaka
 * J. B. Blanc - Black Knight, Male Cannibal, Batroc the Leaper
 * David Busch - Everett K. Ross
 * Phil LaMarr - T'Shan
 * Peter Lurie - Juggernaut
 * Phil Morris - W'Kabi
 * Vanessa Marshall - Female Cannibal
 * Nolan North - Cyclops, Nightcrawler
 * Adrian Pasdar - Captain America
 * Kevin Michael Richardson - Wolverine
 * Rick D. Wasserman - Radioactive Man

Production
At a presentation held in New York City in April 2008, BET announced that it had signed a deal with Marvel Comics to turn Black Panther into a primetime half-hour animated series. In July 2008 at the San Diego Comic-Con International, the first footage of the series was shown publicly, indicating that the series was essentially just motion comic versions of the mini-series released by Marvel Comics.

The show was supervised by Reginald Hudlin, the President of Entertainment at BET, who also wrote, along with John Romita, Jr. as the artist, the story arc of the Black Panther comic entitled "Who is the Black Panther?" on which the first six episodes were based. Only subtle deviations from the comic exist, such as replacing Rhino with Juggernaut.

Djimon Hounsou was cast to voice T'Challa/Black Panther. The series was directed by Mark Brooks. The theme song was composed by Stephen James Taylor in a dialect meant to be Wakandan (the fictional character's native language). In reality, the song employed a Bantu-based language of Taylor's creation.

United States
On January 18, 2011, the series was released to Region 1 DVD by Shout! Factory. It was part of the Marvel Knights Animation line, the line reserved for Marvel's motion comics.

Australia
Magna Pacific released the series in region 4. It was released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 1, 2010.