Less than two weeks after it launched, Marvel’s Black Panther: Who Is The Black Panther animated series has disappeared. Originally announced as a television show for BET in 2008, the series – adapting the first six issues of the most recent Black Panther comic series, written by BET president Reginald Hudlin, with art by Kick-Ass co-creator John Romita Jr. – debuted instead, to some surprise, on Australian television this January and finally appeared in the US as an iTunes-released “motion comic.” Now, after only three of its twelve episodes have been released, the series has disappeared entirely from iTunes, the PlayStation network, XBox Live, Microsoft Zune and Marvel’s own website, with pages about the series now requiring passwords to view.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XvCCbpzc-o]
Marvel has so far declined comment, but Comic Book Resources’ Robot 6 blog is speculating that the disappearance is down to Marvel not having had the rights to distribute the series in the first place, as a result of its deal with BET. Whatever the reason for its mysterious vanishing, expect an official statement before too long, if only to explain to those who’d subscribed to the series what’s going to happen to the episodes they have already paid for that look like they’ll never see the light of day.
More On Techland: