Marvel Knights: The World to Come #1
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeThis issue reunites the original creative pairing behind the groundbreaking Marvel Knights Black Panther launch of 1998 — writer Christopher Priest and artist/co-plotter Joe Quesada — for what amounts to Priest's definitive, decades-deferred coda to his own T'Challa mythos, now set in an alternate-future universe catalogued as Earth-TRN1711. Beyond nostalgia, the issue carries genuine structural weight: it introduces Ketema, T'Challa's adopted son and eventual successor, as well as a new resistance faction called the Aquamarines, making this the first appearance of every principal character and the debut of the entire Earth-TRN1711 reality. The story also represents the first new Marvel Knights title since the imprint's 20th-anniversary miniseries in 2018, cementing the line's revival for a new generation of readers.
Find on ebay
Sell my copy
Have this issue — or a whole collection? Get a fair offer from us, skip the marketplace fees and the hassle.
We Buy Collections ▸History
The seed for this series was planted in October 2017, when Priest pitched Quesada a story rooted in his original Marvel Knights take on T'Challa; Quesada immediately committed to drawing it, and the two spent years developing it nearly to completion before its June 2025 release. The project is co-written by Priest and Quesada — with Quesada also serving as sole artist — colored by Quesada's longtime collaborator Richard Isanove, and lettered by Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith, under editors Nick Lowe and Nanci Dakesian (Dakesian having served as managing editor on the original 1998 Marvel Knights launch). The series was announced in March 2025 and released June 4, 2025, with a cover date of August 2025, as a six-issue limited series under the Marvel Knights imprint.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Released June 4, 2025 (cover-dated August 2025); chapter title is 'The Death of Kings.'
- First appearances of all principal characters in the alternate future reality Earth-TRN1711, including T'Challa/Black Panther, Ororo Munroe/Storm, Ramonda Sobukwe, Monica Lynne, the Dora Milaje, Ketema, Cleric 'M,' and the resistance group the Aquamarines.
- Ketema — T'Challa's adopted 'only biological son' (later revealed to be the biological child of Everett Ross and Noelle Adams) — is introduced as the masked challenger who defeats an elderly T'Challa in ritual combat for the Wakandan throne; his unmasking, revealing pale skin and blond hair, is the issue's climactic twist.
- Storm (Ororo Munroe) appears in the context of her death in a conflict described as a 'Race War,' with T'Challa having erected a shrine to her in Wakanda — a detail functioning as both character study and retrospective grief for the T'Challa/Storm marriage from Priest's original run.
- The narrative employs non-linear, Priest-signature storytelling across a forty-two year timeline, opening sixteen years after a focal event called 'The World to Come,' and is narrated by an elderly Aquamarine rebel recounting Wakandan history to a young Dora Milaje warrior.
- Written by Christopher Priest from a co-plotted story with Joe Quesada; Quesada serves as penciler and inker; colors by Richard Isanove; letters by Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith; edited by Nick Lowe and Nanci Dakesian; Editor-in-Chief C.B. Cebulski.
- Cover art by Joe Quesada (wraparound); variant covers by Simone Di Meo, David Mack, Alex Maleev, Dan Panosian, and Joshua 'Sway' Swaby (including a dedicated Storm virgin variant); a second printing followed with additional variants.
- Part one of a planned six-issue limited series; the first Marvel Knights title published since the 20th-anniversary miniseries (2018–2019).
Cast · 2 characters
Full credits
Variants (9)
Reviews
Reader reviews
No reader reviews yet.