Marvel Knights: The World to Come #2

History

The conceptual seed for The World to Come was planted in October 2017, when Christopher Priest pitched the idea to Joe Quesada, rooting it explicitly in Priest's original Marvel Knights Black Panther run from 1998. According to Quesada's own account in Marvel's promotional material, the project was years in development and was nearly complete before the first issue shipped, a deliberately front-loaded production approach that editor Nick Lowe — who had started his career as an editorial assistant on the original Marvel Knights books — confirmed publicly. The Marvel Knights imprint itself originated in 1998 when Marvel, then navigating Chapter 11 bankruptcy, outsourced four titles (Black Panther, Daredevil, Punisher, and Inhumans) to Quesada and Jimmy Palmiotti's Event Comics, with Christopher Priest writing the Black Panther series that introduced Everett K. Ross and helped lay the cultural groundwork that made The World to Come possible. Issue #2's production team is identical to issue #1's: Quesada on pencils and inks, Richard Isanove on colors, Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith on letters, with Nick Lowe and Nanci Dakesian editing — a tight, consistent unit for the full six-issue run.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Issue #2 is titled 'Part Two: The Host' and was released July 16, 2025, with a September 2025 cover date; it is the second chapter of a six-issue limited series.
• Written by Christopher Priest and penciled/inked by Joe Quesada, with colors by Richard Isanove and letters by Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith — the same creative team as issue #1.
• The story is set on the alternate-future Earth-TRN1711 (not the main Earth-616), approximately eight years before the in-story event called 'The World to Come,' with additional flashbacks spanning further into T'Challa's past.
• Everett K. Ross is the central narrator of the issue, depicted as an elderly man who is, at the time of the Mexican subplot, operating undercover inside drug cartels alongside a figure known as 'El Viejo General,' having been presumed dead.
• Shuri appears in this issue as a supporting character — her first appearance in this alternate Earth-TRN1711 continuity, as confirmed by the Marvel Database character index for the issue.
• The issue introduces Noelle Adams, a new character in this timeline who is Everett Ross's current romantic partner and the twin sister of a woman named Nikki, a woman Ross had previously loved who is now deceased.
• Monica Lynne — depicted in issue #1 as T'Challa's wife in this timeline — reappears here as a former queen who tracks Ross down in Mexico out of concern over T'Challa's handling of the succession question.
• Ketema's Black Panther costume in this series was designed by Quesada as a deliberate modernization of Jack Kirby's original concept for the character, dating to when Kirby had intended to call the character 'Coal Tiger,' per Quesada in a CBR interview.

Cast · 3 characters

Full credits

Variants (4)