I got a copy of this graphic novel from Netgalley. I was intrigued by the premise and boy, did it deliver.

Young Kareem Jenkins is out with his friends when they are gunned down by policemen. Kareem's dead body is transported in an ambulance only for him to wake up half way through. He is rescued by Juncture who helps him understand his new found superpowers. But, he also shares with Kareem a surprising secret - only people of colour can have superpowers.

Detective Ellen Waters was too late to stop the murder of Kareem and his friends but she does see the resurrected Kareem fleeing from the ambulance. Unable to believe her eyes, she follows him to find answers but he manages to escape before she can.

Meanwhile, Theodore Mann, a wealthy businessman, seems to take a particular interest in Kareem. He also appears to know much more than most about superpowered beings... but what does he do with this knowledge?

This was a fascinating read. I am so glad I managed to get the first volume, which includes issues 1-6, as it works as a complete story in itself.

This book is action-packed. Plenty of characters are introduced as protagonist Kareem gets himself into several scrapes and tries to uncover the truth behind his powers. We also get to follow Detective Waters quite a bit, and though she is little more than a reader stand-in, she has a lot of personality.

The art is good and certainly does the job but I do wish it was in colour. The art is strong, don't get me wrong, but I feel like some details are glossed over in the black and white shading. There were some panels that made me do a double-take because I didn't quite understand what was going on in them. I'm not sure why the creators chose this monochrome colour scheme. I'm hoping there will be a colour version in the future.

I have a small, possibly insignificant, point to make about the use of language. I like that Kwanza Osajyefo has gone for the use of dialects for all the characters; it helps give each character a distinct voice, and this I absolutely love.

However, there is one character, Hood Rat, who speaks Arabic. The letters appear separately, which is incorrect. Arabic alphabets conjoin when they are followed or preceded by most alphabets. That the lettering should appear separately means that the software used to design the comic book was not compatible with the language; worse, it means that an Arabic proofreader was not hired to read the work before publishing. In that case, the Arabic should have been left out completely. It looks really bad this way and negates the author's attempt at inclusivity.

I also felt like the book could have done with more female characters. There are a smattering of women, but most have very short appearances and little to do, except for Detective Waters, and even she is side-lined a lot. It would have been good if one of the other main characters, like Juncture, Mann, Coal, or even O, could have been women.

This story is obviously a political statement and I like how it goes about this incendiary topic. Black history, particularly African-American history is incorporated throughout and ties into how the superpowered individuals have and are being treated and the circumstances they find themselves in. Reading this shortly after having watched Netflix's Bright, which also attempted to give commentary on social and racial issues through entertainment, I find myself wondering how a multi-million dollar production could have so spectacularly failed to do what this indie comic book did so succinctly.

I love that Black never forgets that it is a comic book. It is interesting, entertaining, with numerous interjecting plots that culminate in a fantastic finale all the while incorporating its social commentary in subtle but powerful ways. I really can't wait to read more of this series.

A very timely graphic novel. The stark art style really lends itself to the plot.

The black and white art was great.

But the covers - amazing.

A great superhero comic, and at the same time, an excellent commentary on race in our culture. There’s fascinating commentary just painted into the covers. The cover to chapter 5 is especially powerful. I really thought it was an intriguing story, and loved the social issues that were built into it.

Looking forward to future stories about X. And I want to check out Black AF: America’s Sweetheart - due out next month! (Jan ’18)

Check this book out!

[Note: I don't know why this isn't getting more love on Goodreads - yeah, some parts were a little hard to follow, and there were a lot of characters, so I had to go back and forth a couple times to remember which team some of the characters were on - but it wasn't that difficult! I notice that almost no one who reviewed was a POC. It's a shame, too, because this book should have a wider audience.]

I love the idea behind this series, but have to agree with other reviews that it's not the best execution: there are a ton of superpowered characters to keep track of. Consequently, their powers aren't really explored in depth (or at least not yet - hopefully this will change with upcoming issues), which feels like a huge missed opportunity. (It also makes the fight scenes chaotic AF!) That said, the artwork is bitchin', and the storyline has loads of potential.

(Full disclosure: I received a free electronic ARC for review through NetGalley.)

The well llustrated and plotted graphic novel is based on the premise that black people are the only population with the possibility of mutant superpowers. A group of black mutants believe that the white population would try to annhiallate blacks if the truth were known. A group of white psychopaths want to enslave blacks and extract their hidden powers. Battles rage.
The premise and plot remind me of the idea that ruthless domination by whites is the only way to combat black sexual potency.

“Black,” created by Kwanza Osajyefo, made the list of at least one year’s best list, and while it’s story follows a typical hero’s journey. It’s world building and central question garner attention. The result of a successful Kickstarter campaign, “Black” asks what if only black people had superpowers. Following a young man who discovers he possesses superhuman abilities, he meets different factions, and fights the big bad in this six-issue arc. As a comic, “Black,” is well poised to address contemporary issues on race, violence, state-power, and relationships with the police while providing space for increased representation of minority heroes. This first volume is an excellent start to what I hope will be an ongoing project. The art is reminiscent of an American manga style and the volume is punctuated by a series of powerful covers. The cover work is relevant and powerful, eye-catching, and thought-provoking. Origin stories are tricky since they can be well-worn ground, “Black,” however, is worth the time.

Review provided in exchange for copy provided by NetGalley.

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DNF. I tried - the first issue was a breeze, easy to read, nice black and white artwork (oh, the irony) that is easy on the eye... But then it all goes tits up. Every issue felt like I was only getting half the pages, with so many jumps and so much unexplained in-world terminology (the slip, and more). Plus it's written in "black" (for want of a better word), so it's impossible to even parse some of it and understand what the heck is going on. But the chief problem is that this book is a racist tract, written by and presumably for racists. It blatantly states that if people (ie "whites") were to discover "blacks" with superpowers, there would be a fearful, jealous genocide. Because that's right - every single "white" person is a racist, and all us lily-whites is afeared of Usain Bolt and just wants to lynch him, because he must have a hexadecimal quark, or some shit science (which will be a dodecahedradecimal quark in the next issue, because the editor slept through that bit).

The book continued to look good - the shading is great, and it's kinetic, dynamic and so on, but is far too much so for every single fight scene, and they're just an impenetrable splodge of WTF, especially as we're never told who the people are before they go into the action. It's the politics, however, that suck biggest - and anybody thinking this is a decent evocation of the underdog sticking it to the Mann needs a good hard look at themselves.

I think this is the beginning of a really good series.

When Kareem is shot by police for 'walking while black' he should have died but he is alive and kicking with superpowers to boot! Kareem has become some kind of super human being. He has become one of the Empowered.

Kareem is taken under the wing of 'The Project', a global network of scientists who are working to keep the Empowered hidden from a world that would otherwise exploit them. Only black people develop these super human powers and their existence has the potential to set off a war against black people or even enslavement.

Kareem spends time getting to understand his powers but it is clear he is different because he has every ability possible and he is still discovering more. It is not only The Project who are aware of his special abilities though, a secret US government agency is also after him. As Kareem gets to know more about his abilities he finds himself in disagreement with the Project but breaking away from them exposes him to the Government agency and to a group of black super humans who are tired of hiding in the shadows and want to take the government on.

Kareem finds himself caught between competing factions and should he be discovered he is also at risk of putting millions of black people at risk.

I think this is an imaginative and exciting new comic series. I thought this volume tried to pack a lot into the story and it became a bit confusing at one point. It was still a very good read though and the ideas behind it are innovative and fresh.

I enjoyed reading it and will definitely be following the series.

Copy provided by Diamond Book Distributors via Netgalley in exchange for an unbiased review.

I honestly can't finish this. I have tried, and I'd like to give it a fair review, but I just can't at this time.

This is a really great concept and there were some really great moments in here and also a lot of specific nods to current events with certain plot points and phrases. It has the potential to be a really great series but I felt like this volume was just too convoluted to be entirely enjoyable. There were way too many characters and only maybe five or six of them got any kind of characterization beyond a pithy name and a power set. I still plan on checking out the next volume in the hopes that they can tighten up the story a little bit, but so far it's kind of all over the place.

I like the concept of this book and the cover-art is very powerful. The artwork is solid, but I had hoped that there would be a bit more color used in the artwork in the novel itself, but everything is just black and white. The story is the same with all the black people against all the white people, so I guess the artwork fits it well.

The story is action-packed to the rim but I also had a couple of problems with it. The novel is very polarizing and does nothing to show that race shouldn't matter. The storytelling is a bit confusing at times and it doesn't really help that there are loads of characters involved who aren't always introduced properly.

All in all I didn't like this novel as much as I thought I would.

Wow. This comic blew my mind.

Think X-men but set in the world as we know it, especially the nastier parts of this world like entrenched racism. Only in the world this comic describes, 0.5% of black people have superpowers.

This story explores the different reactions to that and has a lot of anger and hope in it, which is why I enjoyed it so much. Emotion is the one thing that this series doesn't lack.

The main character is a black teenager who has just discovered his powers and has a very uncertain future ahead of him, he has some very adult decisions to make and so far he's facing them like a champ.

The artwork is black and white, which I love. The characters are diverse and beautiful (I grew up reading Asterix, need I say more why this matters to me?). The language and story immerse you into this world completely, this is a series well worth following for its originality and storytelling power.

An X-Men style graphic novel where only Black people have superpowers. This was good, but it took me a while to figure out what was going on just because there were so many characters and factions, and the pace was so fast. I still could hardly tell you the names of any of them, besides the main character.

This meaningful graphic novel sheds light on historical and current challenges black individuals confront, by exploring differing approaches to challenging white supremacy!

What if ... there was a strain of quarks that gave some humans superpowers? And, what if, the small minority of humans who have these abilities also happen to be black? This is Heroes meets Get Out. Well drawn and intricately constructed. Fast paced and fun. I especially liked the bonus at the end that showed some of the scene layouts and how they translated into artwork. I can see this becoming a movie

BLACK (Volume 1) has an amazing premise:
<i>In a world that already hates and fears them -- what if only Black people had superpowers. </i>
An exciting, interesting idea, and sharp illustrations are let down by over-crowding by characters without much of (or any) introduction, and confusing storytelling. Perhaps the pacing will smooth out in the later volumes.