Kirby leaves, and Ed Hannigan and artist Jerry Bingham come on board.
Immediately, they wrap all the standing plotlines, T’Challa leaves Africa ,and comes to New York (Jim Shooter was responsible for the plot, and he loved having all the heroes team up all the time) to finish out his book with The Avengers.
Alongside The Avengers, Panther captures Klaw. But he escapes in the end.
Volume One was cancelled with issue #15 but the story didn’t end there. It continued in Marvel Premiere #51. Hannigan and Bingham wrote three issues of that title featuring T’Challa, none of which were great, none of which were terrible. The final panels of this issue show us Windeagle, who will die in MP#51.
Here’s the letter page blurb announcing the ending of the book:
I’m struggling with the “logic” of how, if the Black Panther can’t sell ‘Black Panther’ comics, then how does Marvel expect him to sell ‘Marvel Premiere’ comics-?? It’s commercial semantics! Of course, chasing Kirby off the title was a major step in the right direction. ( “The Six Million Year Man”, etc. ) In the right hands, the Black Panther is a majestic character starring in a very mature and sophisticated series of comics. In the WRONG hands- he SUCKS!!! And Marvel owes it to the Black Panther- the very first black super-hero-to give him the best talent available, like Don McGregor, and Don Perlin, etc.! Otherwise-he bombs!! And we don’t want that!! Right-???
I think they intended “premier” to have some kind of perceived value or cache.