Bagheera Bagheera Bagheera (; "Baghīrā"/"Bagīdah") is a fictional character in Rudyard Kipling's Mowgli stories in the "Jungle Book" (coll. 1894) and the "Second Jungle Book" (coll. 1895). He is a black panther (melanistic Indian leopard) who serves as friend, protector and mentor to the "man-cub" Mowgli. The word "bagheera" is Hindi/Urdu for black panther-- although the root word bagh means tiger. Born in captivity in the menagerie of the Raja of Udaipur, Rajasthan, India, Bagheera begins to plan for his freedom after his mother dies. Once he is mature and strong enough, he breaks the lock on his cage and escapes
The Jungle Book one-shot "Marvel Illustrated: The Jungle Book" (2007). Bill Willingham's comic book series, "Fables", features "The Jungle Book"s Mowgli, Bagheera, and Shere Khan. Many films have been based on one or another of Kipling's stories, including "Elephant Boy" (1937), the (Mowgli) published as "Adventures of Mowgli" in the US, an animation released between 1967 and 1971, and combined into a single 96-minute feature film in 1973; Chuck Jones's made for-TV cartoons "Rikki-Tikki-Tavi" (1975), "The White Seal" (1975), and "Mowgli's Brothers" (1976). Many films, too, have been made of the book as a whole, such as Zoltán Korda's 1942 film, Disney's 1967