Storm #2 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
STORM vol 5 #2
“Death by Voodoo”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: Alex Guimarães
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
STORM:
Storm is still sick from her exposure to radiation in the previous issue; she’s coughing up blood and losing some of her hair. Nonetheless, she has no trouble taking down a group of pirates off the coast of Nigeria. the captain isn’t especially grateful. She wears a white costume for this, rather than the black one from last issue, so apparently she’s going to be cycling through the wardrobe.
For treatment, Storm heads to the Night and Daye Hospital for the Extramundane in Arkansas (see below), which she’s apparently learned about from the Avengers. The X-Men are apparently the only major superhero group not to contribute to this facility, although they’ve evidently never used it either. Still, Storm decides she ought to be making a contribution and hands over what she describes as a ruby that belonged to her mother. If this is meant to be the ruby from her 1970s costume, then that’s a continuity error, because X-Men vol 2 #60 already established that she stole that jewel from Candra. But maybe she just has two really big rubies lying around. Anyway, Storm learns that she has “radiation syndrome” which is going to kill her in six hours, and is packed off to Dr Voodoo for help.
A montage of Storm going about her business at the Storm Sanctuary seems to confirm that it’s basically an animal sanctuary.
SUPPORTING CAST:
The Night and Daye Hospital for the Extramundane is new, but has apparently been operating in the background since the days of Force Works (whose series was cancelled in 1996). The hospital is run by a Dr Daye, who says that he works in tandem with Night Nurse; we only see her in a photograph in this issue, but she’s often shown running a clinic for superhumans in New York. Daye is a mutant with diagnosis powers, but he has a grudge against the X-Men for failing to fund his hospital, even though they’ve never used it and Storm seems to know nothing about it. Daye complains about the X-Men conquering death and retreating to Krakoa, but that would be many, many years after the hospital was set up (in publication terms), and can’t really explain the X-Men’s lack of involvement with the facility up to then. According to Daye, he did come to Krakoa, but didn’t stick around because Krakoan resurrection made him unnecessary.
Dr Voodoo is normally associated with the Strange Academy cast these days, but according to Daye he’s currently “on sabbatical”. He’s certainly in Haiti rather than New Orleans.
OTHER REFERENCES:
Page 10 panel 1: “We’ve seen the Oklahoma news.” The mutant kid who accidentally blew up a power plant in the previous issue.
Page 18 panel 4: The characters in Daye’s photo, from left to right, are the Invisible Woman, Mr Fantastic, Night Nurse, Blue Marvel, Iron man, Captain Marvel, Dr Daye, a smiling guy in a suit who I think is probably Amadeus Cho, Dr Strange, Shuri, Ghost Rider (Robbie Reyes) and Moon Knight.
Page 23 panel 3: “You! Descendant of Ashake.” Ashake is an ancient Egyptian sorceress who looks suspiciously like Storm, and who first appeared in New Mutants #32. The Official Handbook also claims Storm as the descendent of a second Ashake, an African empress who appeared in a Chris Claremont / John Bolton story in Epic Illustrated #12 (1982).
Page 23 panel 4: “You share blood with Agamatto, the first Sorcerer Supreme.” Agamotto, best known for his eponymous Eye of Agamotto artefact, is indeed the first Sorcerer Supreme; as an on-panel character, he’s possibly more familiar from Jason Aaron’s “Avengers 1 million BC” team, where he’s the Dr Strange analogue. As far as I’m aware, the suggestion that Storm is descended from Agamotto is new; but the idea that she has some sort of magical descent is not.
I find that I’m having the same problem here as I do with Phoenix – this just doesn’t feel like an X-book. There’s been such a concentrated effort to push Storm out of the core FtA storylines that this feels completely inessential; a supplemental Avengers book, maybe, but nothing to do with the X-Men. Why am I reading about Eternity (again) and Oblivion and Agamotto and Dr. Voodoo?
Maybe the idea is that the X-Men will no longer be as secluded in their own ghetto, but be more mixed up with the bigger Marvel Universe.
This issue takes decompression to a new level. A whole issue just for Storm to realize she’s dying and go to see Dr. Voodoo.
Many readers found the doctor to be unsympathetic. First, there’s no excuse not to treat a dying patient unless they’re actually violent.
Plus, did the X-Men even know of this hospital? We saw the Krakoans funding hospitals, etc.- why wouldn’t they fund a hospital whose clientele was 80 percent mutant? The whole thing is just bizarre.
The concluding sequence was just weird. We’re supposed to believe that it took Storm several hours to get to Nigeria
(couldn’t she have just asked the Imtshe somehow wound up in Haiti, where Dr. Voodoo actually was?
For what it’s worth. Ayodele claimed in an interview that the Storm Sanctuary was designed by Tony Stark, ,Riri and Moon Girl.
(Although now that I think of it. Tony building it to repay the X-Men for Emma helping get his fortune back probably makes the most sense.)
Sorry., that should be- “We’re supposed to believe that it took Storm several hours to get to Nigeria (couldn’t she have just asked the impossible City to teleport her?). she was attacked by Oblivion and she somehow wound up in Haiti, where Dr. Voodoo actually was?”
@JCG: It’s no coincidence that the X-Men’s best eras (from a purely story quality perspective) were periods when they *were* in their “own ghetto”. Being mixed up with the bigger Marvel Universe leads to Onslaught, AvX and IvX.
I have serious questions about editorial oversight on the current X-Line of comics. As noted, this hospital’s timeline is out of whack, all because of the explicit mention of Force Works.
I’m okay with a little continuity hand waving and wibbly-wobbly but there are limits.
The scene where we get a long spiel about the X-Men not funding the work in a way where it felt like it was some sort of subplot being established and Storm instantly solving the problem and him instantly accepting her solution felt unearned and made me throw up my hands.
I could imagine it will work into the plot eventually but it just felt way overcooked.
Yeah, I’m wondering if the edict from on high is “bring the X-Men into the wider Marvel universe.” That makes sense of the weird directions they’ve taken Jean and Storm, at least.
As Diana points out, that’s a terrible idea from a comic storytelling perspective. If mutants are mixed up with all the other superheroes, how do we make sense of anti-mutant sentiment? What actually makes them different than the Fantastic Four, who were mutated as adults and are publicly adored?
This is one of my favorite issues of From the Ashes so far. Not much happens in terms of action, but there are so many themes being explored. I’ve been thinking about this issue a lot since I read it and I think this emotional pacing over action pacing works for a book focusing on Storm. Don’t know if it is sustainable in the long-run, but I’m enjoying the focus on her interactions with others.
@Thom H.: More to the point, it creates situations like the end of Tom Taylor’s X-Men Red, where after 11 issues of putting a team together and facing off against Cassandra Nova, Jean ultimately solves the problem by… calling in the Avengers. Or Duggan’s attempt to sell the sheer ridiculous idea of Emma Frost working for the Kingpin.
The X-Men are almost always diminished – as teams, as a concept, as individual characters – when they’re drawn into the workings of the larger MU.
Thom-Hickman attempted to address that issue during Krakoa. Humanity has it instinctually hard-wired that mutants are the next stage in evolution and that humanity is an evolutionary dead-end. Superheroes who gain their powers by external means aren’t a threat to human dominance. In fact, just the opposite, in that other superheroes are the first step on the path to the future, where humanity becomes post-human, accelerating past evolution and out-competing mutants.
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Having said that, I do agree that the X-Men have always struggled and been diminished when they are forced into the context of the wider Marvel Universe. Even Hickman’s run was hurt in the long run (I feel) by being forced to fit Krakoa into the wider Marvel Universe. It felt as if Hickman was writing a self-contained science fiction story, while being forced to shoehorn in concepts that didn’t fit with his vision.
@Diana- The problem with the Kingpin thing was that the reason why Emma supposedly got involved with the Kingpin was that she needed a fake identity and a stipend for Lourdes even though she already had enough control over minds to force a man to shoot his girlfriend. Why not just force a millionaire to give Lourdes money and force a forger to create a false identity for Lourdes? If Duggan had established that Emma needed advanced technology for some reason and went to Doom or needed magic and went to Loki it would have worked. But Duggan chose the one villain who didn’t have anything Emma couldn’t get with her powers.
As for the ending of X-Men Red. that happens with non-X heroes too. For example. at the end of Marvel Knights:Spider-Man 10 Peter and Felicia are surrounded by Green Goblin. Mac Gargan. Sandman. Electro, Vulture, Hammerhead. Lizard. Chameleon. Shocker. Tombstone. Boomerang and Hydro-Man. So how do they get out of it? It turns out MJ called the Avengers and Fantastic Four for help. even though they were nowhere in the last 3 issues. It’s just bad writing to bring in other heroes to save the day without sufficient foreshadowing.
Both of these problems are bad writing and not necessarily the perils of interacting with non-X characters.
@Michael: I read the issues, didn’t need them explained, thanks.
It also doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense with regards to the fact that Mrakoan’s sovereignty was entirely predicated on being able to provide previously inaccessible medicine to the human population at large.
I don’t quite get how the fact that Krakoa’s political power was primarily based on medical supplies that are presumably no longer available, but mustery doctor is fundamentally pissed off because the X-Men as a team did not provide for his own pet project.
There’s a point there about seperatism amd oblivion to the situations of others (think mist of Killmonger’s arguments against T’Challa in the first Black Panther movie). But the execution does not work. At all.
Oh god. I really need to check before posting. Sorry about that.
I disagree that X-books are better when isolated from the wider MU. the wider MU has some great stuff in it. It was interesting when Sunspot bought AIM. It was nice when Cypher was helping Daredevil in a way that makes good sense but never gets done in the X books. Goldballs of all people was cool in Spider-Man. Warlock was more interesting in the Annihilation books than he’s been since Claremont stopped writing him. When the X-books turn inwards, everyone falls into the same old tired patterns and there’s no room for these little innovations.
What is the cost for having mutants in the wider world? It’s harder to tell the story of mutants as a hated minority. Not impossible, but it does make stories harder to tell if they’re about hate group umpteen who are somehow stronger than 700 mutants and all the other supergroups turn a blind eye to them. But man those stories are way overdone anyway.
I, too, think that creatively the X-Men have little benefit from being segregated from the wider MU. Particularly when it is a half-hearted, “soft” segregation as we had for so very long.
When I realized that the Krakoa era was going back to that direction, I expected/hoped that they would become better isolated as well – at least as much as the Ultimate Earths were and are. IMO it is a big design flaw to expect the wider MU to simply fail to respond to isolationist trends.
I’ve never had any problem understanding why mutants were feared and hated, but not other superhumans. Your children could wake up sprouting horns and breathing fire. They become a member of an alien species, one more powerful than you and probably unable to control it.
There are, what, about 1,000 non-mutant powered superhumans in the Marvel Universe? The odds of your child becoming the next Spider-Man or Electro are pretty low. There are many more mutants, and any child could turn into one.
As for this issue, the scene with the doctor was pretty bad. I liked the rest of the issue, though. Werneck & Guimaraes provided beautiful art, and I’m interested in the overarching plot. This series has been flawed so far, but I like it enough to stick with it.
Seriously though, someone needs to clean up the FtA continuity and/or storytelling gaffes that feel like unforced errors.
I’m no genealogist but I’m fairly sure that Agamotto lived so long ago that if Storm is related to him, then so is everybody else.
Put me down on the “isolation does the X-Men no favours” side of the argument.
As for the weirdness that the Avengers are loved, and the X-Men hated, there have been lots of attempts to explain it, of varying qualities. Personally, I thought Kurt Busiek took a great approach in the original Marvels. If I had to add an embellishment, I’d point out that maybe mutants act as a hate-sink, giving people an easier target and actually making it easier to like the Avengers, FF, etc.
BUT…whatever the in-universe reason, I tend to accept it for the meta-reasons; there are always groups that are hated and feared. In a week that sees a United States Congresswoman being viciously mocked, baited, insulted, slandered and discriminated against, completely openly, by her colleagues, for no reason other than existing as a trans woman…that’s clearer than ever.
On a related note, this is also why I (unlike many) actually enjoyed elements of the Inhuman’s role as the “new mutants but better accepted.” Whatever the in-universe reasons, I thought that it was actually useful to have two “minority analogues”. Both could stand in for just about any group, but the Inhumans could map the experience of being different in a big city, and the X-Men highlight the experience many people still go through in less accepting communities. Of course, you could just make the mutant experience different in both places, but how many comics take place in rural Alabama?
Agreed all around, but this is a really nice looking book.
All the “X-Men are better more in the MU” people have really bad taste in comics.