Storm #6 annotations
As always, this post contains spoilers, and page numbers go by the digital edition.
STORM vol 5 #6
“X-Manhunt, part 3: Thundercloud”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Luciano Vecchio
Colour artists: Alex Guimarães & Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
This is part 3 of the “X-Manhunt” crossover. We skipped issue #5, because it came out in a massively overloaded week.
STORM
And since we skipped last issue, a recap might be useful. In issue #1, Storm contracted radiation poisoning. In issue #3, she’s cured by the evil spirit Eégún in exchange for her agreeing to refrain from using her powers for a week. In issue #4, she breaks that deal to save an innocent from Dr Doom, and is immediately struck dead. In issue #5, she is resurrected by Eternity, and becomes his host. (It wasn’t actually clearly stated in the previous issue that her cosmic persona was Eternity, but this issue clarifies it by referring in passing to Oblivion as “my brother”.) For most of the previous issue, Eternity speaks through Storm and talks about her as if she’s a host body with some residual influence on what he’s doing. In this issue she’s just back to normal, until page 15 when she starts talking in the white-on-blue speech balloons from the previous issue, for no terribly obvious reason.
When Professor X comes to her for (ahem) sanctuary, her immediate response is to insist that she can’t help him escape justice now that she’s a “registered hero in numerous countries”. She does offer to get him transferred to a nicer prison. She believes that if she’s found to have revoked such a major criminal, then “I will have all my licences and diplomatic immunity revoked”. Um, isn’t One World Under Doom underway right now? It was last chapter. And diplomatic immunity? Who’s she representing?
Anyway, Professor X rightly points out that this sort of thing has never bothered her in the past, so maybe we should take it as a pretext for not being more helpful. After all, she also claims that she’s already shopped him to the Avengers, but he tells her that she’s lying. Ultimately, she’s persuaded to help him in his hazily defined mission, and fights to defend him from the X-Men. Once she’s zapped by Cyclops, Eternity takes over as the controlling personality.
Her “Storm Sanctuary” can transform into a flying battleship called Thundercloud. God knows who built this thing, because Storm has never been an engineer. It’s powered by something that Beast calls “the Storm Engine” – this seems to be the alien that was powering the power plant from issue #1. It looks awfully humanoid for something that Storm would be comfortable using as a glorified battery, but okay.
GUEST STARS
Professor X. He claims that he wants Storm’s help in carrying out one final resurrection. We don’t find out what exactly that means, but apparently it involves the abandoned site of Utopia in San Francisco, so presumably we’ll learn more in the next chapter. Other than some warnings from Cyclops about his manipulativeness, Professor X comes across as basically normal in this issue – though since he was flagrantly manipulating Anole and Ms Marvel in the NYX chapter, it’s certainly possible that he has ulterior motives in anything that he’s tellign Professor X. As in NYX, he seems entirely sane, with none of the hallucinations from the Uncanny chapter.
The X-Men. Cyclops, Temper, Psylocke, Juggernaut, Kid Omega, Magik and Beast show up to recapture Professor X. Cyclops’ argument here is that Xavier committed atrocities when he allied with Orchis during “Fall of X” and that normal humans would be legitimately outraged if mutants colluded in helping him escape justice for it. In other words, he believes that Professor X needs to be in jail as a gesture of accountability from mutantkind and to avoid blowback on other mutants – which is exactly the logic that Professor X gave for turning himself in at the end of the Krakoan era, and begs the question of whether Cyclops came to this view independently.
Bizarrely, when Juggernaut thinks that Cyclops has been badly injured, he rips Maggott’s arm off, apparently intending to use it as a club. Aside from this being ludicrously out of character – even at the height of his villainy, the Juggernaut didn’t go in for maiming people – it doesn’t even make sense as a weapon. He’s already the Juggernaut, how is he going to do any greater damage by whacking an opponent with a glorified joint of meat? Let’s be really generous and assume that the Juggernaut wildly misjudged Maggott’s resilience and, in this one panel, doesn’t realise what he’s done.
SUPPORTING CAST
Maggott. He’s taken up residence at the Storm Sanctuary, so apparently that’s who’s been feeding the hippos when Storm was away. We last saw him in NYX #3, where he seemed to be one of the Morlocks. He’s willing to fight alongside Professor X and Storm against the X-Men though we don’t get any particular rationale from him. When Juggernaut tears his arm off, Storm/Eternity heals him using the compressed essence of Eégún (which they did indeed preserve in this form last issue) and christens him “my Omega Maggott”. We don’t see any more of him in the issue that might shed light on what this means in practice.
Eternity. Storm makes no mention of him at all until she gets zapped by Cyclops and he takes over her body – it’s not clear whether he takes control because she’s in trouble or if it’s simply that she’s been knocked out cold. At least when Eternity is in control, Storm seems to have more powerful weather control and is somehow able to make knives with a motif similar to her headdress fall from the sky. Eternity seems to regard the resurrected Maggott as “his” in some sense.
FOOTNOTES
Page 3: If you’re reading an X-Men comic you probably know who the Asgardians and the Olympians are. The Orishas are from the Yoruba religion of West Africa, Chaac is the Mayan thunder god, and the Amatsukami are from Japanese mythology.
Page 9: Graymalkin has featured prominently in both X-Men books. The Cube was the superhuman prison introduced in Grant Morrison’s Marvel Boy miniseries; it hasn’t been seen in a present day story for over a decade, but it has made appearances in the MCU.
I mean what is this? Jean and Ororo are now so cosmic as not to be functional characters. Bring back Maggott to rip his arm off and make him… omega? Twitter seems to love this but I really don’t get it. Wonderful art but I don’t follow any story?
I’ve made note of this with the Phoenix series previously, but a lot of these books could be dramatically improved by having an editor look over the script and say “Huh? What do you mean by that? Are you sure?” where appropriate.
“Omega Maggott” is a hilarious term. It would make a great insult.
Baffling six issues. Again, it’s the complete opposite of what I want out of a Storm book: Arguably Marvel’s most important female character and character of color, completely sequestered from her oppressed people, written out of leading a flagship X-Men title again, because white people still don’t know what to do with her.
There has been no inner monologue, no self-narration, no first-person perspective, no interiority whatsoever. No way to know what she thinks and feels, no motivation governing her actions. Stuff just happens to her, she reacts, she provides no opinion, and there is no conflict or tension, or actual stakes (radiation poisoning? Solved in a handful of panels. Breaking no-powers contract? Resurrected after 1 panel).
And much like Momoko over in Ultimate, Ayodele is just moving Ororo where he needs her to be as opposed to allowing plot logic or character motivation to organically guide her on a journey. Eternity or Oblivion or whoever is piloting Storm’s body and getting maybe more dialogue than her further highlights her lack of agency.
Potentially interesting plot threads–running for office, being based in ATL, flying spaceship?–have been solidly ignored and not been elaborated on further. And instead of developing true intersectionality by being Marvel’s most prominent female *and* Black character, she’s demoted to the Avengers to reinforce white supremacist structures and not tend to her own people, and is getting blasted off into the world of magic and cosmic space farting around w/ gods and and Dr Voodoo and thunder ronin and Celestials and Eternity and ffs I could not care less.
I can’t even be bothered to comment on how poorly X-Manhunt is unfolding because the rest of the book is already so bad.
You think Storm is ever going to go back to being an actual likable character instead of a weird Tumblr icon queen?
If Omega mutants are basically the best of their class, hasn’t Maggott always been an omega? I mean, is there a better “external digestive system” guy out there?
Randomly ripping off Maggott’s arm and then calling him “Omega Maggott” sounds far more hilarious than any of the things that are supposed to be funny in all these Deadpool books. I mean, I haven’t read any Deadpool comics in years, but unless they really upped the comedy quality…
Doesn’t Omega mean, no upper limit to powers can be found? I.e. Eeny and Meeny can now eat things without stopping, theoretically the whole universe. Tenzel Kem wept.
(Also, did Orono cut an avacado pit in half with a knife? Is that a thing you can do? Why?)
I like some of this series. I like the author’s energy. I’m glad it has a fanbase.
I’m just baffled as to why it’s taken this direction. I guess it’s part of the long, slow trend towards making Storm The Vest Bestest Of All, following her storyline in the Krakoa era (and here I do blame Ewing for some of that.)
Why does Storm have a flying transforming space-city, AND an Eternity-powered glow-up?
I remember when Hawkeye, the guy who saves the universe with a bow and arrow, had a critically-acclaimed hit comic which leaned into him as an average dude–a himbo, a bit of a fuckup, but still good at his job.
Now here’s Storm, literal goddess.
Oh, and let’s not forget her new trait of “Storm REALLY likes knives.”
Oh, and Juggernaut ripping someone’s arm off really does feel out of character for him especially now that he’s a good guy.
“In issue #4, she breaks that deal to save an innocent from Dr Doom, and is immediately struck dead.”
The recap in issue 5 CLAIMED that she broke the deal to save an innocent from Doom but that’s not how it seems in issue 4. Doom thinks the chef screwed up because the food was supposed to interact with Storm’s powers and threatens him, Storm saves the chef with a knife, Doom realizes that Storm has lost her powers and freezes her with a spell and as Doom is talking Storm tries to use her powers to break free instead of just keeping him talking long enough for the deal to expire so she could use her powers without dying.
“God knows who built this thing, because Storm has never been an engineer.”
Ayodele claimed in an interview that it was built by Tony Stark, Riri and Moon Girl.
The idea that the Avengers can’t shelter fugitives from justice is just ridiculous. Thor is currently wanted for murder and even though he had to quit the Avengers. we’ve seen him with the Avengers several times since he quit, including in the first issue of this series. And the Avengers sheltered Orchis’s prisoners in the Impossible City during Fall of the House of X.
Besides. if the Storm sanctuary can’t shelter people who are fleeing from their governments, then who is it a sanctuary for?
” The Cube was the superhuman prison introduced in Grant Morrison’s Marvel Boy miniseries; it hasn’t been seen in a present day story for over a decade, but it has made appearances in the MCU.”
The Cube was last seen in I am Iron Man in 2023, which was also written by Ayodele.
Scott is determined to take Xavier back to Graymalkin Prison. Why? He knows from prior experience that Ellis tortures the inmates and coerced some of the inmates to kidnap Jubilee. I can see Scott wanting to turn Xavier over to a prison where his tumor will be treated and he won’t be exploited but it makes no sense to take him back to Graymalkin.
“He claims that he wants Storm’s help in carrying out one final resurrection. We don’t find out what exactly that means”
Note that one of the predictions of the future in Timeslide was “Who Waits Within The Last Egg?”
Storm’s armor is meant to be vibranium but that’s not stated explicitly in the story.
While fighting Storm, Scott uses his powers to shatter his own visor. That makes no sense on a number of levels.
For starters, I’m not sure if it makes sense for Scott’s visor to be designed so that he can shatter it if he uses too much power.
The usual explanation of why Scott uses his visor is because it gives him greater control over his powers than his glasses. So why would Scott want to shatter it?
Beisdes, without his visor, Scott can’t open his eyes without risking killing his teammates. in fact, in one previous battle between Scott and Storm, he stopped fighting BECAUSE he lost his visor.
Also. does Scott have enough control to shoot a non-lethal optic blast without his visor? I can think of at least one story where Scott is able to blast someone without his visor without killing them- in Uncanny X-Men 134, Scott is able to knock Harry Leland down without permanently injuring him even though he doesn’t have his visor. But there are plenty of stories that suggest the opposite- in X-Factor 18, Hodge’s plan to kill Jean was to trick Scott into opening his eyes in front of her.So was Scott trying to kill Storm?
I’m sure that Ayodele will get a job after this writing Thor, where Thor makes the brillaint tactical decision to destroy his hammer in the middle of a battle.
I was completely confused as to how Scott’s team wound up on Utopia at the end of the story. I wasn’t sure if Thundercloud was heading toward Utopia or if Scott’s team landed in the ocean and Illyana decided to teleport them into Utopia for some reason.
@Evilgus- In Storm’s case. the problem is that Storm loses control of her body when Eternity takes over. This isn’t a status quo that I can see lasting long-term.
@Moonstar Dynasty- I don’t think the problem with Storm is that “white people don’t know what to do with her”. Ayodele is Nigerian and he also doesn’t know what to do with her.
I think that part of the problem with Storm is that her fans seem to think she should be leading any team she’s part of. This is a problem that’s limited to Reed Richards. Storm and Scott- just about every other hero can be part of a team without leading it. Captain America can be part of an Avengers team led by Wasp and Iron Man can be part of an Avengers team led by Hawkeye. And even Claremont had Storm be part of an X-Men team led by Gambit without leading it. But Storm’s fans object when she takes orders from Kitty Pryde or whoever.
Putting her on the Avengers was meant to “solve” this problem, since MacKay was writing the Avengers as a collection of equals, unlike other writers who wrote the Avengers as having a field leader. But in practice. it meant that she wasn’t teamng up with her fellow mutants.
(It might have worked better to put her in charge of another X-team featuring the unused New Mutants/ X-Force members or something.)
@The Other Michael- The problem with Fraction’s Hawkeye run is that it helped to create the perception of Hawkeye as a loser, which the MCU helped to reinforce. Readers now have a hard time seeing Hawkeye as the same man who led the West Coast Avengers and the Thunderbolts.
My point is that there has to be a balance- just as Fraction’s Hawkeye was wrong in one direction, the current portrayal of Storm is wrong in the other direction.
Hickman punting on Storm for the first 2 years of Krakoa, then figuratively and literally aborting a T’Challa pregnancy lovechild B-plot + Duggan having her randomly get 1-hit KOed in Marauders and whitewashed by Italian artists is white people not knowing what to do with her.
Storm being moved entirely off-planet in X-Men Red specifically to exclude her from involvement with any of the core teams is, again, symptomatic of white people not knowing what to do with her.
MacKay/Simone not including her in the lineups of either flagship books is very much symptomatic of white people not knowing what to do with Storm.
Brevoort mandating that Storm be based in ATL solely on the basis of her being Black–confirmed by Ayodele himself–even though she was born in New York and has no cultural connection to the city’s Black, historic roots or cultural significance (or Storm’s own Black American ancestry, for that matter) is white people not knowing what to do with her.
The pattern is pretty obvious: White people don’t know what to do with strong, competent, Black woman of their own creation, so they sideline her–y’know, literally the only character uniquely positioned to give legitimacy to the entire mutant analogy setup.
This would be a minor quibble if other mutants of color being actively elevated to the leadership mantle, but…*checks notes* nope, all white. So dismissing this as some sort of imaginary problem with “Storm fans” specifically (which isn’t the first time you’ve brought this up) is wholly disingenuous to me.
It’s funny because basing Ororo in Atlanta actually isn’t a bad idea: 1) It’s got one of the highest concentrations of Black people in the US; 2) it’s referred to as the Black mecca due to its wealth of educational, creative, and entrepreneurial opportunities for Black people; and 3) it’s considered one of the cradles of the Black Civil Rights Movement–the real life racial equality movement that Claremont co-opted to transform the entire basis of the X-Men under his pen.
If Brevoort showed any understanding or interest in exploring the intersectionality between the mutant analogy and the very real Black American experience by mandating the ATL setting, that would be one thing. Hell, if he hired Ayodele to even superficially explore Storm’s relationship with her dual African and (unexplored) American ancestries, that would be equally fascinating. Instead, what we’re saddled with is a cosmic, magical girl book with Storm in literal godmode, where random stuff happens, with no discernible throughline between issues, where Storm has zero agency.
Removing Storm from any role where is she is not *meaningfully* advocating for and engaging in racial justice for mutants (in other a leadership or support role) is a huge disservice to actual people of color.
I honestly wonder how anyone could possibly know what to do with Storm at this point in continuity. A consistent character she is not. And calling her position in the Avengers a “downgrade” is sort of funny.
I usually like Al Ewing’s writing, but between her long story of being all over the place and him making her the Non-White Savior in X-Men Red the only logical next step for Ororo is… probably killing her.
Pretty much anything else would be either making her Wolverine with alternate superficial appearances (and coming from me that is not praise, believe me) or just making her story a little bit longer and more contradictory.
Yes, she has ardent fans. I have no idea of which version of her they are fans of. I don’t really expect the fans themselves will have a clear picture of that either.
Storm’s most interesting storylines over the years come from her being challenged. Times like when she lost her powers but still led the team, when she had to confront her unwillingness to kill balanced against the need to save Kitty, when she had to confront her own issues when exploring her relationship with Forge.
The trend in recent years of making her an infallible goddess just hasn’t led to storylines that are as interesting… she’s essentially just a mutant Captain America, whose side will always win because she can never lose.
I’d like to see them try a heel-turn with her for a few years, especially as a way to redefine some of her relationships with some humility once she reverts back to form, and giving her some more depth.
What happened to the telepathic contagion that was supposed to be driving people around the Professor insane?
@neutrino- According to the previews for the next chapter, X-Men 13, the X-Men are shielded but people on the ground in San Francisco are being driven insane. If the X-Men knew this was a possibility, you’d think they’d have mentioned it to Storm this issue.
@Moonstar Dynasty: There’s a distinction between “white people not knowing what to do with Storm” and “white people doing things with Storm that Moonstar Dynasty doesn’t like.”
I’m not a huge fan of Ewing’s Red, but the last thing you can say about that book is that the writer didn’t have a clear, coherent idea for what to do with Storm. Yes, it took her out of the ensemble, but it put her front and center of her own narrative in a way that hadn’t happened for a long time beforehand.
And as has already been pointed out, the guy currently screwing Storm up with an endless parade of Bankruptcy Gimmicks isn’t white. Neither were Reginald Hudlin or Eric Jerome Dickey, who similarly did her wrong. So there *may* be a broader problem here than what you’re suggesting.
@ Karl_H
“(Also, did Orono cut an avacado pit in half with a knife? Is that a thing you can do? Why?)”
This is how I remove the pits from my avocados. I felt very validated by this panel lol
to expand on that, fix the knife into the avocado pit with a hard tap. Then twist the knife like turning a key and the pit pops out clean.
I didn’t read the visor shattering as intentional. However, like so much in this series, what’s happening is not clear.
Storm has had a fondness for knives going back to at least her mohawk period.
That said, cutting into something while holding it in your other hand like that is a recipe for a trip to the ER. And what’s she smooshing in the next row? Is it meant to be the avacado pit? Because that’s… not how any of this works.
“What is motif in the face of insurmountable defeat?”
Good question! What is meant by “motif” in this context? None of its standard meanings seem to apply.
@Michael: Yes, Quentin Quire says he inoculated the X-Men against the telepathic bleed, but no one did that with Storm and Maggot and the cast of NYX. If people in San Francisco are being driven insane, the same thing should have happened in New York and Atlanta.
@Alexx Kay- But why would you design Scott’s visor so that he could UNINTENTIONALLY shatter it? Unless the idea is that it was something Xavier, Storm or Maggott did. which isn’t clear from the art.
@John I don’t disagree with you on those being Storm’s most interesting story lines, but those examples you gave were written *checks the calendar* about 40 years ago. Yikes!
I guess the question is, which stories do these Storm superfans like and made them fans of hers? Do they date back to the time that John mentioned? Are they based around the Animated Series, stories from the 90s, or her time as Queen of Wakanda?
@Sam: It’s worth bearing in mind that with Unlimited and the Epic Collection and Omnibus lines, the entirety of the OG Claremont run is perfectly accessible to anyone who wants to read it, even today – I can easily imagine modern readers stumbling onto the Japan arc or Lifedeath or the Mutant Massacre and becoming Storm superfans that way.
You’re also right to point out that the Animated Series and X-Men ’97 could easily be gateways, since they both treated her like a character who was immensely powerful *but* had her own limitations and struggles to overcome (the Genosha arc in season 1 of TAS comes to mind, as does ’97’s adaptation of Lifedeath).
I have a hard time believing her Queen of Wakanda era won anyone over – was it Jeff Lester way, way back in the day who pointed out that Storm’s marriage to T’Challa was framed entirely in terms of *her* having to prove herself worthy of *him*? That she had to appease *his* god while he didn’t have to acknowledge Ororo’s faith, the Bright Lady, etc.?
I must be cautious when commenting stories that I did not read, but I will say that I wonder how much of that perception comes from the eye of the beholder. T’Challa was at the time the holder of a hereditary throne and still had to prove himself worthy, so it is not inherently surprising that his Queen Consort would have to prove herself as well.
Whether and how T’Challa showed interest and respect on Ororo as a person outside the cerimonial requirements is perhaps more relevant. What little I have seen of the interactions between the two does not endear Ororo much, I have to say. She comes across as rather entitled, ungrateful and demanding.
But then again, those seem to be her default traits at the current time, if X-Men Red is any indication. At times she seems to be on the run to out-Wolverine Wolverine himself.
Which brings me to another matter of concern: I have often felt that the X-books go out of their way to blatantly ignore any developments or characterization that come from outside books, and Ororo is a prime example. The one time that I recall Ororo acknowledging that, yes, she has been appearing in Black Panther’s books, it was to complain that Gentle had been spying on her for T’Challa and they ought to feel very ashamed of that.
And that was that. No follow-up in the X-Books, nothing. If they won’t acknowledge that she was once and repeatedly a central character in Black Panther’s books, then I suppose readers should not follow her up into the X-books anyway.
But that is an argument for making less frequent and less creative use of her, which amounts to being halfway through declaring her a failed character. How succesfull can a character be if the stories of forty years prior are consistently their most significant?
So I think that Sam is correct in wondering which version of Ororo her fans want to read about. Maybe it is an easy question to answer, but I sure can’t answer it; far as I am concerned Ororo has not had any consistent characterization since… 1983’s “Uncanny X-Men #170”, when Chris Claremont tried (and IMO failed quite spectacularly at) establishing character growth for her.
I was a fan of Ororo from the Claremont years. I would argue that Storm along with Magneto were Claremont’s most successful characters. Storm was one of the characters who became the most developed under Claremont. Yet, even Claremont seemed to run out of ideas for her towards the end, as he randomly turned her into a child. He seems to think this was a very successful development for some reason, returning to that point twice (in X-Men: Forever to make the point he didn’t plan to reage her when she was in mainstream continuity, then choosing a flashback story from the period when Ororo was deaged). I digress.
After Claremont the character has suffered terribly, from being a boring, cardboard character who seemed to lack a personality throughout the 1990s to outright terrible decisions in more recent comics (the misjudged wedding to BP onward to making her too good, infallible, now seemingly a deity).
Storm isn’t the only character who suffered this badly after Claremont, as Colossus was completely ruined by almost every writer who touched him after Claremont.
I think it shows how well Claremont used Storm that there are fans who are still so devoted to the character even after 40 years of poor characterization versus Colossus who everyone has long since given up on caring about.
I stopped caring about Ororo, but I’ve stopped caring about most of the X-Men since post-Claremont. I enjoyed Morrison, Carey, and Hickman but Morrison and Carey didn’t do anything with Storm, and Hickman seemed confused about how exactly to use the character, so I can’t say that the writers who have made me enjoy the X-Men after Claremont changed my loss of interest in Ororo.
@Chris V- I think the major problem with Claremont’s treatment of Storm is the lack of consequences for her questionable decisions. For example, at the end of Uncanny 175. Rogue is angry that Storm almost drowned Maddie. But instead of an extended sequence where Rogue is reluctant to follow Storm’s orders. Rogue just seems to have forgotten about it the next time she works with Storm.
Or take Uncanny 219- Storm orders Psylocke to alter Alex’s memories without his permission, Betsy botches the job, causing Alex to have nightmares and then later Storm seems to consider killing Alex. But again, instead of a lengthy plot line where Alex is questioning Storm’s leadership. he just seems to get over it. (Even though he does seem to mistrust Betsy after that.)
@Moonstar Dynasty:
I always really enjoy reading your comments, and I’m sorry your very legitimate concerns got lost in a wave of casual – and casually racist – dismissal.
I agree that Ororo has become an inviable character, through the ongoing deification of any and all aspects of her character, powers, capabilities, individual lore, etc.
I also think it’s a perfect expression of Marvel’s complete incapability of reconciling their deeply cynical uses of the mutant metaphor and the politics of racism, gender, etc that that metaphor completely commodifies,
It’s a condescending move that treats the readers as stupid, and establishes a deeply superficial fandom, largely captivated by Ororo’s most powerful visuals and actions – but none of the context, and none of the motivation.
I also very seriously invite people to check their intellectual honesty, if they really believe there’s no correlation between Storm’s race and gender and the way she is written.
We have had multiple stories about the entwinement of Jewish identity and mutant politics, for one. Maggot’s origin story, ironically, is one of the few that very directly confronts racial politics (and apartheid, to boot), and otherwise this remains heavily under explored in the comics.
This adamant effort never to dramatize – shit: to even name aloud – Ororo’s blackness, killing any possibility of real conflict by raising her to the stratosphere is absolutely racially motivated.
Going on about the clumsy metaphors around Doom and Trump and then claiming this is just “a Storm thing” is grossly irresponsible and shows a very real lack of attention to these questions.
And by the goddesses, if there is such a thing as a crossover event dead on arrival, it’s this one.
“This adamant effort never to dramatize – shit: to even name aloud – Ororo’s blackness, killing any possibility of real conflict by raising her to the stratosphere is absolutely racially motivated.”
I mean, it’s not so much that Moonstar’s comments are being dismissed out of casual racism, it’s that they seem off-base.
I mean, what is more likely, that the Nigerian writer is being racist and avoiding Storm’s blackness by ‘raising her to the stratosphere’, or that Ayodele is just writing a bad story?
The fact is many writers, both black and white, have struggled to do anything interesting with Ororo in a while (which happens with characters who’ve been around for a while and become a bit too iconic). A lot of the same problems recur with Jean Grey, and for similar reasons. And those reasons have nothing to do with race.
At worse, I’d say that not utilizing Storm to tell a story about (or simply featuring) race or intersectionality is more a missed opportunity than some kind of overt, or even unconscious, act of racism.
@Maxwell’s Hammer: I would generally be inclined to agree. But everyone in this space is well aware that editorial takes precedence over whatever writers set their minds to, by default.
I’m not a fan of Ayodele’s decisions, in general. I also don’t think they could single handedly leverage issues structurally built into the character, resulting from an obvious majority of white editors and a presumed (or desirable) white readership.
I think it’s both possible and fair to recognize that these ongoing issues don’t come down to an individual author’s preferences or mistakes, and name that problem for what it is, while recognizing that this particular author is not helping shift the narrative much- intentionally or not.
I think it’s disingenuous to not recognize as racist the large majority of the elements that give shape to Ororo’s identity, and the racial tensions surrounding her ongoing writing and branding.
And where the comparison with Jean fails for me, completely, is that superhero comics are otherwise not particularly lacking in prominent white female chatacters, when compared to black female characters.
I hope this helps make some sense of my (admittedly impatient, even agressive) previous comment.
This series manages to be less than the sum of its parts. The quality of each issue ranges from mediocre to good, but the last page of each issue has to be a shocking twist that brings Fabian Nicieza’s Thunderbolts or some of the more poorly written Korean webtoons to mind. Yes, the issues are connected, but so poorly that I’ll just point at the first sentence of this paragraph.
On this particular issue, Marvel editorial needs to put a moratorium on heroes fighting heroes because they have went to that well too many times and it’s dry.
This book needs a supporting cast. There was Frenzy in issue one, and I guess Japheth (referred to earlier as formerly Maggot but just called that in this issue by Storm and the X-men) qualifies? He’s shown up in multiple issues, though he’s only been on a handful of pages.
The cosmic power struggle between Eternity and Oblivion doesn’t interest me. It also doesn’t recognize that Oblivion’s counterpart/opposite is usually Infinity, as Eternity is the embodiment of life. Though it seems to cast Eternity in not a favorable light.
Also, I just realized the the embodiment of life possessing Storm is going around killing people. A chef’s kiss of awfulness.
@Diana: You’re right, I *don’t* like what creators have been doing…what’s your point? I’m expressing a opinion just like you or anyone else with a keyboard on any platform would do to air their displeasure or grievances through criticism. And while I’ve seen you express a litany of things I have not personally agreed with over the years, I have never led off any counterpoint with, “Well, Diana, you’re overreacting–it’s just that you don’t like what this particular creator is doing with this character.” Weird comment!
I loved Ewing’s run on X-Men Red. (I’m sure you can verify this in the comments of various past annotations; sometimes it felt like I was one of 2 or 3 people here who enjoyed his run.) That still doesn’t mean I agree with shipping Storm off to another planet to let white characters do all the narratively important heavy lifting for the mutant metaphor in the main books.
While I am not at all a fan of Ayodele’s cosmic, magical girl direction for Storm, I lay the majority of blame on editorial past and present (which, again, has been entirely comprised of white dudes). Getting what tiny handful of creators of color we have into the door doesn’t matter if the overall editorial vision still lacks racial or cultural awareness, and if those respective creators aren’t empowered to tell culturally meaningful stories. That’s how we get Brevoort forcing Ayodele to base Storm in Atlanta with no explanation, not even alluding to a personal or cultural significance or connection to her; or how Simone goes to a Random Character Generator and farts out one literally named Random, a Black Argentine over in Uncanny (which is a REALLY big deal and would have been an easy intersectional layup if you are aware of the Argentine government’s history of systemic Black erasure) and inexplicably makes him related to a Brazilian guy for no other reason than they are both Black (which, if you know anything about Brazil or Argentina, is lol).
Pre-Ewing, the only writer who semi-recently wrote Storm thoughtfully with any semblance of nuance, cultural awareness, and recognition of her NY roots was Ta-Nehisi Coates in his Black Panther and the Crew mini from 2017 (which btw: Coates for EiC).
@Salloh: I agree; the ignorance–willful or incidental–at the way racism has shaped the vast majority of Storm’s stories, past and present, is staggering in 2025.
Your point about Jewish identity is also case in point: Surely I need I remind you all that Chris Claremont, a Jewish man, was the chief architect behind Magneto’s transformation into a multidimensional Holocaust survivor? I’m still dreaming of a day where a Black writer/POC empowered with full creative license–as Claremont was–gets a crack at Storm and the X-Men. Representation on and off the page matters.
@Salloh: Even if you argue that Ayodele’s intentions may be constrained by editorial preference (which, based on his own interviews and how he’s articulated his perspective on Storm, doesn’t *seem* to be the case), it would be ridiculous to claim that Hudlin and Dickey were operating under the same constraints. Marvel was *infamously* hands-free with non-comics writers and media personalities back then, and yet the best Ororo could get from two high-profile Black writers was to be defined entirely through her marriage to T’Challa.
Is it really that hard to believe that this is a skill issue rather than a race issue? Because I daresay we probably wouldn’t be having this problem if it was Nnedi Okorafor or NK Jemisin or even Stephanie Williams writing Storm.
@Moonstar Dynasty: Case in point – Simone’s character is named Ransom, not Random.
@Diana: Again, Ayodele confirmed that it was Brevoort’s idea to put Storm in Atlanta. We’re six issues in with no reason given. That strikes me as lazy tokenism, and reveals how toothless and superficial Brevoort’s idea of representation is. That is very much a race issue.
Re: Hudlin and Dickey: Have you perhaps considered that maybe it’s just a case of Black people doing things with Storm that Diana doesn’t like?
@Moonstar Dynasty: That’s not as clever a comeback as you seem to think (though it really does highlight just how committed you are to bad faith argumentation) – I literally named three Black women I think would do a better job with Storm, meaning my problems are *obviously* with Hudlin, Dickey and Ayodele and not with “Black people doing things with Storm” in general. I’ll leave the latter kind of opinionating in your capable hands.
Can we calm this down, please.
@D: Just a light jab calling back to your initial comment in a different light.
For the record: I understood what point you were making, that Black writers aren’t necessarily the automatic fix to what ails Storm. And I agree, although that still doesn’t negate my original point: White people generally don’t know what to do with Storm post-Claremont, because it’s white creators and decision-makers who have been primarily in the driver’s seat leading us down to where we are today.
(I didn’t read Hudlin’s BP run; I understand however that it occurred during/after their marriage in Civil War, so the focus on Storm’s relationship with T’Challa, in a book where she was in his supporting cast, doesn’t track as unusual to me. But I do agree with you that Dickey did Storm no favors, although most people didn’t read that mini so its cultural impact on Storm’s legacy–compared to her decades-long misuse and neglect as a casualty to existing white power structures–is negligible at best.)
Frankly, we probably overlap a lot more on this topic than we think upon further inspection, although this collective insistence (which I’m assuming is mostly from white people!) that this isn’t a race problem at all is head-scratching.
And then you cite the last two Black writers to touch her from circa 2006–one of whom wasn’t even in the X-office–which highlights another facet of the race problem: It’s taken almost 20 years before Storm has even fallen into the hands of a Black creator. Can we agree how absurd that is? And how she’s *never* been stewarded by a Black female writer in any capacity? Would we even be having this conversation right now if Black people had the opportunity to at least take even 1/10th of the cracks at Storm that Wolverine has had, good or bad? It’s funny how easy it is to point at two Black guys who may not have done her justice when I can only count *three Black writers total* to have ever written her in her *entire, 50-year publication history.*
The way you many of you have judged and measured Storm here in these comments section from the Krakoa era to now is just so unlike the way the other white characters are deliberated. How does the saying go?–Black people have to work twice as hard to get half as far?
That’s why even though I hate Ayodele’s run so far, I’m sympathetic to the position he’s been put in, especially in light of Brevoort’s tokenism meddling.
Sure thing, sorry Paul, thanks for always facilitating these convos, I know it can be thankless sometimes.
Christopher J Priest writing an X-Men title with Storm as leader would address many of the issues people are expressing in this thread, from racial politics and relations to storytelling.
Black Panther never made T’Challa’s race the focus of the book, nor did it shy away from tensions. Priest is on record saying he understands the difference between “African” and “African American.” He handled a lot of sensitive issues with subtlety and grace. Characters were challenged, changed and grew.
All the characters, regardless of race.
He’s also really good with character interaction in team books and can plot the hell out of a story. And he’s got an established relationship with Brevoort.
He can also wrap things up well when the cancellation bell rings.
Just some thoughts…
@MD: Here’s where we differ – I’ve seen the same criticism regarding Storm, that writers just don’t know what to do with her, applied to Emma, to Kitty, to Magneto (despite Ewing’s recent efforts), to Xavier, etc. And for the most part, I think that’s all absolutely correct: Marvel’s editorial pool is old, static, constrained by corporate considerations, and behind the times in every conceivable way. Gail Simone is the *first woman* to write Uncanny X-Men on her own (Kelly Thompson had to share that gig with two men who were nowhere near her level). No one would seriously suggest that the way things are right now is the way they *should* be.
But you and Salloh take considerable offense at the suggestion that Storm being Black and written by white writers might not actually be the core of the problem, even though you concede Black writers haven’t necessarily done right by her either.
There *should* be a larger, more diverse talent pool. Coates for EiC? Absolutely. Should’ve been Dwayne McDuffie back in the day instead of Joe Quesada. But that’s a different argument. I ultimately think 8/10 Black writers would strike out with Storm in *exactly* the same way 8/10 white writers have. I think that Lifedream one-shot last month pretty much proved it – an all-Black creative team, coming from outside traditional Marvel circles, having nothing more meaningful or insightful to say about her than Ayodele does.
Does that mean they shouldn’t get the same chance to flop at writing the best X-Man there ever was? Of course not. But it *does* mean there’s something more at work here than *just* that.
@Keith from NH: Priest wrote Storm in one issue of Black Panther, and it was the best she’d been written in years. I wish he’d done more with the charcter.
Here’s what I would do if I were in charge of writing or editing Storm:
– bring her down to Earth, emphasize her connection to nature and the environment. Let her superhuman feats be impressive and inspire awe and fear. Do not reduce her powers except for in a random story or two.
– build a supporting cast that’s not all mutants and superhumans. Make sure the cast is majority-black. Let her struggle a bit dealing with regular humans who do or don’t automatically worship and respect her.
– have her incur the wrath of hate groups/ corporations/ politicians because of the fact that she’s a mutant black woman with enormous power who is always pro-environment and anti-racism.
– have her attempt to help with refugee and immigration crises.
– don’t let her lightning bolt her way out of everything. Have her use her ingenuity to solve problems.
I think my overall approach is how I would write/edit Superman, at least when he’s on Earth. Don’t let the superhuman overwhelm the human, and let both sides of the character be equally relevant.
I am interpretting that many here were hoping for a Victor LaValle approach for Storm. I would like that also.
Ayodele seems to be writing Pricess Ororo, Sailor Moon instead. It does not offend me, even if it doesn’t fulfil all of my personal wishes and daydreams.
This art is so much better than I expected, or hoped for.
@Mike Laughlin That’s exactly what I was getting at. IMO even Claremont lost the plot with her toward the end of his run. Nothing I’ve read from between Claremont’s exit and her guest appearances in BP made me think anyone had a clue what to do with her. And the intervening years haven’t done her many favors either.
She’s a tough character to get right, it seems. I like your ideas.
@Mike Loughlin I’m sorry my phone autocorrected the spelling of your name and I didn’t notice until after posting.
Not sure if anyone will see this now that it’s not on the front page, but good news for fans of Priest writing Storm:
https://joequesada.substack.com/p/the-world-to-come
@Thom H: Thank you! That’s some awesome news! I’ve been waiting a very long time for this.