STORM vol 5 #10
“Thunder War Begins”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Lucas Werneck
Colour artist: Alex Guimarães
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

PAGES 1-2. Flash forward: Bishop releases an energy blast.

Bishop. This is the first time we’ve seen him in this book – his last non-cameo appearance was in the Timeslide one-shot at the end of last year. As we’ll see later in the issue, Bishop has been entrusted with looking after the mutant child from issue #1, who is offhandedly given the name “Jaden” on the recap page. The previous issue indicated that Storm had either had her knowledge of the child’s whereabouts magically suppressed in order to keep them safe, or at least had magically prevented herself from being able to disclose it.

We’ll see later that Jaden has had a nightmare and lost control of their powers; Bishop has to absorb the resulting energy; and this is him discharging it, which is likely to make Jaden traceable, hence Bishop’s regrets. The flashforward takes place around page 13 of the story.

PAGE 3. Splash page.

As always, this title has a symbolic splash page with credits, immediately followed by the recap page with credits (and the story title being shown on both). Why? That’s just how they do things around here.

PAGES 4-7. Storm, Manifold and Maggott in deep space.

Abbaq. As the footnote says, this planet comes from Avengers Unlimited Infinity Comic #9-13 (2022), also written by Murewa Ayodele. That storyline that involved the Avengers fighting a bunch of alien kaiju. It ended by indicating that the heroes had inadvertently offended the Abbaqi sky god, apparently by defying its efforts to punish its people, and so there might be other plot reasons for referencing it.

The dead monster which is seen floating in space here is also appeared at the end of Avengers Unlimited #9, in a similar condition.

Storm, Manifold and Maggott are here so that Maggott can consume this massive kaiju corpse. The official purpose of this mission is to clear it out of the way so that Abbaq can be observed from Earth more easily, but it seems that it’s also an exercise in powering up Maggott to a ridiculous degree (which is why they don’t just teleport the thing out of the way, something that Manifold could have done immediately).

Shuri. The Black Panther’s younger sister hasn’t appeared in this book, but evidently Manifold has a crush on her anyway.

Gateway appeared in the last two issues. He’s been presented as Manifold’s mentor in previous stories, as in Secret Warriors #4.

Emperor T’Challa is presumably given that title here in reference to the Intergalactic Empire of Wakanda.

PAGES 8-13. Storm, Manifold and Maggott capture Sango.

Orun. The realm of the Yoruba gods. I don’t think it’s ever appeared before except as a generic “African” god realm in brief cameos such as Thor #301. It seems to be a sort of crystal paradise here.

Sango. We last saw Sango in issue #7, when he was one of the rival storm gods who fought Storm in the Brazilian rain forest.

“Three wives.” In mythology, Sango does indeed have three wives – Ọshun, Ọbba and Ọya. The last of those is also a storm goddess, so perhaps she could be significant.

“I am not the storm god who retreats.” This is how Sango described Storm in issue #7.

“You slept with your eyes closed. I warned you not to.” Issue #7, though she was addressing the gods as a group rather than Sango in particular.

“You conjured an anomaly that took the lives of my people.” This is the weather disaster from issues #7-8 in Brazil, though I don’t think it was clearly identified as having killed anyone in that story (beyond a single pilot).

“You made me cut my hair.” Issue #7, though again, this wasn’t really specific to Sango – she cut through her hair in order to free herself from Chacc.

“There were decades of her life when she did not possess her mutant abilities.” Um. Well. There’s the period in her childhood before her powers emerged, and then there’s the period from Uncanny X-Men #185-225 where she doesn’t have powers. But that’s not decades.

“The only two mutant teleporters who can reach locations outside our universe…” Manifold and Gateway, the narrator claims. It doesn’t really stand up: Magik’s whole thing is teleporting via another dimension, for example. In fact, several previous stories have established that Manifold’s powers normally don’t work outside the main Marvel Universe (since his whole thing is being able to communicate with the universe). He was able to reach the White Hot Room as part of the Six in S.W.O.R.D. during the Krakoan era, but only with the aid of five other teleporters and Fabian Cortez. So… no, this is just wrong.

Still, what matters for the purposes of the story is that Gateway and Manifold give Storm access to particular pocket dimensions that she’s using to trap hostile storm gods such as Sango.

Chaac. Another of the storm gods from issue #7 – he’s the Mayan god.

Pocket Dimension Marisol-Abeni. Storm appears to have named this prison dimension after Flourish and Abeni (a Wakandan mutant who she rescued in Black Panther vol 7 #23).

The scene ends with Storm and co returning to Atlanta and, somehow, apparently being able to see Bishop firing his energy beam into the air over in Madripoor. Because that’s how the curvature of the Earth works! If there’s meant to be some other explanation for what she’s seeing here, it’s not apparent.

PAGES 14-16. Storm and co arrive at Jaden’s safehouse and are attacked by Étienne.

Page 14 panels 4-5 are a flashback to the disaster from issue #1. Jaden presented as male in that story (and in the flashback here), and is drawn as female in the present day, so presumably they’re either trans or non-binary. Nobody uses any third-person pronouns in relation to them in this story, so I’ll stick to neutral.

The clear implication of this and the next scene is that Maggott and Manifold are killed remotely by magic – this is certainly what Fabiyi believes is happening. But we don’t actually get a clear panel confirming that, and it’s the sort of thing that’s obviously going to be undone by cosmic reset button.

PAGES 17-18. Étienne and Fabiyi are interrupted by before killing Storm.

Étienne. This is the same FBI agent we saw visiting Limbo in issue #9. Apparently her magical abilities include killing people at a distance using voodoo dolls, which she cuts in half with scissors. Presumably she was anticipating Maggott and Manifold because of their prior association with Storm; she doesn’t seem to have a doll for Bishop or for Jaden (though the plan is apparently to arrest Jaden, so it may be they want them alive). She seems to have no particular hesitation about killing Maggott or Manifold, but does apparently hesitate at an order to kill Storm, despite having the voodoo doll ready.

Fabiyi. He seems to believe that magically killing Storm in Madripoor will somehow escape detection because the place is lawless, which seems awfully optimistic in terms of the capacities of the Avengers and the X-Men.

Galactus and the Silver Surfer Soot. The Silver Surfer Soot is Norrin Radd having absorbed the power of Surtur’s Twilight Sword, as seen in the flash forward in issue #7. Issue #8 briefly showed the Surfer and Galactus fighting a “rot storm” conjured by Hadad, the leader of the enemy faction in the thunder gods’ war. Infinity indicates that she saved them from that attack and then brought them to the present day; for some reason, she seemed to think that they would be able to tell her where Eternity was.

Infinity. She seems to assume that Storm must have imprisoned Eternity, rather than Eternity possessing Storm. We haven’t seen her before in this series, but Thor claimed in issue #8 that Hadad had previously controlled her as a shield, among other grandiose claims that might not be literally true. If it’s to be taken seriously, then Infinity would naturally be expected to side with Storm against Hadad.