Storm #11 annotations
STORM vol 5 #11
“Thunder War Rises”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artists: Mario Santoro with CF Villa
Colour artists: Fer Sifuentes-Sujo with Slex Guimarães
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: Well, that’s Storm on a hippo. Hippo enthusiasts should be warned that one only panel of this story features hippos, and they are riderless.
PAGES 1-2. Zeus convenes the meeting of storm gods.
As we’ll see, the purpose of this meeting is for the storm gods of assorted pantheons to decide whether to align themselves with Storm or with Hadad. Of course, Storm herself has yet to take any particular interest in Hadad, but we clarify later on that the storm gods are aware of her possession by Eternity, and regard her as having been selected by Eternity as his champion whether she knows it or not.
Hjem Spíti. Described as a “neutral realm for all pantheons”, this seems to be new – it’s not a pre-existing mythological term, either. Google Translate suggests that it’s Icelandic for “Sorry Home”, for whatever that may be worth.
Susanoo. The Shinto storm god, last seen in issue #7. He’s the guy with the hat in the final panel of page 2.
Amadioha. He’s the storm god of the Igbo people from southeast Nigeria. This seems to be his first Marvel Universe reference.
Sugaar. He’s a storm god of pre-Christian Basque mythology. Again, this is his first Marvel Universe reference.
Beta Ray Bill. Representing the Norse gods in Thor’s absence following the end of Immortal Thor (which hasn’t hit Unlimited yet, but I gather leaves Thor living as a moral on Earth).
Indra. The Hindu storm god, last seen in Thor #9 (2011). He’s the guy with the two tridents on page 2, as made clear on page 12.
Ukko. The Finnish storm god. Believe it or not, this guy has several previous appearances. He was last seen in Chaos War.
Seth. The Egyptian storm god, who’s been a fairly major Thor villain at times. Flashbacks aside, he was last seen in the 2009 Thor Annual. He could be the giant serpent on page 2, though there’s also a Zulu thunder serpent, the Inkanyamba.
Lei Gong. The Taoist thunder god. This is his first on panel appearance in the Marvel Universe, though he got a mention in the Encyclopaedia Mythologica Handbook one-shot. He’s fairly recognisable even without a previous appearance: he’s the guy with wings and a beak in the middle of the top tier.
Mamarangan. The Aboriginal storm god, last seen in issue #7. He’s the monochrone guy on the left hand side of the final panel on page 2.
Zeus. Well, he’s Zeus, obviously. He’s somehow managed to get resurrected off panel since his recent appearances in Immortal Thor, as the narration acknowledges.
Unnamed among the gods on page 2 is Tláloc, the Aztec storm god, sitting in the lower left seat – he’s another god with a previous mention in Encyclopaedia Mythologica making his first actual appearance.
PAGE 3. Splash page.
PAGES 4-5. Bishop defends Galactus from the FBI.
Last issue, the FBI’s attempt to reclaim Jaden (who was being sheltered by Bishop) got as far as taking out Manifold and Maggott before Galactus crashed to earth.
Agents Étienne and Fabiyi are seen unconscious in page 4 panel 3. The guy with his brain in a tank in place of a head (next to Galactus’s knee) has also shown up in previous issues.
PAGES 6-10. Storm faces Infinity, and is talked down by Galactus and Jaden.
Also last issue, Infinity – Eternity’s sister character – showed up demanding to know what had happened to him. She seemed to assume that Storm had somehow imprisoned Eternity, rather than being possessed by him. Storm responds with a speech claiming to be a goddess. She backs up that claim by reference to her magical heritage, but since she ultimately relies on the claim that “nothing, no one controls me”, presumably she doesn’t mean that she’s a literal goddess. Of course, the whole current storyline involves her being possessed by Eternity against her will.
While all this is going on, Gateway quietly gathers up the bodies of Maggott and Manifold, who we’ll see again on page 16.
“Descendent of Ashake”. The ancestor sorceress first seen in New Mutants #32.
“I share blood with Agamotto, the first Sorcerer Supreme.” The claim that Ashake’s line descends ultimately from Agamotto seems to have originated in issue #2 of this series. That issue also cites the Ashake and Agamotto connections back to back, but in the context of berating Storm for not developing her magical heritage.
“My roots run deep – far back to Oshtur, the Elder God.” Oshtur is a sort of proto-Gaea character who gets namechecked by Marvel Universe magicians more than she actually appears. A couple of stories claim her to be the mother of Agamotto, so Storm’s claim here is simply an extrapolation of things that have been said before.
Page 8 panel 1-2 is basically just recapping what Storm was telling Manifold about her possession by Eternity in issue #9.
“I chose 2000 miles of treacherous uncertainty rather than remain a pickpocket.” This is a bit dubious. Storm hasn’t previously had any particular problem with her back story as a child thief. The first version of her origin story, in X-Men #102, simply says that “some inner need began pulling [her] south”.
“Is this the ache Death and Oblivion have endured for all these eons?” Issue #5 has extended flashbacks about the separation of Death and Oblivion.
PAGES 11-15. The thunder gods vote to side with Hadad, and get killed anyway.
Yamata No Orochi. This is indeed a legend, and the dragon gets its first on panel appearance here.
Typhon. Typhon has shown up occasionally in the Marvel Universe – he was the villain in Avengers #49 (1968).
Vritra. He’s a Hindu serpent demon and he represents drought. This is his first Marvel Universe appearance.
“Many of us have wrestled with leviathans…” Beta Ray Bill is basically making an argument that storm gods have common mythologies that makes them protectors of the universe.
“Why, then, did Eternity pass us over…?” The storm gods are apparently throwing a tantrum about Eternity choosing a mortal host in preference to one of them, and have rather bizarrely decided that the way forward is to reboot the universe – which is what they take Hadad to be doing.
“We exerted pressure and heat…” The idea seems to be that the thunder gods who attacked Storm in issue #7 were attempting (sincerely or otherwise) to get Storm ready for the war with Hadad, and were unimpressed with what they saw.
Black Winters. We’ve seen these things threatening Galactus in previous issues, on Hadad’s behalf. They seem to have as little trouble with the storm gods as the FBI did with Maggott and Manifold (all of which, again, points strongly to a reset button coming).
PAGES 16-17. The Night and Daye Hospital deals with Maggott and Manifold.
Maggott is evidently dead. Manifold, despite being bisected, is apparently alive, since that’s presumably who the doctors are operating on.
We saw this hospital before in issue #2.
Storm’s apology for not pursuing her “studies with Doctor Voodoo” rather overstates the degree to which she studied anything magical with him. But the basic point of her failing to develop her magical heritage has been a repeated theme throughout this series.
Gateway very rarely speaks, but he’s done it before, and does so here.
PAGE 18. Eternity approaches the One Above All.
The “House of Ideas” is often a meta reference to Marvel itself as the creator of its universe, with the One Above All being a collective personification of the creators – here, however, they’re serving as a non-denominational “real” God.
PAGES 19-20. Galactus briefs Storm.
We’ve only got one more issue of this story, so Galactus and the Silver Surfer Soot are going to help Infinity and Quasar hold off the Black Winters while Storm takes on Hadad.
“Oblivion is no more.” Oblivion was killed by Hadad in issue #9.
“Eternity has abandoned our universe.” Incorrect, as we saw in the previous page – but this is what the Surfer things.
Krakoa. A brief cutaway shows Phoenix defending New Krakoa from Hadad’s Black Winters in the White Hot Room. Judging from interviews, this is a vestige of Ayodele’s original pitch for this storyline to be a crossover with Phoenix.
The Land of Couldn’t-Be-Shouldn’t-Be. First introduced in the Slott/Allred Silver Surfer run in 2014, this is a sort of void of endless possibilities outside the universe proper. The Never Queen also comes from that story, and her status as a patron of the Scarlet Witch comes from Steve Orlando’s Scarlet Witch run.
Quasar. Only seen vaguely and from a distance, but this seems to be Wendell Vaughan, the original Quasar, who was brought back into circulation in Al Ewing’s Guardians of the Galaxy run in 2021.
Bill’s status post-Immortal Thor #25 is still a little vague.
He has literally replaced Thor in the memories and history books of Midgard. The actual Asgardians themselves are remembered only as myths (though are still very much real in Asgard).
But we don’t know what Bill remembers yet, and as Sif brings that up, presumably it will be addressed down the line in Mortal Thor.
Here he seems to at least know his hammer came from Asgard.
It’s too bad they didn’t go with Orko as the Basque thunder god instead, as it could have counted as a cross-over with He-Man.
> Beta Ray Bill. Representing the Norse gods in Thor’s absence following the end of Immortal Thor (which hasn’t hit Unlimited yet, but I gather leaves Thor living as a moral on Earth).
Mortal, not moral
> Zeus. Well, he’s Zeus, obviously. He’s somehow managed to get resurrected off panel since his recent appearances in Immortal Thor, as the narration acknowledges.
He wasn’t killed off there, just depowered (Thor took his power and turned it into a belt, he was last seen being carted off to Asgardian hospital, IIRC)
> We’ve only got one more issue of this story, so Galactus and the Silver Surfer Soot are going to help Infinity and Quasar hold off the Black Winters while Storm takes on Hadad.
The Silver Surfer Soot?
> “Eternity has abandoned our universe.” Incorrect, as we saw in the previous page – but this is what the Surfer things.
Thinks
Brian> Here he seems to at least know his hammer came from Asgard.
However, his hammer was destroyed in Donny Cates’ run, and has *not* been repaired since. (He got a version of the Twilight Sword instead in a miniseries)
It’s a new version of the Silver Surfer after he takes up Surtur’s Twilight Sword. I think he is now coloured black and is smoking. It was mentioned in an earlier Storm review. I had no idea what in the world a Silver Surfer Soot was either upon first seeing it. The mind wants to rebel against what it is reading.
Storm being able to defeat and possibly destroy Infinity- even a weakened Infinity- is just ridiculous,
At least Storm is fallible this issue- she realizes she was wrong not to study magic and Jaden has to talk her out of destroying Infinity.
‘Storm hasn’t previously had any particular problem with her back story as a child thief.”
Well, there have been stories such as Uncanny X-Men 305 that suggest she regrets it. Of course, all those stories take place after she’d been living in the United States for years- the idea that she left Cairo because she was ashamed of being a thief comes out of nowhere.
Re: Beta Ray Bill- it’s been established that no one remembers any of the Asgardains and Bill is remembered as having helped found the Avengers, for example, instead of Thor. However. that raises other questions. Thor isn’t the only Asgardian to have an impact on Earth. Loki gave the Absorbing Man his powers. The Enchantress gave Erik Josten his powers. So does that mean that the Absorbing Man thinks he got his powers from Baron Mordo and Erik Josten thinks he got his powers from Selene or something?
The easiest no-prize explanation for Storm’s insane power levels is that she’s still imbued with some of Eternity’s power. Her wildest feats have been since she was powered up and Eternity left. This make more sense given that Infinity could sense an association between her brother and Storm but not that he had left already, maybe because she could still sense her brother’s power.
Man, but this series is devoted to glazing Storm. Normally a human declaring themselves a literal deity would be hubris. Here, we’re apparently supposed to agree with Storm. Anyone want to lay odds on Ororo curbstomping The One Above All?
More evidence for my “Storm is a stealth comedy” theory. The American government in the MU has giant flying mosquito syringe vehicles that make sounds like ‘suck! suck!’ and ‘siphon!’.
In before we discover that Storm’s lightning was responsible for splitting Eternity, Infinity, Death and Oblivion from one another at the start of creation or something.
At this point I am having real trouble trying to convince myself that this series ever had a goal of actually having a coherent plot.
Storm is getting so powerful she’ll soon be responsible for the lightning strike that gave Barry Allen his powers.
Oshtur as Storm’s seems to have first appeared in the Marvel Tarot miniseries.
Later, when Storm is trying to escape from Magneto’s trap, she has a flashback of Achmed saying she had to leave because he could no longer protect her. When Calisto captured Angel, Storm remembers when a man looked at her like that and she had to leave behind everything she knew to escape. It was probably the Shadow king in Cairo.
In an earlier Storm series, when she reached Kenya, she joined anither gang of thieves.
@neutrino- The man who looked at her that she remembered when Callisto captured Angel was probably supposed to be the man she killed as a child.
Last week I asked if this is as bad as it sounds. This week I’m asking if anyone else is bothered by the use of genuine (current) deities as fictional characters?
I thought Marvel had moved away from using pantheons with current worshippers as fictional characters. But Indra’s got, what, over a billion people who at least nominally believe in him? Tens of millions more Shinto in Japan Plus I would think that Igbo, Taoist, Australian Aboriginal and even traditional Aztec pantheons still see worship.
Look, I’m an atheist, so they’re all equally fictional to me, but this is still pretty disrespectful to people’s living faith(s).
Heck, why not include YHWH, Jehovah and/or Allah based on the presumed origins as a Canaanite storm/war god? Although maybe I shouldn’t be giving them ideas…
Well, in that context, Marvel must stop using any real-world pantheons. There are very few belief systems which don’t exist, in some form, today with polytheistic reconstructionism attempting to bring back local pre-Christian pagan religions.
As far as I’m aware, Norse/Germanic neopagans are fine with the presentation of the Aesir in the Thor comic though, as they see it as a positive portrayal and helps spread knowledge of the deities (just don’t make any of the gods Black, for Odin’s sake!). So, I guess Marvel is safe with that one.
Ayodele is from Nigeria, and I know there are comic books from Nigeria which portray Igbo mythological characters in the comic stories.
Perhaps one reason why Marvel is ok featuring those characters but not Yahweh or Allah is because they were never shown as images. Jesus, on the other hand, was in Ghost Rider, but Marvel editors forced His removal because they’re no fun.
I do know that Hindu worshippers demanded that the Monsters in my Pocket toyline remove a Ganesh figurine from the set, but it was due to Ganesh being classified as a “monster”, which was untrue. I don’t think they would have been upset simply for the fact of featuring Ganesh.
Hindu worshippers also got pretty angry at the use of Shiva in Thor v.1 #301 back in the day.
In that one, Thor beats up Shiva in the story, and it had to be retconned into Indra posing as Shiva. So I guess Indra showing up here shouldn’t be a problem.
The Marvel Fandom Wiki helpfully informs us that Shiva can lift about 40 tons. Indra’s strength is apparently superhuman to an unknown extent.
Who wants to ask Tom Brevoort if this storyline will feature a bench press machine so we can get strength estimates for the other deities? Could be useful as a reference for future writers 😉
I have had Hare Krishnas point out to me that in the Bhagavad Gita Arjuna not only has Krishna driving his coach, but also kicks him on the back to signal out which direction to turn.
I’m an atheist as well, but most creeds aren’t nearly as bothered by usage of their deities or comparable entities as the Abrahamic ones are.
What bothers me isn’t the representation of deities; it is the odd deification of Ororo – or should I say of her vanity, which is in danger of becoming a character of its own?
That, and the nutzo nature of the plot, and the entirely incoherent use of established Marvel entities (what does it even _mean_ to be “possessed by Eternity”?).
I believe and hope that the writer has a perspective about religions and their use of deities and comparable entities that is very unlike my own (which is by no means close to those of the Abrahamic creeds either), but that does not excuse him from the duty to actually write a coherent, understandable plot and go through the trouble of telling what he is calling “gods” and “deities” in those illustrated pages.
And perhaps what that would mean to the main character, too? I am well aware of her vanity and self-entitlement. It would be nice to have something else in her personality at some point.
>Lei Gong. The Taoist thunder god. This is his first on panel appearance in the Marvel Universe, though he got a mention in the Encyclopaedia Mythologica Handbook one-shot.
Nah, Lei Gong actually first appeared in the Encyclopaedia Mythologica one-shot. And then first appeared in-panel in Shang-Chi and the Ten Rings #5 (2022) alongside other members of the Chinese pantheon.
As a hippo enthusiast, I appreciate the warning about the cruel tease delivered by this issue’s deceptive cover.
A disadvantage of Paul reverting to this format for the annotations is that there is less “this story is completely incoherent, but it’s got beautiful art” explicitly stated by him.
Also, I’m disappointed that Perun from the Slavic pantheon and the Supreme Soviets (or whatever they’re calling themselves these days) didn’t make an appearance.
Interesting thoughts on the deities, folks. I’m especially intrigued by the knowledge that Nigerian comics feature local deities from active religion!
I think it was the controversy over Thor 301 with Shiva that was half-remembered by me, and inspired my initial post. I had no recollection at all that Indra had been retconned in to fill that!
Oh, and I was also disappointed to here that hippo participation is limited to one none-riding panel. There goes the one reason to buy it!
My main shocker for this issue was that Gateway was having a multi-phrase conversation. I know he’s talked in the past, but the sheer verbosity of Gateway surprised me.
[…] #11. (Annotations here.) Part two of “Thunder War”, and it’s much as we’ve come to expect from this […]
In terms of active religions, The One Above All is being flanked by a couple of Biblically Accurate Angels, so the Abrahamic religions might getting thrown in too.
@Michael: This would be before she left Cairo. She says, “Had I fought, my spirit would have been broken. I would have been used, then slain. So instead, I ran away, from all that I knew and loved, never to return.” The man she killed was someone she met on her journey and seemed friendly at first.