ROGUE STORM #3
“The Gallows and the Executioner”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Roland Boschi
Colourists: Neeraj Menon, Fer Sifuentes-Sujo & Rachelle Rosenberg
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort

COVER: Rogue Red with a bunch of arrows through her at the top, and a defiant-looking Storm on her knees in the bottom half of the page.

This is the final issue of Rogue Storm, with Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant #1 solicited for February. Despite Murewa Ayodele insisting that he’s been told it’s an ongoing, the recent solicitation for issue #2 still has it as a five-issue miniseries.

PAGES 1-3. Storm fights her way through Eēgūn’s soldiers.

While Rogue Storm is much easier to follow than the regular Storm series, it would still probably be useful to stick the plot in chronological order before we go any further. It runs like this:

• Flashback in issue #1: Two years into the Age of Revelation timeline, Storm takes in Rogue Red and gives her vibranium knuckledusters. (The timing is confirmed by Gambit in issue #3.)
• Per dialogue in issue #3, the demon Eēgūn escapes “the imprisonment imposed on him by the universe” (presumably his consumption by Maggott in Storm #6).
• Flashback in issue #3: Eēgūn attacks and destroys the Storm Sanctuary. Storm fights him for ten days straight and imprisons him in her body (presumably using magic). Unable to control him, she secludes herself in the Sahara Desert, guarded by the Storm Engines. She loses control of her powers and involuntarily causes worldwide devastation.
• Flashbacks in issues #1-3: Five years into the Age of Revelation, X-Force (Rogue Red, Warpath, Iceman, Gateway, Fantomex and Akujin) fight their way to Storm, and Rogue uses her powers to absorb Storm’s abilities, thinking that she’s going to stop the devastation. As a result, Eēgūn escapes. Akujin turns on the rest of X-Force and kills most of them; she’s an agent of Eēgūn who enlisted X-Force to help get past the Storm Engines in order to free Eēgūn. Storm and Rogue Red are rescued by Dr Voodoo and the ghost of his twin brother Daniel Drumm. Voodoo is killed while holding Eēgūn at bay. Rogue Red dies from her injuries, and discorporates on death.
• Dialogue in issues #2-3: Over the next five years, Storm searches the world for Eēgūn and practices magic. Daniel’s ghost continues to hang around with Storm in deference to his brother’s final wishes.
• Flashback in issue #3 and main story in issues #1-3: Storm gathers various magical weapons with a view to fighting the demon as “Primal Storm”. Gambit turns up looking for Rogue Red. Eēgūn attacks before the conversation can get anywhere. Storm defeats his henchmen and uses magic to trap herself and Eēgūn, apparently forever, resurrecting Rogue Red as a side effect.

Right then…

Storm’s heritage. The claim that Storm is descended from Oshtur of the Vishanti was also made in Storm #12. The reference to Ayesha comes from the Handbook-style Marvel Tarot one-shot in 2007, which was the first place that Ayehsa was mentioned; she’s since shown up in Steve Orlando’s Scarlet Witch. The claim that she drowned Atlantis is new. The Great Cataclysm is normally blamed on the Celestials.

Ashake is the Egyptian sorceress who first appeared in a time travel story in New Mutants #32 (1985)and looked exactly like Storm. The term “Shadow Path” also comes from that issue, though in the original context it seems to be a generic reference to black magic (“Like you, Illyana, I walk the Shadow Path.”) Ayodele claims here that it’s a magical rite which allows mortals to commandeer the powers of literal gods – which is what Ororo now proceeds to do.

Uzuri is simply the established name for the village where Ororo lived in Kenya.

“Agbāra Sàngō.” “Agbāra” is Yoruba for “power”, so presumably she’s channelling hte power of the storm god Sango.

Abeokuta. Abeokuta is a city of a million people, so either the caption means that she’s in the general region, or something really catastrophic has happened here.

PAGE 4. Splash page.

The usual symbolic splash page, with Ororo squaring off against a looming Eēgūn, whose victims are impaled on this back. These are the other magical protectors who could potentiall have fought him – Dr Strange, Dr Doom, Scarlet Witch, Dr Voodoo, Elsa Bloodstone and Clea are identifiable.

PAGES 5-8. Flashback: Dr Voodoo sacrifices himself so that Storm can escape.

This picks up from the flashback sequence in the previous issue, repeating Eēgūn’s final line of dialogue.

We already saw Daniel Drumm’s ghost with Storm in the present day scenes of the previous issue; this now fills in why Daniel is hanging around with her, as his brother is no longer around. Daniel used to be a standard feature of Brother Voodoo stories, but he’s been very much downplayed over the years.

“Èmi ebora burúkú tí ń gbé inú ogun.” “I am the evil spirit who dwells in battle.”

The Sands of Nisanti. This is an established spell from Doctor Strange that blocks magic in the area. It first shows up in Doctor Strange: The Oath #5 (2007).

PAGES 9-10. Flashback: Rogue Red dies.

“Isu paradà ō di iyān…” Google translate gives a rather garbled translation of this, but it generally seems to be along the lines of Storm giving Rogue the last rites.

Rogue Red dies lamenting the various people she won’t see again, all of whom are the original Rogue’s friedns and relatives; she refers to them here as hers, as she remembers them.

PAGES 11-12. Flashback: Storm explains her plan to Daniel Drumm.

This must be an unlabelled flashback since Storm already started fighting Eēgūn at the end of the previous issue. It largely consists of her recapping and explaining the plot.

“The Mau Mau freedom fighters.” The Mau Mau rebellion against British rule of Kenya in the 1950s.

Shuri. I’m not sure how she makes the list for mystical protectors, but apparently she does. Her closing line is something like “A member of the dark side.”

Revelation. We’re told that by taking out all the magical heroes, Eēgūn enabled Revelation’s takeover of the Revelation Territories. That’s pretty much the only connection of this series to the core story of “Age of Revelation”, though it does have more connections with Unbreakable X-Men (which is also detached from the core).

PAGES 13-16. Storm traps Eēgūn with the Sands of Nisanti and defeats his henchmen.

Nisanti. He appears to be the creature clutching the hourglass, who gets killed by Eēgūn. If so, this seems to be Nisanti’s first actual appearance, despite multiple references to him in Brian K Vaughan stories over a decade ago.

PAGES 17-18. Gambit and Rogue Red are reunited.

Gambit clarifies that Rogue Green has returned, and that he insisted on coming alone. That places this after Unbreakable X-Men, and implies that Gambit has suddenly decided to come for Rogue Red now that he no longer feels compelled to keep vigil over the original Rogue’s statue in New Orleans. The idea here is presumably that Rogue Red at least gets the happy ending of being invited back into the X-Men fold.

PAGE 19. Storm fights Eēgūn.

The idea seems to be that Storm is just going to stay here in Nisanti’s dimension (possibly because Nisanti is no longer there) to fight Eēgūn; whether she wins or not is now academic, as long as he’s trapped.