Storm: Earth’s Mightiest Mutant #5 annotations
STORM: EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANT #5
“Reunited”
Writer: Murewa Ayodele
Artist: Federica Mancin
Colour artist: Java Tartaglia
Letterer: Travis Lanham
Editor: Tom Brevoort
COVER: That’s Storm in a swamp going to commune with “the ageless one”, in the opening scene.
This is the final issue of Storm: Earth’s Mighiest Mutant, though the complete run is 17 issues, as it’s essentially the same series as Storm vol 5. If you count the “Age of Revelation” tie-in Rogue Storm, it’s a 20-issue run.
I’m not going to do conventional annotations for this, since it shows every signs of being a guillotine cancellation where writer Murewa Ayodele has chosen to focus on resolving one key theme and leaving it at that.
In the previous issue, an alternate version of N’Daré banished Ororo to Earth-61391. That issue ends with a very abbreviated scene of Storm being rescued from local Sentinels by Furana, her daughter from that timeline. By the start of this issue, Storm is off in a swamp somewhere, hoping to commune with “the ageless one” in the hope of finding a way back home. This is presumably the same swamp where Storm landed in the previous issue; perhaps it’s the local version of the Nexus of All Realities (which is in a Florida swamp in the main Marvel Universe).
The “ageless one” turns out to be Eternity, apparently the version from the Marvel Universe (or at least one who’s common to all timelines). This issue largely consists of Eternity arguing that Storm’s own actions are responsible for bringing disaster on her world and others, and that she needs to reunite with him in order to set things right. Storm then rejects Eternity anyway, finds another way back to Earth (by borrowing a magical gem from Furana), and makes it back home with one page to go before the series ends.
So let’s run through the various plot points from the series that Storm and Eternity focus on. In Storm #10, Storm imprisoned Sango. Eternity argues that Storm should have killed Sango instead of showing mercy to him by imprisoning him in a pocket dimension. (Storm was still serving as Eternity’s host at this point.) Eternity doesn’t make a particularly convincing case for this being a mistake. His basic contention is that it made no difference to Sango’s realm whether he was dead or imprisoned, because it left the realm unprotected from the forces of Death anyway. Not unreasonably, Storm argues that if anything, imprisoning him has saved his life. (A brief scene of Sango shows him sensing the apparent demise of his people at the hands of Death’s forced, and assuming that Storm has something to do with this.)
In Storm #11, the FBI kill Maggott. Eternity argues that by failing to obliterate them in revenge, Storm has merely encouraged them to keep trying. While Eternity’s “vengeful god” schtick is excessive, it is true that Storm seems to have done absolutely nothing about this murder. The FBI do indeed show up at the Storm Sanctuary in Storm’s absence, despite it being in France now. It’s the usual super-agents plus the new Galacta, who has a big hammer and still presents herself as an FBI agent.
Issue #3 opens with a flashback where Storm visits Maggott in the afterlife (inexplicably, the Olympian afterlife, even though he’s South African) and says that she’s going to resurrect him, despite his warnings that it’s a bad idea. A new flashback in this story reveals that she did go on to use magic to resurrect him, apparently with Dr Voodoo’s equipment, her own untrained magical abilities, and the help of the ghost of Voodoo’s brother Jerome Drumm. However, back in Storm #5, Eternity/Storm defeated the demon Eegun and fed him to Maggott. This apparently imprisoned Eegun within Maggott, and Storm’s amateurish meddling has caused “recoil”. This is why people’s heads have been exploding throughout the series.
Eternity seems to have a point about Storm having screwed up here, assuming he’s telling the truth. Storm also appears to accept this particular point, drawing an analogy with the days when she used her powers to bring rain to her village without realising that she was merely redirecting it from somewhere else that also needed it. (This is footnoted to X-Men vol 2 #78, but the basic idea that Storm’s powers work like this had been around since the Official Handbook if not earlier.)
According to Eternity, Maggott’s resurrection has also prompted the march on Earth’ by “Eegun’s war generals” – Akujin and her sisters – who are now in a position to find Maggott, murder him again, and thereby free Eegun. Apparently the “master” they were trying to free has always been Eegun, and the fact that most of issue #1 was devoted to Storm imprisoning Susanoo is just coincidence. But… in issue #2, Akujin and her sisters didn’t know where Eegun is, beyond Akujin’s assurance that she had sensed him somewhere on Earth. So they can’t have been specifically heading for Earth to kill Maggott. Presumably the idea is that Maggott’s resurrection created some sort of signal that alerted them to the possibility of coming to Earth.
For her part, Storm cites Eternity making her kill Hadad in Storm #12, which Eternity duly apologises for. However, Storm then goes on to argue that Sango’s pantheon, the Orishas, would not have been decimated in the first place if it wasn’t for the fact that Hadad was dead, and therefore able to be deployed as part of Death’s army. (This isn’t really supported by what we saw in issue #3; in that story the Orishas has already been decimated before Hadad, Knull and Gorr were called in to help against Olorun.)
Storm also argues that Eternity was responsible for imprisoning Eegun within Maggott in the first place, and that she only attracted the attention of the FBI because Eternity imprisoned Abraxas in the Storm Sanctuary (which we learned in Storm #9). These are rather weaker points, since imprisoning Eegun within Maggott seemed to be working just fine until Storm meddled with him, and while Abraxas was the immediate cause of the FBI taking an interest in Storm, they’re so awful in this book some other excuse would have presented itself. In keeping with the meta themes of the previous issue, there seems to be an aspect of Storm arguing that it isn’t her fault that the story has been engineered to put her in this position.
By the way, for some reason, this argument is illustrated in part by scenes of Hadad leading Death’s army against Arakko, where Apocalypse and Jon Ironfire are among the forces fighting them. Arakko seems to be an arbitrary target here.
After rejecting Eternity, Storm gets back to Earth by borrowing the local version of her mother’s ruby from Furaha. We’re told that the ruby can also be used for interdimensional travel, with a footnote to X-Treme X-Men #10 from 2002. That story does indeed say that the ruby is magical and can be used to power interdimensional travel – it needs outside assistance, but presumably we’re to take it that Storm rounds up the remaining ingredients elsewhere.
All this leaves a single page to resolve the imprisoned gods, the invasion of Akujin’s forces, Death’s attack on Arakko, the alternate N’Daré Munroe, and the FBI. The book doesn’t even attempt to do so – instead, it just declares that we all know Storm wins, and leaves it at that. So all of this apparently gets sorted out off panel.
… and here I thought PLANET SHE-HULK #6 was abrupt.
This series started strong and quickly became unreadable. I have depended on these annotations to make any sense of it, and it’s a shame because so many of the concepts were great but delivered in an unpleasant shuffle that didn’t feel rewarding when decoded. I am so impressed with the work Paul has done on this project and hope he’s getting solid rest now that it’s done.
Given that EMM was solicited from the start as being a 5-issue mini, rather than making social media entreaties that it really, truly wasn’t… maybe Ayodele should have plotted for a 5-issue run rather than relying on it bring automatically extended.
This isn’t even like that last X-Force series. Thorne may have completely failed to see the writing on the wall that he wasn’t guaranteed an extension beyond #10, but at least it wasn’t publicly anounced as a 10-issue series, and he genuinely found out after #9 was written.
You need to figure in the lead time that writers need to get a finished comic published on time. A scripter tends to be working six months ahead of publication date, I believe. My best guess is that Brevoort told Ayodele that Storm was coming back as an ongoing series after AoR, as Storm had some of the strongest sales of any of the X-titles for a while. Then, suddenly, the sales on Storm collapsed toward the end of his first volumn. It went from one of the best-selling X-titles to near the bottom. Marvel higher-ups probably told Brevoort that Storm’s sales did not warrant it getting another ongoing title. By that point, Ayodele probably had the first three issues of the new series finished.
Some people thought that Eternity was talking about Armor when he said the FBI “took the life of your friend”. Clearly he meant Maggott.
I can’t believe that Ayodele established that Storm used black magic to resurrect a dead friend and wound up killing innocent people. Not only is this arguably out of character for Storm ( it’s black magic- what did she think was going to happen?) but this leaves Storm with a lot of baggage going forward. Will Storm turn herself in for manslaughter? The Scarlet Witch apparently has figured out what Ororo did- is this going to cause a rift between Ororo and the rest of the superhero community?
Plus, Maggott still has a demon trapped within him- something I’m sure will never be mentioned again.
OK., it was Eegun that Akujin was trying to free and Storm was opposed to it because it would kill Magott. That makes Storm’s refusal to free him in issue 2 more sensible but now I’m wondering- did WANDA realize that freeing Eegun would kill Maggott? Because Wanda seems to suggest that Storm should free Akujin’s master in issue 2- it’s odd that Wanda would jump to killing another hero as her first solution.
Are we supposed to assume Akujin was killed in the Royal Palace of Olympus before she could make it to Earth? That’s what the art makes it look like but the captions describe “Akujin’s invasion of Earth”.
Apparently what happened was that Ayodele thought this would be an ongoing series and only learned different when he saw the solicitations for the first issue. If that’s what happened, then the blame lies with Brevoort. He’s the editor- making sure that the writer knows whether he’s writing an ongoing or a mini is his job. It should have been obvious to him that there were too many plots to be resolved in five issues. And if it was changed from an ongoing to a mini after it was approved., Brevoort should have changed the plot at an early stage so it would fit in five issues.
According to Ayodele, T’Challa and Share were supposed to defend Wakanda against Akujin, Ororo and Uranos would defend the universe against Doctor Voodoo’s armies, Jean would fight Death and Wanda and Abraxas would fight the FBI and Galacta. The original plan was Storm would defeat the armies of the dead on Arkakko, think she’d one and then return to Earth to find that Zombie Strange had taken over the planet. (Uranos would have been released in the serve of Arakko.)
That should be “T’Challa and Shuri”.
Marvel seems to be in serious disarray currently. Whether replacing Buckley will make a difference or not remains to be seen. Brevoort seems to have a serious problem communicating with the writers under his charge. Mark Russell complained that Marvel did not clearly communicate with him while he was writing X-Factor (which would fall on Brevoort, specifically), and the whole experience seemed to sour him on working for Marvel.
I have no idea whatsoever who are those two characters that this comic calls Storm and Eternity.
I suppose Tom Brevoort ought not to have okayed the proposal for this disjointed mess that began with Ayodele’s “Storm #1”, but I can’t help but wonder what Ayodele has been trying to write all this time. Some sort of radical take on some mythology that I can’t quite identify, I assume.
This is Legion of Super-Heroes Five Years Later levels of “bad”. Hopefully it will all be disregarded, because there is nothing else that can be done if the character is to be published again.
Dear lord, what a mess.
“Storm Wins” to wrap up half a dozen subplots is the most abrupt, unsatisfying, lazy resolution. Might as well just retcon the entire run as a Nextwave style hallucination and never speak of it again.
This entire era of X-books is a horrible mess for the most part, even the ones with quality writers attached.
There’s something about watching Storm do all this cosmic, magical craziness in her X-Men costume that I find really funny.
You’re going to paddle through Magic Mushroom Swamp in skin-tight leather? Okay then. Don’t forget to put on your cape for your next hippo ride!
“This is Legion of Super-Heroes Five Years Later levels of “bad”.”
I could write a short essay about what I find wrong with this statement, but let’s just agree to disagree.
You’re right.
5YL was better than this. It told an actual, comprehensible, long-term story, for better or worse.
Though I’ll still never forgive them for killing off Blok in the first issue.
And so Storm ends the only way it could have: abruptly and batshit insane, but with really good art.
I’ll give Ayodele this, Akujin never said which master she wanted freed, and she was working for Eēgūn in AoR. I’m not sure making your plot deliberately deceptive when it’s already hard to follow is a good idea, but at least it was fair.
Similarly, having a protagonist conclude that they did nothing wrong and that nothing is their fault is unusual for a reason, but hey, it’s allowed.
Storm is plainly wrong that killing Hadad was necessary for Death to be able to recruit him, since Voodoo has been recruiting alternate universe deadites all the way up to Galactus.
A strange, incomprehensible book, but at least it wasn’t boring.
What a s-show, from start to finish. I cannot begin to understand how this was allowed to go on for so long. The story was dense and incomprehensible. I bet even the most staunch Storm supporter can’t explain to me why they liked this and the previous volume and why they would want to see this book continue. Ayodele was probably told he would have 10 issues to complete his story, as he did with the other volume, but things had changed mid-story, so he was forced to end things in an abrupt manner. It was difficult to criticize this book and not have the Storm stans come out in defense of this book. I just wonder how the Storm stans are going to accept that there won’t be a book for the foreseeable future.
Chris V> Marvel seems to be in serious disarray currently. Whether replacing Buckley will make a difference or not remains to be seen.
I mean, that’s not why Buckley is being replaced. Him, Gabriel and various editors being deep-sixed is a mix of indiscriminate corporate cost-cutting and the new big boss replacing his predecessors’ appointments. And having fewer editors is unlikely to help with things like coherence.
[How exactly Brevoort danced between the long knives is a bit of a mystery.]
I know that’s not why Buckley is being replaced. Winderbaum comes from outside the comic book field though. There’s a chance that he may see Marvel going backwards (losing more market share to DC), and decide to completely shake up the company. I’m not holding out hope.
@The Other Michael, if it was a Nextwave style hallucination, how long until it becomes Spider-Man problem again?
This was the kind of run that Kurt Busiek would later sweep aside as the machinations of Immortus with one flashback panel and a footnote.
@Michael,
After Krakoa , nothing is set in stone anymore as far as character’s personalities are concerned hehehe
@TheOtherMichael
But the current generation of writers such as Ewing and Zub have already canonized NextWave as part of 616 continuity
@MasterMahan
At the end of the day , isn’t that what really matters most of all , since after all the whole point of a pastime is to pass the time , and boredom is the failure to do exactly that
@sagatwarrior
The whole high concept of this book is “Reparations , Marvel Edition” LOL . And Her fans must be used to it , this is essentially the exact same crowd that every year throws a hissy fit , especially online , when ever it’s the Annual (US)American (Film and Motion Picture) Academy Awards Season :hastag “OscarsSoW-ell You Know” ;p
@SanityOfMadness
Brevoort is an expert politician , he’s a friend to all and a for to none , at least to those who actually matter in the corporate heirarchy tsk tsk tsk
@TimXP
Personally that’s the one thing Busiek ever did that I hated , I loved the Crossing myself KEK
“The whole high concept of this book is “Reparations , Marvel Edition” LOL . And Her fans must be used to it , this is essentially the exact same crowd that every year throws a hissy fit , especially online , when ever it’s the Annual (US)American (Film and Motion Picture) Academy Awards Season :hastag “OscarsSoW-ell You Know” ;p”
And thank you for telling us what crowd you seem to be a part of.
The remit we were given coming into “From the ashes” was this book, and the Avengers were to position Storm into a larger role in the Marvel Universe overall, hence “Earth’s mightiest.” We certainly didn’t get that, and I assume she just gets plugged into United now. I have a sense of dread with Zdarsky’s upcoming event and Avengers after the fact; he has said it is a “five-year plan.”
@wwk5d
FYI FWIW it’s not the crowd you think , I’m POC myself , and while members of own particular specific demographic segment has been/is notorious for being traditional tokens for the YT Right , we’ve also been historically renowned more often than not for being on the diametric opposite side of the political spectrum , as well as all being at all the other points in between . Would I even be such a fan of Marvel and the X-books if I wasn’t to begin with in the first place?
Maybe you shouldn’t be promoting their Internet theories constantly on this site if you don’t want people to start calling you out on it. Even if you think it’s funny or edgy to be contrarian, it’s really not to give these views more spotlight. I get the feeling that you are the proverbial “troll” though, as you are also making comments about it taking a massive terrorist attacking to stop Mackie’s Brotherhood or that The Crossing was great. It’s really just kind of annoying. If you could stop with that kind of remark and just act normal (not that the views expressed by those wwk5d is referencing are “abnormal”, but I get the feeling that you don’t really share those beliefs), it would be more appreciated.
[…] EARTH’S MIGHTIEST MUTANT #5. (Annotations here.) Final issue of the run. It’s a blatant guillotine cancellation, despite having been solicited […]
@ChrisV,
Ok , noted and considered . I’ll be more circumspect commenting here moving forward in consideration of the other commenters here, different forums , different cultures after all , and one must adapt and adjust .
But just you know , I wasn’t trolling at all in that last post :
1) Howard Mackie himself persoanllu revealed publicly in 2018 that he was Writer X , why he and Marvel hid his identity , and why he and Marvel ended The Brotherhood after just a mere 9 issues in 2002 despite higher sales then than even best-selling titles now in 2026 : https://www.cbr.com/marvel-writer-x-identity-revealed/ ;
2) Just because you may have really hated Avengers : The Crossing for whatever reasons , doesn’t mean that nobody else genuinely loved it , for me , as a red-blooded teenage guy , what you-know-who would call “adolescent cishet males” , it was the Avengers version of DC’s Kingdom Come (this was the the 1990s after all, the same era where all of the icons of the Big 2 were getting deconstructed ala WatchMen and TheDarkKnightReturns). Of course , my overall tastes have changed since then , as is common, but it’s also standard that human nostalgia for the formative joys of the golden summer of one’s own youth is eternal forever (especially with guys) . It’s not shocking at all , it’s just common sense , after all , such fanbase nostalgia is always the no.1 reason keeping global entertainment franchises alive .
@Jdsm24- According to Comichron, issue 9, the last issue of Brotherhood sold 29,208 copies. Now there were an unknown number of issues sold outside Comichron but it still doesn’t seem that impressive by today’s standards.
But according to Google , 29K+ copies a month is a mid-tier-level in 2026 , such as Amazing Spider-Man of all things , the ostensible flagship title of Marvel Comics itself . Now, isn’t that at the very least relatively impressive , that a z-minor title by an officially-unidentified writer starring a cast of literal unknowns during an era when Marvel was undisputably no.1 in its field (USA corporate-published comics) is in terms of raw sales there and then , on the same level as the proverbial “official eternal face of the company” today in the here and now? Of course , it’s also depressing , but impression and depression are two sides of the same coin.
@Jdsm24- Amazing is probably selling a lot more than 29K even now. By most estimates, Absolute Batman is selling 300K- Absolute Batman is not selling ten times as much as Amazing.
The market of today is somewhat wise to the excesses of the 1990s and less eager to indulge on those. Also, there are many significant and impactful differences elsewhere.
The way I see it, it is inherently much harder to sell comics today than it was back in 2001 and 2002.
Mainly because the economic situation and consumer habits changed, but also because the considerably reduced consumers pool no longer has a very strong incentive to favor to Marvel and DC over the very competitive independents; distribution is not nearly as much an advantage anymore; and we are well into the process of transitioning from the idea of ongoing titles towards a volume/project model as the new standard.
Right now there is also the matter of the impressive success of DC’s Absolute line, which pretty much crowded everything else out of the top 10. I don’t expect that to last.
As for Brotherhood sales – nah, it is not impressive at all. We were still going through 1990s hangover at the time. Crap _sold_.
@Michael,
For Marvel’s sake , I can only hope so tsk tsk tsk
@LuisDantas
Well , we can only agree to disagree , what is crappy to some , is cool to others