Storm |
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Collection published: 2007 Contents originally published: 2006 Acquired: September 2024 Read: October 2024 |
Letterer: Randy Gentile
One of the big components of Reginald Hudlin's Black Panther run was the relationship and eventual marriage between Black Panther and Storm—or, I guess, T'Challa and Ororo. But that wasn't just something that unfolded in the series, it was also something we were told predated it. Specifically, there were a number of references to the 2006 miniseries Storm, which expanded on Ororo's youth, especially her relationship with T'Challa. So probably it would have been helpful to read this before Hudlin's Black Panther, but I didn't know it existed until later, and ended up reading it afterward.
I'm not much of an X-Men person, so I know very little about Storm as a character. This focuses on a period where she's a street thief in Africa, her parents having been killed in a civil war. A group of hunters recognizes her weather-controlling powers, and tries to kidnap her at the same time a young T'Challa, travelling the world, finds himself captivated by her. I have no sense of how much of this would have been preexisting canon and how much of it was added by writer Eric Jerome Dickey.
In any case, it's a comic where all one can say, and I'm sorry, is that it's basically fine. There is, unfortunately in my opinion, a lot of emphasis on Ororo's relationship with T'Challa, who was her first lover. While I get that this is an important part of anyone's life, it seemed to me that I wasn't getting a lot of insight into her personality, her wants, her needs, other than her need for romantic companionship. She seems largely defined by other people's choices—and, to be fair, many people actually are—but I had little sense of how she reacted and built herself in response to these other people.
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| I was relieved to realize Ororo's hair looks terrible on purpose, because this is a wig. Shame about the eyebrows, though; I think some artists just can't make them work. from Storm vol. 2 #1 (art by David Yardin & Jay Leisten) |
The art is fine; I wouldn't give it an award but there's nothing wrong with it, though I sometimes lost track of all the various hunter characters. The issues are on the longer side, a little more than the usual 20-22 pages, and I feel like they could have been cut down to the standard length without really losing anything important, to be honest.
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| Check your privilege, T'Challa. from Storm vol. 2 #4 (art by Lan Medina with David Yardin & Jay Leisten) |
Most frustratingly in terms of continuity, the book ends with T'Challa and Ororo still together! How did they end up separated again? The Marvel Chronology Project informs me that chronologically, Storm is followed by flashbacks from Black Panther vol. 3 #26 and Black Panther vol. 4 #14, but I don't remember the details of these despite having read them! (Maybe I should go back?) I guess Storm doesn't have to provide the complete story, but it does have what feels like an odd stopping point, all things considered.
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| Okay, but what happens to T'Challa? from Storm vol. 2 #6 (art by David Yardin & Lan Medina and Jay Leisten with Sean Parsons) |
Anyway, I'm glad I read it in the end, and it's too bad I didn't read it between issues #9 and 10 of Black Panther vol. 4, which would be my recommendation. But though perhaps this is a consequence of the context in which I read it, it feels more important to T'Challa than Ororo, and I think that does the character and the series a disservice.
