I’ve mentioned before I was eager to pick up the debut issue of Marvel’s new storyline for Storm. That issue has just dropped, and I gotta say, I was quite delighted by it. I’ve already been happy to be reading the lines for Black Widow, Captain Marvel, and Ms. Marvel, but this? This made me happy in ways the others haven’t yet, just because I know Storm.
Storm Preview
She’s the first superheroine who ever caught my eye and made me interested in comics, way back in my middle school days when I hung out with young nerd boys who were reading X-Men releases. I remember liking Storm in no small part because she was a girl on a team that was predominantly male. But I also thought she was beautiful, and graceful, and oh my goddess, her hair. I remember reading her origin story, and can still recall the panels of a young Ororo, skyborn over her African village, her face radiant with joy as she called down the rains onto the drought-stricken land.
I fell out of reading the X-Men not long after the Dark Phoenix saga, so I haven’t been paying attention to them outside a movie context in ages. But reading Storm #1? It felt like coming home.
The story: very basic and straightforward, with an A-plot pertaining to Storm lending aid to an African village, and having the maturity now to better know how to handle saving them without threatening other locations beyond them. The village is delighted to accept her help, and there’s a shot of her getting her picture taken with a young girl, and both of them have joyous expressions that were just beautiful to behold. Naturally there are complications–because the village in question is located in a country with an anti-mutant regime, and the local soldiers are very direct in telling her she’s not wanted or welcome.
The B-plot, also straightforward. Storm’s now headmistress of the Jean Gray School for Higher Learning–what I used to know as the Charles Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters. And there’s a student with plant powers (“ooh, a plantshaper!” says the Elfquest fan in my brain), codename Flourish, only she’s been saddled with the nickname Creep by her classmates. She’s getting bullied. And she lashes out at Storm in ways that make Ororo have to confront her own choices.
Art-wise, gosh, this was lovely. Especially all the panels with Ororo in the air, and the last page in particular is glorious. You should look at this issue on the strength of the art alone.
Here are some other reviews you can sample, including several with lovely preview glimpses of the art. And I very much like Adventures in Poor Taste’s caption of “Umm… sir? Let’s not be a douche to the woman who stopped a hundred foot tall wave, alright?” Because yeah.