Ororo Munroe: Storm Appreciation 2019

[yogaflame]

I adored X-Treme X-Men, especially in regards to Claremont's use of Storm. She was spectacular. But the fact remains that X-Treme was the satellite book orbiting around Morrison's New X-Men. That is what defined the X-Men for the 21st century.

Given that Morrison's intention was to make Storm start a relationship with Cyclops instead of Emma, I am completely happy Claremont intercepted her, but in the long term, that did come at the cost of Storm's relevance to the 21st century X-Men.

Marrying Storm off to BP was another step in the wrong direction, but she was already on shaky ground due to missing Morrison's run. Like it or not(and certainly the fandom is divided), Morrison created Weapon Plus, the Cuckoos, Fantomex, elevated Emma, created Quentin Quire, Glob, Xorn, Cassandra Nova, made the X-Mansion into an actual school with dozens-hundreds of random students, killed Jean, made mutants into a huge population and then killed a huge chunk of them, destroyed Genosha, etc, etc, all of which are storypoints/characters still in play to this day. Storm not being in the center of that has had huge consequences. And you can easily see a lot of younger/newer X-fans straight up don't like Storm(and it's almost fair, because her greatest stories were decades ago).

[Saturius]

I think Storm is too big a character to be affected negatively by missing out of a genre defining run (i.e Morrison, Whedon.) Any legacy character can survive that. What really does any character in is just poor, continued mismangement. She may have missed out being a part of that renaissance, but I still feel like those writers at that time would not have done her well. Whedon I am less sure on. I am 50/50 on whether he could've done something with her.

Besides, we can't pretend that she wasn't pushed after she was released from Claremont. Her going to BP was an attempt to elevate her in the larger Marvel Universe. She was also brought back to the fold of the X-Men fairly quickly after her marriage and was present during Decimation, Messiah Complex, Utopia etc etc. IvX was also an attempt at putting her at the forefront again as well. But none of those eras or pushes matter because what they all have in common is just a very poor understanding/depiction of the character. You can be part of a blockbuster run, but if your writing for said character is crap, it's not going to make an impact.

Maybe if Brubaker and Ellis could have used the character more and been driving the narrative for the X-Books, things could've been a bit different, because for me, they were the only ones that showed promise with the character during that time after Claremont.

[stormphoenix]

What Heores can Storm fly faster than?? Or keep up pace with???

[Devaishwarya]

Personally, while I mourned the loss of Storm from the X-Men at the time...I was quite happy with her marriage to the Black Panther and her appearance in that run (right up until Doom War started...which was not written by Hudlin)...I wasn't too enthused by the X-Men franchise as a whole post Morrison/Whedon and I took a sabatical from the X-Books at the start of Utopia to present (I did follow the X-(Wo)Men book and Extraordinary X-Men...but very little else featuring Storm).

So...all that said...I am quite ready and willing to put the past behind and look ahead when it comes to her specifically. (I can still re-read my Claremont UXM/XXM)
Maybe HiX-Man will do something with her, maybe she'll have a major role in phase-2 Dawn of X...maybe...maybe not.

I'm just going with the flow.

[Strong Girl Daken]

Storm is one of those very rare timeless superheroes. She will persist beyond temporarily being portrayed poorly or not at all (though we should still get mad when this is the case). She's in a league with Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman, Wolverine, Spider-man, and Hulk (all whom are more than one movie, one comic book run, one actor/actress). The stars haven't lined up for her in the movies yet since she is a black woman unlike the rest of those icons. Many of the characters popular right now like Iron Man and Captain America really depend on the actor portraying them. I'm not convinced those characters have cultural capital independent from their actors (RDJ in particular).

I also think the fact that Storm is timeless and more invulnerable to character assassination than others means that writers take her for granted. Taking her endurance for granted combined with tokenization has meant that Storm has faced challenges, sadly. Time being cyclical is usually a bad thing, but it also means that Storm's force of popularity will come around again (hopefully shepherded by black creatives at Marvel Studios and Marvel Comics this time).

[yogaflame]

What Heores can Storm fly faster than?? Or keep up pace with???

Storm can break the sound barrier when she wants to. In my head canon, if she's riding lightning bolts and negating wind resistance by bending the atmosphere around her, she should be able to approach lightspeed, but that's not really supported by a lot of canon(there are a few isolated incidences of her riding lightning in the comics, but they are so rare and inconsistent).

[yogaflame]

X-Treme/XSE Uncanny were the last times I loved X-Men comics. It's been subpar since, in my opinion, to varying degrees. So I certainly followed Storm to BP comics when they married, but almost immediately I just did not like Hudlin's Ororo. Coming directly off of Claremont's, she was almost not the same person. When T'Challa and Ororo joined the FF for a run, I think that was McDuffie's, that was okay, but still not a homerun.

Then you had that mess where he was taking over for Daredevil in Hell's Kitchen and not wanting her to interfere with his shenanigans, I mean, that was the ongoing issue from jump. When they first saw Doom right after the marriage. T'Challa was always so insecure around her because her mutant abilities really just sets her on a higher echelon than his peak human martial arts. Of course if you lean into the Wakandan tech hard enough you might can almost level the field, but for the most part T'Challa is a hand-to-hand fighter, and Ororo can mold the elements to her will. And it really got bad towards the end with DoomWar and AvX. I always had a soft spot for them together from Earth X, but in the mainstream 616 they have been a disaster.

[stormphoenix]

Storm can break the sound barrier when she wants to. In my head canon, if she's riding lightning bolts and negating wind resistance by bending the atmosphere around her, she should be able to approach lightspeed, but that's not really supported by a lot of canon(there are a few isolated incidences of her riding lightning in the comics, but they are so rare and inconsistent).

Right, I agree. But I was more curious as WHO can she outfly or keep up with?

I my opinion i'd say: Sunspot, Cannonball and Human Torch.

[yogaflame]

Right, I agree. But I was more curious as WHO can she outfly or keep up with?

I my opinion i'd say: Sunspot, Cannonball and Human Torch.

She should be able to outfly all of them. At best they are fiery rockets. At best she is lightning.

[butterflykyss]

The only thing Morrison using Storm would have done would be make Whedon more likely to use her in Astonishing as that book and cast were the ones that really became prominent in that era, where Storm was on the decline. I dont think Storm being in NXM though would have necesarily been good for her especially considering how he planned on utilizing her, which others have mentioned here. The fans would have turned on her and she'd be hated to this day if she were to have an affair with Scott

ewwwwww he wanted to use Ororo to have an affair with Cyclops???? ugh gross. thank the goddess that never came to pass.

Storm from the Genosha arc would've shoved every bit of that cloud up some Inhuman asses. That whole IxX arc did nothing for the mutants and had them all carrying around the stupid bat.

right?? ororo would have condense it to a block of frozen terrigen that medusa could have towed back to the moon.

https://www.houseofx.org/blog/welcome-to-genosha

thank you for posting this as this addresses the point i was making ororo not being a pacifist. Ororo was Rightclops before there was a Rightclops. Ororo was making the tough decisions when cyclops was breaking maddie's heart and abandoning his family to get back with Jean. Again the worst thing to happen to Ororo was Scott lobdell and she hasnt fully recovered since (with the exception of coates I'm liking what he hes doing).

I think Storm is too big a character to be affected negatively by missing out of a genre defining run (i.e Morrison, Whedon.) Any legacy character can survive that. What really does any character in is just poor, continued mismangement. She may have missed out being a part of that renaissance, but I still feel like those writers at that time would not have done her well. Whedon I am less sure on. I am 50/50 on whether he could've done something with her.

Besides, we can't pretend that she wasn't pushed after she was released from Claremont. Her going to BP was an attempt to elevate her in the larger Marvel Universe. She was also brought back to the fold of the X-Men fairly quickly after her marriage and was present during Decimation, Messiah Complex, Utopia etc etc. IvX was also an attempt at putting her at the forefront again as well. But none of those eras or pushes matter because what they all have in common is just a very poor understanding/depiction of the character. You can be part of a blockbuster run, but if your writing for said character is crap, it's not going to make an impact.

Maybe if Brubaker and Ellis could have used the character more and been driving the narrative for the X-Books, things could've been a bit different, because for me, they were the only ones that showed promise with the character during that time after Claremont.

omg so much truth in this post especially the commonality that you pointed out between all these stories.

What Heores can Storm fly faster than?? Or keep up pace with???

I would agree she can fly as fast as lightning so that would put her at 1/3 the speed of light which is 220 million mph. There are too many characters to list but I would say based on this some would include iron man, archangel, Monet, magneto, and rogue when she had cm powers.

[butterflykyss]

Hasbro is celebrating Marvel's 80th Anniversary with a whole new line of Marvel Legends, and they feature some of the most iconic characters in the Marvel Universe. The word classic isn't by accident either, as these figures celebrate the history of these characters with designs based on their classic looks, and features a roster that includes The Hulk, Cyclops, Iron Man, Captain America, Dazzler, Storm, and more. Now some of your favorite photographers have given their own spin on the figures, and the results are stunning, to say the least.

Goddess of the Storm:



Photographer: Warrior_Evans

Figures Used: Marvel Legends 80th Anniversary X-Men Retro Series Storm

For this epic Storm photo, we get a mix of elements, which is fitting for someone who can control all aspects of the weather. The photo utilizes the lightning effects that come with the figure while surrounding her feet with a wall of wind, and the bright glow puts it over the top. To complete the photo we also get some lightning in the background, and it all makes for one amazing photo.

https://comicbook.com/marvel/2019/07...-toy-photos/#1

[Devaishwarya]

I didn't mind her characterisation in BP under Hudlin as I realised that the writer was writing her from an entirely different mind-set and understanding of the character's direction now that she's married, than Claremont. But yes...post-Hudlin Storm (with the exception of McGreggor) was badly written.

As much as I love the character, I can still get behind HiX-Man's version of her because he is NOT Claremont...and he will most likely have his own take on/direction for her character as he would for all X-Characters featured in his run. (I stopped expecting writers to write these X-characters in the "Claremont Mold" decades ago...at some point you just have to let it go.)

Once she is not written badly, and once his plot isn't shyt...I'm good.

[Shreene]

What Heores can Storm fly faster than?? Or keep up pace with???

Norrin Radd, Monica Rambeau, Superman?

[stormphoenix]

Norrin Radd, Monica Rambeau, Superman?

All of them can Fly at the Speed of Light or greater. I don't think Storm can achieve that.

[yogaflame]

Norrin Radd, Monica Rambeau, Superman?

Monica should be able to do actual lightspeed. Without mitigating wind resistance by bending the atmosphere around her body, Storm should not be able to do actual lightspeed(as lightning is slowed down by air molecules), but it is possible she could bend the air around herself and transcend the air resistance limitation.

Superman and Silver Surfer both can exceed lightspeed, so Storm can't keep up with them without some random magical goddess stuff thrown in.