Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #1 - Review/Spoilers

[JB]

Treachery!

We open with the preview pages, Storm recounting the destruction with Arakko. She mentions confronting the QC on Krakoa and how Lactuca installed a psychic failsafe which allowed Storm to escape. (See: SOS #1). She and the Arakkii were ready to go to war then and there but Destiny had advised her to wait.

Storm and the Arakkii gathered their forces and were ready for war. They were attacked by a relentless barrage of chimeras including Ora/Cyclops and Madrox/Havok/Angel, losing most of their people and the planet being blown up into asteroids. We now see that Storm is speaking to Destiny who has come to Storm's hidden base in the asteroids, years later. Storm says maybe they should have gone against Destiny's advice and attacked sooner. She is still angry with Destiny and Destiny recognizes this but says that Storm won't kill her, not today. Storm warns her to not act as if her predictions are perfect - if her predictions can fail then she can be forgiven for her poor advice. But Storm suspects Destiny may have just been arranging the chess pieces for her own purposes back then. If this actually Destiny at all... She summons Jon Ironfire who appears and says this is not Destiny standing before them.



Mystique calls him Storm's gruffest attack dog. A rebel without a cause who made the Great Ring. She mocks him by saying she thought only Omegas could be on the Great Ring and asks if he's the Omega of molten metal blood. He says he'll let her know if he ever hits a limit. Mystique heals from the blow and Storm demands to know why she's there. To deliver a message from Destiny - "How would you like Arakko to live again?" She tells Storm about the Moira clones in Sinister's lab and how they work, how they can be used to save them from all of this. Destroy the facility, kill the clone, reset time. Storm agrees and tells Jon to assemble the Brotherhood for the mission.

Data page listing the Brotherhood:
Storm, the last true survivor of the Great Ring.
Cable, who bonded with the collective mind of Xilo to become living history.
Khora, "daughter of the legendary Fisher King."Wiz Kid, who created the cloaking device keeping the Brotherhood hidden.
Ironfire, can transmute his molten blood into any metal known and can extrude it in the form of weapons, armor, and his trademark horns.
Quick, Loolo Marshall (Craig of NASA adopted her!). Fastest being still living, youngest member.
Guest-Starring: Mystique

Cable bodyslides them to Muir Island and he says they should have known Sinister and his twisted sense of humor would put a lab of Moira clones underneath Moira's nose. Ironfire still questions if they can trust Mystique but Wiz Kid says the fabricated guns he made for her for this mission back on Astroid S have a lock in them preventing her from shooting the Brotherhood. And besides, they have other things to keep them busy as he points out a group of chimeras that have arrived. Cable references his bio-history chimera ingredients and deduces that they are half Marrow, half Maggott with flesh-eating bones they can be thrown. Gross.

Storm instructs Khora, Quick, Cable, and Mystique to handle the chimeras while she and the others make their way to the lab.



They reach the main lab room and the Moira clones are enclosed by a chimera of forcefields of Unus and perhaps Skids and Armor, Wiz Kid guesses. It's also being guarded by more chimeras, Glob and Rockslide type creatures. They can't break into the forcefield but Wiz Kid says he can teleport it so they can work on it later. Ironfire fires spikes from his body piercing the Globs and Rockslides. This is his "rain of pain" which Storm says was effective in the Genesis War but needs a little extra when dealing with these chimeras, using his iron blood spikes to electrify the baddies.

Outside, Khora amps up Quick's speed so she can take down the remaining chimeras quicker. Now moving extremely fast and seeing things in enhanced motion, she suddenly notices that Mystique is "glitching"! It's not Mystique!

Back in the lab, Storm praises Wiz Kid for teleporting the Moira clones to their base where they'll have time to dismantle the forcefield and switch off the Moira clone... But before she can finish her sentence Wiz Kid stabs her from behind through the stomach, a chilling reenactment of how Ironfire stabbed Mystique earlier. Wiz Kid is really Mystique and tells them the Moira clones were not teleported to their base. She teases Ironfire, telling him he didn't detect her because he was looking for body language and other fake tells she has been feeding him for years, and that the Shi'ar hard-light hologram from earlier was perfect down to the thermal signature. He rushes at her but she teleports away. Jon kneels down to assist Ororo, apologizing for failing her, calling her Goddess. He calls for the others to come down quickly as they need to medivac Storm immediately. Storm, bleeding out, "Mystique tired... killing blow... But she can't kill us. Sinister can't kill us. Arakko survives, Jon..."

Final scene; At the World Farm, Destiny is watching on monitors as the Moira clones appear somewhere in the facility. She's sipping and speaking to someone, telling them that if they didn't lure Storm into action, the timeline would have reset. She "saw" that after the QC vote about the space war (SoS #1) Sinister would have cut his losses and killed a Moira clone. The person she's speaking to responds, saying he knows how Sinister thinks. All of this chaos is a controlled experiment to Sinister, but Sinister won't be the one controlling it any longer. He asks Irene why she doesn't want to reset the timeline. What does she get from a diseased reality like this one?

Destiny: You really can't guess? It's such a simple answer. In this world...my wife is alive. And some things you don't gamble with.

He agrees, saying playing the long game is something they have in common. But he reminds her that nothing is forever and that at the end of the game there's only one winning card.

[JB]

From Al's newsletter last night:

"So let's try this again and get it right this time. Ahem...

WHAT'S OUT THIS WEEK?

Storm & The Brotherhood Of Mutants #1, and this time I mean it.

So what's to say about this that I haven't already said? It's got titanic Paco Medina art, for a start - but also, it's part one of a three-part journey across the thousand-year future of Sins Of Sinister, inspired by such diverse sci-fi sources as Blake's Seven and Ulysses 31, not to mention Disney's own Star Wars - and this dark future is going to end up having some serious repercussions right here in the present when we continue on with X-Men Red.

(And this is one more nail in the coffin of the Bird Site - I was very vocal on Twitter, especially by my reclusive standards, about X-Men Red continuing on from where it's left off with an issue #11 that comes right after Storm & The Brotherhood #3. And yet despite Twitter's alleged reach, when I look online I still see people worried the road might have ended - and in these times of the five-issue ongoing, who can truly blame 'em for lacking faith? So I'll tell you right here, once again, that I'm currently knee deep in Issue #13 of the book, and I've planned some issues further than that. What plans are those, you ask? Well, it might have something to do with the Heralds Of Apocalypse special that just got announced, but for now, I'm saying nothing further...)"

[Diammandis]

Ahh Destiny never change…lol

Irene's never going to change, she's going to make sure Raven is safe no matter what. I wouldnt be surprised to find out that if she stayed on Krakoa she could have used her powers to prevent this but at the cost of Ravens life

[JB]

Ahh Destiny never change…lol

You nailed it. I thought of you and the above post when Irene said she did what she did for her punk ass wife.

[StormBorn06]

Glad to see Loolo using Craigs last name.

[Taurean Sun]

This is a good issue. Looking forward to reading it personally... and to where the story moves from here.

[davetvs]

Irene needs to let it go already. Plenty of fish in the sea, dear. Issue was fantastic, "rain of pain" made me cringe but Storm's tornado drill thing made up for it. The last page gives a whole new meaning to "We must be on the same side."

[Krakoa]

Some stuff that stood out as hints for Red:

- Jon Ironfire used to be somewhat of a Rebel
- The Genesis War
- Loolo’s last name is Marshall so Craig maybe adopted her
- Death was part of team Arrako

[JB]

Irene needs to let it go already. Plenty of fish in the sea, dear. Issue was fantastic, "rain of pain" made me cringe but Storm's tornado drill thing made up for it. The last page gives a whole new meaning to "We must be on the same side."

Seriously. You're young with a hot body again, that crazy smurf ain't it and not worth destroying worlds over.
Tornados certainly do major damage but they don't drill deep down into the earth like that so that was awesome.

Some stuff that stood out as hints for Red:

- Jon Ironfire used to be somewhat of a Rebel
- The Genesis War
- Loolo’s last name is Marshall so Craig maybe adopted her
- Death was part of team Arrako

I like Jon Ironfire already and his molten blood being of great use for Storm was cool.

Now I'm fantasizing about seeing Craig adopting and raising little Loolo and her brother.

[Kingdom X]

I will be SUPER impressed if SoS can stick the landing, because these writers have to fit so much into each issue. This issue alone had to have a compelling, action-heavy story while also establishing lore of what the past 5-10 years have been like. Next issue is going to have to do the same for almost 100 years of lore.

Ewing certainly took a risk having the emotional weight of the story held by a new character, but I have an inkling that his relationship will Storm will pay off by the end of this.

[Master of Sound]

Glad to see Loolo using Craigs last name.

Me too, I am in desperate need of a Loolo scan, wonder what she looks like.

Ironfire is just a brand new character we know nothing about, right?

[Krakoa]

Part of me thinks Irene has a deeper motivation here that we don’t see yet. The “we must be on the same side”s to Sinister, the fact that the plan to just kill Moira and hope everything changed was weak, etc. I wonder if she’s working towards a future where Sinister will reset and change things himself.

[Steroid]

I loved this issue and Ironfire is an awesome new character. That guy is well on his way to becoming one of my favorite characters.

[Taurean Sun]

Part of me thinks Irene has a deeper motivation here that we don’t see yet. The “we must be on the same side”s to Sinister, the fact that the plan to just kill Moira and hope everything changed was weak, etc. I wonder if she’s working towards a future where Sinister will reset and change things himself.

Nope it's likely she wants this future to stay as long as possible because this is the only way Raven lives. Storm would have killed moira and reset the timeline but destiny cant have that as every other timeline aside this one raven dies. So she was playing ororo from the start, using her and her team to go get the moira for her then ditching them to form an alliance with a sinister who likely wont kill the moira.

The ultimate goal is dominion and it seems they are all going to fight for who gets to have that.

[Agent Grayson]

Things I liked:

• Storm was the highlight of the issue. Her tornado drill, her powerful leadership, her new costume - Ewing is really doing her justice.
• With Destiny and Mystique's betrayal, it seems like one of the themes of this event is facing the consequences of the foolish blanket amnesty. It's about time this was addressed.
• Ironfire is awesome. I can tell I'm going to be a big fan of his and I hope he is brought into the fold after the crossover ends.
• Storm's Brotherhood is a great ragtag team and I'm looking forward to reading more about them, which is a good sign.
• The Star Wars/sci-fi motif throughout was cool.

Things I didn't like:

• Like a last page Sinister reveal, Destiny and/or Mystique betraying or screwing over others for their love is becoming a tired story beat.
• The problem with the idea of the Chimeras is that, while cool, it requires much more suspension of disbelief than usual. Are we really expected to believe that Sinister would have his most valuable asset guarded by Chimeras of Maggott and Marrow?
• "Rain of pain". Oof. I hope no more characters decide to start naming their powers like wrestling moves.
• I think the issue should have been longer. Considering we're going to jump 90 years into the future next issue, this time period felt a bit under-developed and not that much actually happened.