Storm #4 Review with Heavy Spoilers.

[Omegastorm]

Don't forget to keep promoting the book.

o

[True Believer Tony]

Yes, exactly. Storm has danced with the devil before, when it served a greater purpose. Interrupting the arena match and putting Yukio in trouble was too much of a blunder. Pak loves having Storm blunder about, and I think it is a disservice to Ororo's cunning, strategic mind. If she really wanted to stop the match, she could have made them pass out with a subtle electrical disturbance or something else less dramatic than jumping into the ring with a giant lightning bolt.

I can appreciate the sort of righteous/passionate angle Pak's been serving, but Ororo is more than that, and every single issue so far has had her act in a way that she should know better. If anything, her personal feelings for underground deathmatches should have been held in check by 1)her respect for Yukio in that moment, and 2)her respect for Logan, whose place she was taking.

Yeah, Storm interrupting the arena fight made for a great scene but it made her look quite stupid in my eyes. What exactly was she thinking? They weren't even slave warriors, they were gladiators. You're telling me she would cause a scene if she walked past a fight pit? It was too much.

Give Storm a catchphrase and this is a great setup for a superhero sitcom. Big-shot hero tries to tackle smaller problems and just creates bigger messes. Hilarious.

[Wind Rider]

How do you know this comes in issue 5? If so, I'm with you. I think its going to look impressive.

I couldbe wrong but I believe there is another scan of a penciled preview panel where we see the Breakworld alien in this issue partially appearing in the panel.

[rutog98]

Don't forget to keep promoting the book.

o

Right, and when you promote it, tell it like it is. This issue was the best comic to come out in a long time. Talk up its greatness, everyone. Don't just say, "Buy the book." Mention how Storm demonstrated GIGANTIC power levels in this issue and that this is but the first installment of a 2-part action-packed story arc. Say that the story will leave you at the edge of your seat salivating for the next issue and the big story afterwards which changes the status quo for Storm.

I'm just telling the truth and you all know it, so don't be shy in telling it like it is!

EDIT: I'm still on cloud 7 after reading this issue. I've read it 3 times today, so if my enthusiasm is really huge right now, you'll have to forgive me. LOL!

[rutog98]

I couldbe wrong but I believe there is another scan of a penciled preview panel where we see the Breakworld alien in this issue partially appearing in the panel.

Well, whatever happens, we know next issue Storm is going to kick butt and take names! November 19, here we come! LOL!

[yogaflame]

Yeah, Storm interrupting the arena fight made for a great scene but it made her look quite stupid in my eyes. What exactly was she thinking? They weren't even slave warriors, they were gladiators. You're telling me she would cause a scene if she walked past a fight pit? It was too much.

Give Storm a catchphrase and this is a great setup for a superhero sitcom. Big-shot hero tries to tackle smaller problems and just creates bigger messes. Hilarious.

I agree. It was a consensual match between two people who had chosen their path. If Storm really wants to save the world from every little bit of evil, she'd be better served joining that Breakworlder in destroying the corrupt elite who are the true source of the greatest suffering and taking over as a benevolent dictator, not beating up on little girls, breaking down sewer doors or interrupting the going-ons of organized crime.

Her blundering has been near-comical, especially given its ubiquity.

[Kieran_Frost]

Yeah, Storm interrupting the arena fight made for a great scene but it made her look quite stupid in my eyes. What exactly was she thinking? They weren't even slave warriors, they were gladiators. You're telling me she would cause a scene if she walked past a fight pit?

I think this is too harsh. Storm wouldn't stand by and watch people bludgeon each other to death, especially not for sport. She is a hero, she jumped in at the exact moment Steve, Songbird or Kurtz would have jumped in.

[yogaflame]

I think this is too harsh. Storm wouldn't stand by and watch people bludgeon each other to death, especially not for sport. She is a hero, she jumped in at the exact moment Steve, Songbird or Kurtz would have jumped in.

It wasn't for sport. It was to settle an internal dispute between the crimelords. Storm killed Callisto for leadership of the Morlocks(to save Angel, because it was the only way to settle the dispute within the culture of the Morlocks without risking more casualties on her team). Storm killed those humans stuck to the vampires in order to drop the shield and let the rest of the X-Men in to retrieve Dracula's head and save mutantkind.

She can make those kinds of hard choices. A lot of writers revert her to her original no kill mentality, which she eclipsed long ago. I don't think she's quite lost all of that(she still reveres life) and would kill unnecessarily, but she's not that rigid in her morality anymore.

[rutog98]

It wasn't for sport. It was to settle an internal dispute between the crimelords. Storm killed Callisto for leadership of the Morlocks(to save Angel, because it was the only way to settle the dispute within the culture of the Morlocks without risking more casualties on her team). Storm killed those humans stuck to the vampires in order to drop the shield and let the rest of the X-Men in to retrieve Dracula's head and save mutantkind.

She can make those kinds of hard choices. A lot of writers revert her to her original no kill mentality, which she eclipsed long ago. I don't think she's quite lost all of that(she still reveres life) and would kill unnecessarily, but she's not that rigid in her morality anymore.

I agree with you that she's not that rigid in her morality anymore. I mean, even as far back as Uncanny 175, she was willing to kill all of the X-Men in order to ensure that Mastermind did not elude them. That said, when Storm killed Callisto, it was more than just to save Angel, it was to save Kitty's life as well. Kitty was deathly ill and Callisto would not let the team leave to take her back to the mansion for medical treatment.

That said, she only kills when its absolutely necessary. In the case of Storm #4, I find it difficult to believe she would allow two people to just kill one another over a contested piece of property in front of her face. She's not a cold-blooded killer like Sabertooth or Omega Red. What those two guys were doing was going too far.

That said, I can see Storm reacting the way you are thinking she should have acted, but I think its more likely she would handle a situation like that the way she did in the story.

[MarvelMaster616]

I really liked this issue, but it almost felt like two different comics. The first part had her dealing with Wolverine's death. The second part had her battling this shady new underground with Yukio. It kind of felt forced at times. It didn't stop Storm from being as awesome as she's been since this series began. That remains the greatest strength of this series. It allows Storm to exercise all the qualities that make her so great as a character. This issue just felt incomplete compared to the others, which were concise and self-contained. It makes me wonder if the death of Wolverine basically forced Pak to revamp his story to accommodate the impact. Guess we'll never know. It was still a solid issue, just not quite as good as the ones that preceded it.

[Rosa Snarks]

Will do ). Here is the first one I found so far....

Geeked Out Nation 8.3/10

OMG WR! I knew he lurked the forums! I knew it! " It has always been a question as to if she could produce auroras" remember when we were all over this part??? lmao!

[Wind Rider]

OMG WR! I knew he lurked the forums! I knew it! " It has always been a question as to if she could produce auroras" remember when we were all over this part??? lmao!

Lol yes ....I'm hoping he has seen our other discussions on things we'd like to see.

[Imraith Nimphais]

Will do ). Here is the first one I found so far....

Geeked Out Nation 8.3/10

I LOVED it! This issue was a 5/5 for me. (mainly because Ibanez and Redmond are back!)

I agree with the above review and especially the following bit.

Some people say that they want linear story or some big plot to unfold, though that doesn’t feel necessary for a series like Storm or for a character like Storm. Each passing issue takes us through Ororo’s life as if this is her when she is not being an X-Man. That is what it’s like for a lot of these solo series and time needs to be taken to remind readers that the person behind the mask is just as important. Their personal lives as well.

Which echoes my sentiment about the direction and objective of this book.

I can understand why some may be disappointed with Storm's "rash" behaviour but I feel this is GP showing us how emotionally out of control Storm is getting/being, which will have repercussions (as he'd stated in his earlier interviews) eventually. I like where he's going with it, so far. With everything that has happened, this is Storm close to the edge of the abyss and getting closer...I want to see wot happens when she crosses over that edge and how she brings herself back.

[Rosa Snarks]

I'm off to read the issue again!

[rutog98]

Just wanted to post my thoughts in this thread as well:

Claremont laid the foundation for Storm's awesomess (and boy is it a solid foundation at that), and now here comes Pak improving on that. For instance, CC wrote the "Arena" story and now Pak is using that mini as the template for the current story he's telling. Pak is actually telling a much better story than the original tale Claremont wrote. It has more exciting villains, Storm is being portrayed better in terms of combat and power and the whole premise of this arena being centered around rivaling crimelords with superhuman power and technological resources like Moses Magnum makes for a great and exciting action-packed read. This is probably going to be a team of villains that can reappear in various forms to create problems for Storm during the book's tenure.

The other reason I say Pak is improving on Storm from what CC did is the solar wind feat. Claremont had Storm use a solar wind to destroy a sentinel out in deep space. Pak took that feat and amplified it to Storm controlling the solar wind on a global scale...and she maintained it for four hours!

I also appreciate that Pak does not devalue Storm's powers when she goes up against weaker opponents like CC does. Storm should never be hurt by lightning, in actuality. CC was so inconsistent with this because he kept putting her up against foes that she could easily handle. To prop up threats, he would make her vulnerable to lightning in some stories (in contradictory ways, at that) while in other stories write that "she cannot be directly harmed by any of the weather's manifestations." I mean, I can go on and on about this. Pak, on the other hand, writes her being flat out immune to lightning, as she should be, even when pitted against Callisto in issue 2. He was not willing to devalue Storm's powers to prop up Callisto (unlike CC) and he wrote the fight in a very realistic way. If Callisto comes up against an elemental-wielding Storm who is going to use those powers against her, Callisto needs to run. No matter how you cut it, this is not a hard fight at all for Storm. When Storm fights Cal under CC's pen, he scales Storm's powers back and even wrote Storm losing to tentacle-Callisto in his "Arena"story.

I deeply appreciate the creative applications of Storm's powers constantly employed by Pak. He shows this creativity in the major and minor scale applications of her abilities. CC will do this every now and then with Storm, but Pak does it regularly. Even in CC's Arena arc, though Storm was pitted against a bunch of weaklings, he could have had her win her fights with more creative applications of her powers than he did. It would have made me enjoy the story that much more than I did. Instead, I was constantly disappointed with that mini series as an elemental-wielding Storm lost to Callisto (who had 20+ tentacles, which made her a much more ferocious H2H combatant, but still, nothing compared to Storm's elemental fury), had Masque as the big bad of the story (I can remember on Comixfan CC teasing us about the major villain for this story being someone of tremendous power and having a very personal hatred for Storm. While he would not reveal the identity of the villain ahead of time, he told us that if any of us guessed the villain, he would confirm it. As you can imagine, I and others set about thinking about all the myriad villains Storm had fought over the years. Nobody thought of Masque of the Morlocks. When the mini came out and it was finally revealed, though I did not show it since CC was happy, I was very disappointed. It was such a huge let down. I mean, here it was Storm was getting her own mini written by CC and I was expecting her to fight a big powerhouse villain that would provide opportunities for her to showcase enormous power levels to just end up with this. Its was very anti-climatic for me and such a huge let down), and he continually had Storm (aided by Callisto, as if Storm needed Callisto's help) fighting weakling mutants. The fact that the mutants Storm fought against were weaklings would not have bothered me so much if Storm had used her powers in creative and unusual ways to win those fights.

What I wanted in a Storm ongoing title was a writer who knew all of the nuances of Storm's powers as defined by Claremont, Alan Davis (author of the Trion story circa Uncanny 365) Yost (author or "Worlds Apart") and Dwayne McDuffie (Fantastic Four #544-#550) who would take those powers and employ them in creative ways as they took her to the next level. Claremont would have been a safe pick, but I really wanted someone else. I get tired of the uneveness in which CC wrote Storm's powers. Meaning, I got tired of him ignoring her immunity to lightning when he needed a way for a villain weaker than her to take her out of a fight, or, like just recently when he had Margali turn Storm's elemental powers back upon her. Margali, while powerful, does not have the power to do that to Storm. Not when you look at Storm's high end elemental feats. While he was merely trying to illustrate how powerful Margali was, he devalued Storm in the process. Margali could have taken out Storm any number of ways with a sleeping spell, for instance, which would not have required writing Storm down. There are other instances of Storm taking control of the elements from sorcerers who were trying to use the elements against her (including an instance where she took control of the elements from Margali's power in an earlier story written by CC).

Don't get me wrong, guys. I am very appreciative to Claremont. The foundation he established for Storm is what made all of this awesomeness about the character possible. Its just I'm tired of reading stories about her losing fights to The Reavers or being scaled down for villains way below her power levels even in her own mini-series where she is not being written in a team dynamic. He made the character awesome, but was unwilling to come up with rogues that could really be a threat to her with very few exceptions. Rather than that, he would scale her powers back.

For Jean Grey, however, he gave her adversaries that were a better match for her. She has Mastermind (kinda, sorta), The Goblyn Queen (who was actually Jean's superior in every way in terms of power), Mr. Sinister and Firelord (for Phoenix Force Jean Grey). When CC came up with a team villain like Proteus, it was almost like he did so to give Phoenix Force Jean Grey a sparring partner (Proteus actually beat her with his reality controlling power and it wasn't PIS). While he did scale back Phoenix Force Jean Grey for Magneto, look at all the worthy opponents she had and he only scaled her down once for Magneto. For Storm, he scaled her down constantly for Mags. While Storm does have more exciting sparring partners than Masque and Callisto (Dracula and Shadow King come to mind. Candra came later, but not through CC.), he opted to use Masque over them. I wish CC would have made the effort to create more worthy opponents for Storm like he did for Jean Grey.

I was initially concerned back in April when I saw Pak was the writer of this book. I was uneasy because I haven't really seen him write Storm. I didn't want a writer who would just have her throwing wind, rain and lightning and being ignorant of all the other cool aspects of her powers. Those fears quickly dissipated as I read all those interviews he gave prior to the title's debut. Issue 4 of Storm solidified my confidence in Pak. I am a staunch Pak supporter for life. He knows that she can also command cosmic forces.

CC took great care of Storm, but to me, Pak is the ideal writer for this series. I think he is going to give us more exciting stories than CC would have. You go, Pak!