CBR: THE COLOR BARRIER - The Life and Death of Marvel's X-Goddess, Storm

[The S0/\/\@7ic Si/\/\[]Dl370n]

Straight from Joseph Illidge.

http://www.comicbookresources.com/?p...ticle&id=58973

He talks about Storm in general, her casting in the movies, and why he feels Storm's solo series failed to sell.

[Beezzi]

Good article.

Although the biggest problem that book had (including the ones mentioned) is that it had no hook...it had no idea what it wanted or needed to be.

It kept treading some weird space between superhero comic, nostalgia trip, and chick lit. It had no idea what it's audience was.

[Anduinel]

Good article.

Although the biggest problem the book had (including the ones mentioned) is that it had no hook...it had no idea what it wanted or needed to be.

The establishing issues weren't bad, but they were just there, for the most part. I really wish they'd launched with their Death of Wolverine tie-in.

[Beezzi]

The establishing issues weren't bad, but they were just there, for the most part. I really wish they'd launched with their Death of Wolverine tie-in.

Good point - I agree, it would've been a much stronger start and hook for the series. And set a better tone for the whole series.

[IdaqiBeauty]

"Since there are few to no all-Black marriages in superhero comic books, for the only one to fail was not an appreciated ending by Storm's fans."

lol what!? Storm fans were ecstatic. I think he means Black Panther fans.

[Bafflement]

I'm not sure why he's saying Storm's marriage ending was not appreciated by Storm fans - many were pretty happy about it.

[kumiho]

The reason Storm's book did not sell is not that it was a bad book, or that she was poorly portrayed, or that people were upset about her marriage breaking up. Her series failing is for the same reasons that so many other books are failing nowadays. Marvel solo title books, like Storm, and satellite team books like All New X-Factor are generally cut off, storywise, from the rest of the MU. They don't have a tie in to the big events which people are keeping up with, so their is no urgency to buy the books. Thus, fans do what is most logical, wait for the trade books to come out. Lets face it. Comics have become RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE!! They used to be a cheap hobby, easy to start into and keep up with. Now, it is a major investment. At upwards of five bucks a pop, how many people are dishing out cash for numerous titles a month for single issue releases? It's not that fans aren't anxious to read these books. It's that they do the smart and economical thing, and wait for the trades to come out for way less money. Unfortunately, Marvel has not planned a strategy around this, and they are not about to lower their prices, even on digital sales, which they really could be raking in tons of cash on, and using more to gauge sales then just depending on the Diamond distributions they use now, which is an outdated and silly way to track sales. So we end up losing great books like Storm, Nightcrawler, All-New X-Factor, Gambit, etc. Until Marvel rethinks their merchandising and sales routines, side books are going to keep getting cancelled, and the fans of those books will keep being disappointed.

[Huntsman Spider]

The reason Storm's book did not sell is not that it was a bad book, or that she was poorly portrayed, or that people were upset about her marriage breaking up. Her series failing is for the same reasons that so many other books are failing nowadays. Marvel solo title books, like Storm, and satellite team books like All New X-Factor are generally cut off, storywise, from the rest of the MU. They don't have a tie in to the big events which people are keeping up with, so their is no urgency to buy the books. Thus, fans do what is most logical, wait for the trade books to come out. Lets face it. Comics have become RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE!! They used to be a cheap hobby, easy to start into and keep up with. Now, it is a major investment. At upwards of five bucks a pop, how many people are dishing out cash for numerous titles a month for single issue releases? It's not that fans aren't anxious to read these books. It's that they do the smart and economical thing, and wait for the trades to come out for way less money. Unfortunately, Marvel has not planned a strategy around this, and they are not about to lower their prices, even on digital sales, which they really could be raking in tons of cash on, and using more to gauge sales then just depending on the Diamond distributions they use now, which is an outdated and silly way to track sales. So we end up losing great books like Storm, Nightcrawler, All-New X-Factor, Gambit, etc. Until Marvel rethinks their merchandising and sales routines, side books are going to keep getting cancelled, and the fans of those books will keep being disappointed.

Well said, and on a tangent from that, you can have all the well-written comics that respect and adequately use past continuity and characterization that you want, but because those aren't often connected to this year's big event, the characters' portrayals in those smaller, more ancillary comics won't be what gets drawn upon when they get used in the big event comics unless the writers involved have an interest in those characters or Marvel's higher-ups are interested in promoting them to the wider readership. If they do get used at all, it's often simply as generic placeholders and team/group fillers and if they get to play a significant role at all, their words and actions often fly in the face of how previous writers, or even contemporary, writers handled them. Of course, that'll be the version the wider readership gets exposed to, and judging by how inferior it often is to the version or versions depicted by the writers that actually dedicated significant time and focus to fleshing those characters out in their own books, the wider readership will be turned off from said characters instead of encouraged to go out and buy their books, which at least in part leads to those books not selling in the first place --- word of mouth getting around that "they suck" just because of how they were depicted by the writer of the event book they appeared in. Given this forum, it should come as no surprise but still very tragic that this has happened to a lot of X-Men and X-related characters in the past.

[kumiho]

Well said, and on a tangent from that, you can have all the well-written comics that respect and adequately use past continuity and characterization that you want, but because those aren't often connected to this year's big event, the characters' portrayals in those smaller, more ancillary comics won't be what gets drawn upon when they get used in the big event comics unless the writers involved have an interest in those characters or Marvel's higher-ups are interested in promoting them to the wider readership. If they do get used at all, it's often simply as generic placeholders and team/group fillers and if they get to play a significant role at all, their words and actions often fly in the face of how previous writers, or even contemporary, writers handled them. Of course, that'll be the version the wider readership gets exposed to, and judging by how inferior it often is to the version or versions depicted by the writers that actually dedicated significant time and focus to fleshing those characters out in their own books, the wider readership will be turned off from said characters instead of encouraged to go out and buy their books, which at least in part leads to those books not selling in the first place --- word of mouth getting around that "they suck" just because of how they were depicted by the writer of the event book they appeared in. Given this forum, it should come as no surprise but still very tragic that this has happened to a lot of X-Men and X-related characters in the past.

Also well said. *High Five* And i couldn't agree more. A lot of great characters get the short end of the stick in characterization with certain writers which leads to poor fan views, limiting sales potential and casting unfair aspersions onto characters, just because one writer may prefer some characters to others, and possibly undo the great works of the writers who have handled those characters is side books. Storm is a good example of this line of thought actually. Pak has been doing a great job with her, but in other books she comes off too often as ego driven and forceful, rather then the wise goddess figure.

[nx01a]

The Forge issue completely turned me off the series. Such foolishness. You disappointed greatly me, Pak, after a great first issue.
Did Storm fans really want lukewarm rehashes of Storm's greatest hits with that idiot Beast whispering in her ear? I sure hope not. A new high stakes situation for Storm to overcome via different methods *in addition* to hitting it with lightning was needed to follow up on the first issue. Storm and Creep/Flourish/Hipster Mutant Girl and the black girl [from the village about to be destroyed by the tsunami] should have been caught up in intrigue with the evil corporation Storm opposed as soon as issue #2 hit.
...but I'm just a fanboy and, therefore, wrong.

[Bad Penny]

this article is wrong on every level, basically it says that if you don't read Storm you're a racist, even though it has horrible art and the writing is not as good as we've seen Pak do before. tsk tsk, so wrong.

[FluffyCyclopsRLZ]

Too bad the article didn't tackle the omniracial angle. Oh well.

[Aquamarine11500]

this article is wrong on every level, basically it says that if you don't read Storm you're a racist, even though it has horrible art and the writing is not as good as we've seen Pak do before. tsk tsk, so wrong.

I agree some of it was exaggerated,but he did make some good points about being a minority heroin and overall promotion. Though Paks writing has been excellent so far,granted I think he should have started off at a faster pace with bigger storylines,but the series has picked up a lot since then,and The art has been great for the most part.

I have no idea what Halle and Alex have to do with this.Some of the things he pointed out were again,unnecessary.

[The Weather God]

this article is wrong on every level, basically it says that if you don't read Storm you're a racist, even though it has horrible art and the writing is not as good as we've seen Pak do before. tsk tsk, so wrong.

Definitely the vibe I was picking up after reading it as well. Not to mention lumping all Storm fans into the same category as perceiving the annulment as some major slight against her character...

[Nipower888]

this article is wrong on every level, basically it says that if you don't read Storm you're a racist, even though it has horrible art and the writing is not as good as we've seen Pak do before. tsk tsk, so wrong.

The art was really good but the writing started off slow. Now the writing has gotten so much better and art is crap