The Empty Calories Of Comics: Reviewing ‘Storm’ #2

Storm, current Avenger and former X-Man, is dying. Radiation poisoning is wracking her body, with mere hours left to live.

Too bad that whole Krakoan Resurrection facility and miracle medicine reality was wiped away to kick off this new From The Ashes era. It’s time to get some first and second medical (and mystical) opinions in Storm #2 from Murewa Ayodele, Lucas Werneck, Alex Guimarães, and Travis Lanham.

What a gorgeous title.

Take away all the words, and there would be a pretty beautifully told graphic story. Sure, some of facts and grounding factors would be missing but it sure would be fun to gaze upon. At least this book has that going for it, because outside of that it sure feels off from what one might have assumed a book about Storm would be. Especially with this particular voice at the writing helm.

Werneck has this ability to really just make everything feel epic. From characters soaring through the sky to pirates attacking a ship to just showing up in a hospital fighting off a deadly illness. There is depth, weight, and a grandness to every panel and page. This world feels mightier and wider than the pages that try to contain it, as it should. The beauty of illustrations is how it can make a truly flat world feel anything but once the story has begun.

Because I tell you, audience (can I call you audience?), this story is truly flat.

Twenty pages to mostly have Storm fly around, have a doctor read her the riot act because the X-Men didn’t pay their dues (to a hero magic hospital we’ve never heard of), and then crumple dying before Doctor Voodoo. Talk about stretching things out.

No real explanations about the overall radiation killing Storm, other than it appears to be dark magic curse-based. Why that would be the case, when she seemingly got sick from the power plant issues in the first issue? Who knows? This will probably be explained (or not) in the third or fourth (if we’re lucky) issues. Ayodele seems to be picking up on the really snail like pacing quality that this whole line has been victim of since it began.

Also, for a book that is about how “great” Storm is, there is very little of her actual voice here. No thoughts, no real conversations, just her being lectured and talked at most of the time. All the captions are some mystic third party (potentially cosmic as we saw at the end of the first issue) telling us what is happening or will happen, often in vague ways. Ororo might as well just be a co-star passenger in her own title carrying book.

Back to the visuals.

Pairing Guimarães with Werneck was a solid call. There is a smooth and dense quality to the chosen color palette which integrates with the art style so well. Plenty of darker tones are added to really hit the more ominous and darker aspects of this story. Allowing the more fantastical or otherworldly elements be the ones carrying the most vibrant or bright loads. Which makes the most sense for any of these superhero related books.

Overall, there is a very grounded type of style being achieved with the art. Natural and neutral tones which build the overall space and create parts of the world that feel familiar to us, allowing us to wade into the space easily.

While Storm is lacking a voice and many things feel very unnatural, it’s not for lack of trying on the lettering side. Lanham delivers all the dialogue and captions, amongst other lettering, aptly. Letting it fit into the space that the title requires and allows, as things sort of flow through the book like water. Emotional impact is missing in many cases, but for the most part it does the job of informing the reader

Months ago I leapt at the idea of reading, and reviewing this series, because it seemed this particular team might together have something major and magical to say about the character. Two issues in, it’s clear that artistically a voice has been found but writing wise something is inherently missing. After years of a fantastically written Storm (by a white man nonetheless), this version, like most of this line as a whole, feels like a large uninspired step backward.

I hope that turns around soon but my hopes are not too high.

Storm #2 is now available from Marvel Comics.