Not What The Doctor Ordered: Reviewing ‘Storm’ #3

As her life clock nears an end, Storm turns to one group that she can in her hour of need: the X-Men.

Things take on an uncanny energy in Storm #3 from Murewa Ayodele, Lucas Werneck, Alex Guimarães, and Travis Lanham.

Comic books are a massive collaborative process, taking many different hands to see them come into being. From the writer to the artist, to the colorist and the letterer. There is also the cover artist, be they the ones from the issue itself or from outside. Done forget all the editing, marketing, and more that it takes to get things to the stand.

Truly a Herculean effort in many cases.

That being said, sometimes certain efforts end up standing out more than others.

Every month, my focus is on just how utterly dynamic and breathtaking the artwork is within this book. Someone opened the door and Werneck burst through it, loudly and proudly as possible. What the man delivered artistically in the past was always great, but there seems to be a new level that was reached and it’s a powerful one.

Unfortunately, this issue doesn’t give him much to work with on a big scale, what with it being a talking-head, montage type of thing. That being said, he easily found a way to still make scenes of people talking feel grand in scale and scope. Emotions are poured out on every surface, as the characters emote and have such elegance and weight to them.

Last issue was similar, where it was just Storm bouncing around, a bit of action, and not much else. It sure gives Werneck a chance to really draw the hell out of pretty simple things, so there is that at least.

Similarly, Guimarães gets to really showcase the chosen color palette. Smooth and dense, it shifts to really accentuate the moments well. Moving from brighter and lighter to darker and heavier, sometimes around the same point. This is a mostly human story in the sense of a personal level, so there are less of the heroic, vibrant beats. Instead, the more ‘simple’ spaces are livened up in very natural ways.

Lanham takes what there is to work with here and does well with the lettering. Emotional energy (even cringe) is clear right away. Storm, as a character, is not very represented within these pages, so her voice falls a bit flat even with the solid work done here. There is only so much that can be done when the story itself isn’t lending a hand.

I’d spend a lot of time talking about the story itself, but it’s pretty threadbare. Ayodele makes it seem like he’s building to something, but at this point it’s going nowhere pretty fast.

Really, this whole issue is basically a montage of a now-powerless Storm going through days so that we can dabble in Logan/Ororo shipping nostalgia. When everything dovetailed to lead to this moment where they have sex (and Ororo is seemingly awkward and ashamed of it), I let out the deepest, most painful groan.

Part of that was from the format of the issue and its formation to reach this point. Majorly though, that groan comes from the fact that this is not the Storm that we know. First off, if she did have sex with someone like Logan, she would not be awkward or gossipy or seemingly ashamed of it. The writing is playing with some real tiresome types of tropes here, and its showing.

Through two reviews, it’s already been pointed to that Ororo is lacking a voice of her own. Instead, the comic just talks at the reader through third person omnipresent captions that belong (presumably) to a cosmic being that is “pursuing” Storm.

In this idea of pursuit comes another issue with the overall series.

We’re three issues deep now, and much of the story focuses on Ororo having “confrontations” with some male figure which leads to her having to, essentially, bend to them in some way. Even the men who are seen as friendly or allies. From the doctor who essentially shamed her into giving something up for the “X-Men’s sins,” to Doctor Voodoo schooling her on why losing her powers for 7 days is good, to even her caving into hooking up with Logan after he was beating her around in training.

What’s that in the next issue? Oh, just Sorcerer Supreme — and Storm chaser — Doctor Doom summoning her to “discuss” the fate of Mutants once he takes over the world with his new magical title. Surely that won’t lead to another man “putting her in her place” situation…

Every single thing is from a male perspective, with a male writer, and Storm is just a piece within the overall narrative of others. Which is not at all a showcase of the powerful, independent, dominant presence that is Ororo Munroe the Windrider know as Storm.

Storm #3 is now available from Marvel Comics.