Robbed Of Body, Voice, And Soul — Reviewing ‘Storm’ #5

Ororo Munroe, Storm, is most definitely one of the most powerful and recognized female heroes in the Marvel Comics’ pantheon. A large part of why: Marvel hasn’t spent quite as much time boosting their women characters as other publishers. Another element — Storm is that great of a character.

Unfortunately, the first five issues of her series have taken that powerful character and diminished her. A bunch of eternal grand ideas are used to mask issues of the series for this fifth issue — the last issue in this first story arc from Murewa Ayodele, Lucas Werneck, Alex Guimarães, and Travis Lanham.

I try to give series enough road to really get into the heart of their story. Judgement will be levied along that journey, that’s the way of things, but I’ll try not to take an exit too soon. Sometimes that drive will last till the series meets the sunset and coasts off gracefully (or the publisher brings it to an end). Other times, like this one, the choice is made to take an offramp as soon as possible.

This will be my final review for this series.

While I can appreciate the grand board that Ayodele wants to play on, the execution is much to be desired. For four issues my major critique is about how Ororo has been given no actual voice of her own. The captions are the third-party celestial being Eternity speaking about her. All her story beats have been her basically being directed by or knocked down by men. There is none of the powerful, independent, takes no shit Storm that we all love showing up here.

Somehow it got even worse in this issue. After being returned from Death in the previous issue, we see an entity using Ororo as a host to inflict great violence. Now, her body is just as gone as her voice, leaving Ororo in some void, in tears, as her body is stolen and used without her consent. It’s a horrible state to put this character in and is utterly grotesque on multiple levels.

Werneck’s artwork is gorgeous and really works for these giant celestial ideas. It’s not enough to save a series that does such a disservice to the title character. No matter how grand the paneling was with such intricate details it just highlighted how painful it was to see this done to Ororo. Vivid color palette choices really make the visuals pop and stand out. Plenty of darker tones are swirled through the lighter vibrant colors.

Similarly, Lanham makes the voices pop and work, those that we get here. He uses some colors and modifiers as well as font changes to differentiate voices. It gives them the little push to allow us to really hear what these voices should be in our minds.

Comics are a visual medium. Without the visuals they are just prose stories, which is a whole medium on its own. Great art can make books soar beyond the wildest dreams. When the writing is lacking in particular areas it becomes an anchor for everything.

As long as this anchor is in place the series will not go anywhere. Whether others will sense that and bail like myself, only time will tell. Either way, good luck to the team and those that want to keep on this journey. As much as I want a Storm book and to support endeavors from Black creators, this one is not the one for me.

Storm #5 is now available from Marvel Comics.