Storm #1 Review

There’s a lot going against the current X-Men era. Krakoa is gone, the feeling of community is lost. The very thing that made fans out of so many is no longer with us… 

BUT

“From the Ashes” so far has promised so much, and to me it meant taking a lot of characters who deserved to shine for a long time and giving them some needed spotlight, all the while sprucing up the creative teams and making it arguably the most diverse the X-Men has ever been creatively. Characters like Magik, Laura Kinney, Mystique, Temper, Psylocke, etc have all been key X-Men characters who just did not get enough spotlight. The era isn’t perfect, and I damn sure have a lot of notes on what other characters need spotlight, but for the number 1 character who I think deserved their own solo spotlight? Ororo Munroe. Storm. Hadari-Yao. We finally have a Storm solo series and it’s written by the excellent Murewa Ayodele and the wonderful Lucas Werneck. 

Storm #1 is a triumph of an issue. A comic that tackles where Storm is at currently; in terms of how she stands with the X-Men, amongst the mutants as a whole and how she will represent them to the masses. This comic is heroic, it’s political, but most importantly it treats Storm as a human while still emphasizing her significance to mutantkind. It is made very clear off the bat that Storm is an important person in mutantkind, as she should be, and I couldn’t be more excited for where this series will go in that regard.

Murewa Ayodele has been teasing so much from this series for the past few months, and somehow he still was able to undersell how amazing this book is for Storm. This book is going to be big, it’s so much more than what I could’ve asked for from a Storm solo series personally, and yet it doesn’t feel like it’s going to bite off more than it can chew. Storm is such a larger than life character, most writers have only been able to depict that side of her well, others have gotten her more humane side down. Not many have been able to balance both and Ayodele seems to be the writer who is capable of doing so. You can tell he has not only an incredible understanding of the character, her background and what she means to mutantkind, but he also has an incredible reverence for the character. This comic is clearly unafraid to challenge her and simultaneously capable of matching those conflicts with meaningful payoffs.

And then there’s the art. Lucas Werneck is in top form here. From the environment to the displays of power, I thought Lucas Werneck was at the top of his game in Immortal X-Men, but here he is making it look effortless with how gorgeous this book is. He’s accompanied by Alex Guimarães and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo and all three together make this book look exceptional. Brilliant artwork by this team, I adore this.

There isn’t much more I can say without straight up telling you about what’s in the comic, you need to go out and buy this book. 

“The fury of the Goddess is ICY— freezing retribution”