Hadad is here to end our universe. Eternity, sensing the coming cataclysm, abandons the universe to seek the help of The One Above All — the only entity benevolent and powerful enough to defeat the first storm god. With the powers of the Eternal Storm stripped away, Storm is no longer the most powerful being in the universe. Yet all we hold dear rests on her shoulders. Ororo Munroe must face the oldest and most powerful storm god alone, for the fate of the universe. Storm #11 is written by Murewa Ayodele, drawn by Mario Santoro and C.F. Villa, colored by Fer Sifuentes-Sujo and Alex Guimaraes, and lettered by Travis Lanham.
We were walking out of what would be our last date, and I, oblivious to the heartbreak I was about to undertake, could not have been happier. We’d just finished watching Everything Everywhere All at Once, and I thought it absolutely brilliant. A bit avant garde, maybe a bit too silly and saccharine, but beautiful in an absurdist way. I could barely contain my excitement as I was ready to share my thoughts with my soon-to-be ex-partner…
But…
I am not a psychologist, but I’ve studied human behavior as a hobby. Passion, even when presented negatively, has roots in care. In feeling. She didn’t care for it. At all. Not in the visceral “I hate this, this sucked!” way; she had no feeling. She, lightly bemused, barely mustered a word, letting me expound on my excitement alone.
Looking back, maybe she’d already made her decision about me and was biding her time; for all I know, maybe this is what made the decision, realizing that this was just another way we were incompatible. I don’t know. I accept I won’t know. All I do know is a week later, there was no more us, and since that time, I’ve never wanted to watch that movie again.
This explains why I didn’t like Storm #11: It was so overstuffed that it reminded me of a trauma I’ve been trying to forget. In a way, I have more empathy for my erstwhile partner. Like her, I walked away from this issue numb, and have no real desire to come back to it.
Yes, our heroine looks amazing and is doing amazing things. Yes, the storylines are finally starting to coalesce into a crescendo, with our (over?) powered goddess getting ready to face her omnipowered tormentor one on one. But along with that confrontation comes a council of Storm Gods, a fallen Glactus and Silver Surfer from the future, Bishop and Gateway, government agents and voodoo dolls, cameos from Jean Grey and Krakoa and…
Yeah.
It’s a lot. It’s too much. And yet, it’s not enough.
We are 11 issues in, and I don’t think we’ve learned anything new about Storm: not why she has a sanctuary, not who the permanent residents are, not why she shied away from her close communities, not what she desires beyond the care of others. No goals, no aspirations, no fears, no backstory that’s not already been said a few times over.
And this can be fine! This is meant to be an action comic, and there is certainly a lot of action here! But because there are so many threads, because there is literally so much going on at once, it’s hard for the reader to get invested in, say, the child Bishop is protecting from the world (and herself), or to fully grasp the community of the Storm Gods, or to even really empathize with Eternity and Oblivion’s conditions (though, to be fair, they probably got the most development of the aforementioned side stories). There is just literally too much going on all at once, which makes the stakes, high as they are, feel abstract, if not disconnected. There is not enough time dedicated to any character’s development — not Storm, not Hadad, not the dearly deceased (but not really) Japheth — for the reader to feel or think deeply about motivations and ramifications.
There’s just too much.
Years removed from disappointment, I find myself in a similar situation. There are things I’m enamored by, things … people … a person I know I love deeply, that I find myself a bit hesitant to share with. Maybe I shouldn’t let the scars or the past preclude me from joy in the future, but trauma is hard to forget. Still, I took a step forward. I took a risk recently that, maybe one day, if it pays off, I’ll share.
Then again, maybe it’s already paid off. Maybe taking the risk, regardless of any possible repudiation, is its own reward.
In that way, I hope Storm, despite my frustrations and misgivings, continues to shoot for the stars. Despite my admonitions, I deeply appreciate the risks the series takes. I would much rather see a comic try too hard than to not try at all. If for no other reason than this bit of audacity, I want Ayodele to keep trying. We don’t have enough representation as it is, so we need this to be supported as best we can.
I just hope that, as he continues to define this character, he also allows her the space to breathe, to examine, to just be.
She doesn’t need to be everything, everywhere, all at once. Just being Storm is more than enough. Flesh her out fully, and let everything else flow from there.
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A proud New Orleanian living in the District of Columbia, Jude Jones is a professional thinker, amateur photographer, burgeoning runner and lover of Black culture, love and life. Magneto and Cyclops (and Killmonger) were right. Learn more about Jude at SaintJudeJones.com.
