X-men: Storm, Warren Ellis, Terry Dodson
This Storm comic seems to rely on other events surrounding it, and certainly expects you to be up to speed on who everyone is — at least in the first issue. It actually gets a bit more explanatory later on in the volume, which confused and then began to ignore me.
Since my exposure to X-men previously has just been brief crossovers with other comics and a huge childhood obsession with an animated TV series, it’s fair to say I come into this pretty new. I liked the Storm portrayed here: struggling with past bad decisions, trying to feel her way into being a true leader, and not completely sanitised. She chooses not to kill at several points, but that’s because she knows what it’s like to use lethal force; it’s a real choice, not just idealism.
All in all, I can’t rate this that highly because there’s so little here, but I think there’s a current solo Storm comic, and I’m thinking of picking that up. There isn’t enough here to let Storm shine, and the comic seems pretty dated in the way it tells its story now, but it does hint at compelling and interesting aspects of Storm’s character.
Rating: 3/5
Ellis and Dodson are both great talents. This is probably among the weaker work I’ve read from either of them, but I still thought it was pretty good. You never get bad work from either, just work that’s not as good as their usual.
The current Storm ongoing only has one issue out, with the second issue coming out this week. It’s looking pretty promising so far.
Yeah, it was fun!
Good to know, thanks.
This is my problem with most marvel comics, too. They’re all so closely tied to other things, sometimes in different comics, that it’s difficult to just pick one up and start fresh. I started reading the comic Uncanny Avengers, and the first volume alone expected you to be to already know about events in X-Men books (that I don’t read), and then the second volume was tied in to a story in X-Force, leaving people who haven’t read that series (also me) totally confused. And they were building up this major confrontation with the Red Skull…that won’t actually be in Uncanny Avengers, but in a crossover mini series…so I stopped buying the book. I’m starting to sour on Marvel comics in general now.
Yeah, it can be annoying. I do like just exploring, but sometimes it can really suck that you don’t get the payoff.