Storm #2 // Review
Ororo Munroe is plummeting to the bottom of the sea. There’s a powerful intelligence there with her. In the near future, she will be hit with Forge’s Neutralizer and lose her powers, but for now, she’s not exactly out of her element. She can summon the air she needs to breathe, but she has other problems in Storm #2. Writer Ann Nocenti continues an enjoyable retro drama set in the early 1980s. Artist Sid Kotian summons the story to the page with the aid of colorist Andrew Dalhouse. Nocenti has a firm understanding of Storm’s psyche from the era, and it shows in another very strong and emotionally engaging story.
Storm may be suited for survival--even at the bottom of the sea--but she’s still got problems. Her powers have been a bit of a challenge for her, as they’ve been erratic. Now, there’s a being of some sort pursuing her. It’s called Blowback, and it seems to want her dead. She should be able to defeat the villain, but can she keep control of her powers in the process? She can’t afford to unleash everything, but she just might need it to survive.
Nocenti continues to carve out a remarkably engaging, little solo-X-Men adventure in the margins of the Marvel Universe at some point in late 1983, right before everyone walked into Central Park and walked out into the Beyonder’s world. There’s a shaky relationship that Nocenti is establishing between Storm and her powers. That relationship casts additional depth into her psyche in the mid-1980s when she had lost them. Nocenti isn’t just having fun with an old friend. She’s providing a deeper look into the complexity of the character at one of the more appealing points in the history of the X-Men. She’s written a lot since she worked with Claremont on the X-Men in the mid-1980s, but her relationship with the characters feels very distinct to that era. Nocenti’s overall sense of pacing and drama seem to pleasantly echo Claremont’s work from the period.
Kotian’s art continues to be more or less perfectly suited to the era. Though Kotian has a distinct style and form that is impressively dynamic in action and drama, it feels very much in line with the sort of thing that John Romita Jr. would have been drawing in 1983. The color is much more advanced than anything that would have shown up in a monthly comic book back then. Dalhouse conjures a beautiful radiance for Storm’s powers. The delicate contouring that Dalhouse manages lends a profound sense of depth and beauty to the page.
Two issues in, and Nocenti seems to be making a strong case for an ongoing series....whether she wants to or not. Storm is one of the more fascinating characters in the X-Men, and Nocenti is carefully adding to the background of Ororo in an era just before Storm’s powerful and magnetic Lifedeath solo issues of The Uncanny X-Men. X-Men writer Chris Claremont did such a good job of juggling a massive ensemble for that series. It’s nice to see a bit of a close-up on a single character from that era. Nocenti’s chosen the perfect character for that close-up.
