I Reads You Review: STORM #1 (2014)

STORM #1
MARVEL COMICS – @Marvel

WRITER: Greg Pak
ART: Victor Ibañez
COLORS: Ruth Redmond
LETTERS: VC’s Cory Petit
COVER: Victor Ibañez
VARIANT COVERS:  Simone Bianchi; Skottie Young
28pp, Color, $3.99 U.S. (September 2014)

Rated T+

My favorite member of the X-Men, Storm, has an eponymous new comic book series, launched as part of the All-New Marvel NOW! initiative.  Storm is written by Greg Pak, drawn by Victor Ibañez, colored by Ruth Redmond, and lettered by Cory Petit.  Of course, you know that Storm a/k/a Ororo Munroe is a Marvel Comics super-heroine and longtime member of the X-Men.  She was created by writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum and first appeared in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (cover dated: May 1975).

Storm #1 opens in the country of Santo Marco, where Storm is trying to use her weather-based powers to stop a tsunami, without making the situation worse.  But Suncorp and a local military unit do not want Storm’s help.  Meanwhile, back at the Jean Grey School of Higher Learning, a young mutant girl, Flourish a/k/a Marisol Guerra, has stinging words for Storm and about the school’s mission.

I didn’t expect much from Storm #1, but being that I love, love, love Storm, I was determined to read at least the first issue.  If this first issue is any indication, Storm will finally have the great solo series readers and fans first thought she deserved and should get thirty years ago.

Greg Pak manages to put Storm’s powers on full display, while delving into the human side of her character.  Storm:  the matron, the leader, the mother, the hope, and the salvation, has been as interesting (if not more so) as the superhero side of her.  Pak depicts Storm having to balance her power and her humanity and to find a way to be true to both her principles and to her role as X-Man:  defender and fighter.  Pak does a lot with this character in 20 pages.

Victor Ibañez is a good storyteller, and his warm, vibrant, and earthy style is a good fit for Storm.  Ibañez presents the fight-comics side of the story in a unique way, and his character drama is equally electric.

Dear Greg and Victor, please don’t let Storm #1 be a fluke.

A

Reviewed by Leroy Douresseaux


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