“Storm Earth’s Mightiest Mutant” Comic Book Issue 4 “Chapter 4: Mama” – Review

The penultimate chapter of Storm Earth’s Mightiest Mutant, from writer Murewa Ayodele and artists Federica Mancin & Java Tartaglia, posed a philosophical question in front of the “Avatar of Life” Omega Weather Goddess.

It really is a shame that Marvel Comics didn’t give Ayodele the proper space to tell his current story of Ororo being thrown around across multiverses and the accompanying concepts of reality, while Mistress Death continued to amass her army and Akujin planned her invasion of Earth. This is the kind of storytelling that requires time to breathe and to ease readers into its ever-expansive scope, which has Storm facing obstacles she has never encountered as a solo lead. But, alas, Ayodele’s been forced to compress his narrative in just five freaking issues. And while the result is still enjoyable to me, you can’t deny that the pacing is rushed as heck and, in a sense, does come across as a lot happening without a satisfactory buildup. And yes, I understand the criticism about Ororo being treated as a somewhat passive player in her own solo run.

With a version of N’Dare kidnapping Ororo out of the Marvel Comics Universe in the previous chapter, issue 4 opened with a flashback to Ororo’s “real” parents. The scene explained N’Dare and David’s move to Cairo after traveling to the USA from Kenya. Ayodele did an interesting job, in my opinion, tackling N’Dare’s experience with racism in the USA as a Kenyan princess, compared to David’s experience as an African-American. As someone who moved to Canada in my early 30s from Pakistan, I can relate to such discussions and the varying yet similar experiences across immigrant Pakistanis and born Pakistani-Canadians. And yes, as David mentioned, sometimes a change might be needed, depending on your circumstances. And that’s okay.

That particular scene was about David and N’Dare being certain that no matter where they moved, Ororo would still find her way home. Which, across Ororo’s publication history, she’s managed to do. However, I do agree with the Storm fans who wish to see Ororo interact more with her extended blood-related family.

Coming back to the “present?”, with astronaut N’Dare wanting to keep Ororo safe from the destruction of the Marvel Comic Universe, we got some nice dialogue where N’Dare tried to convince Ororo to see things differently. I have to say, I understood where N’Dare was coming from. As a being who was aware of the fickle nature of multiverses and the constant retconning occurring in the Marvel Comic Universe, N’Dare defined the term “life” very differently from someone like Ororo.

As far as N’Dare was concerned, everything could be brought back to how it was, more or less. It had happened before during events such as ‘Secret Wars’, and doing it again after Mistress Death’s attack wouldn’t be anything out of the ordinary. All N’Dare was concerned about right now was keeping Ororo away from the incoming multiversal extinction event.

However, knowing Ororo, N’Dare’s statements weren’t going to cause a dent in her resolve to protect life. Though she accepted it to occur for numerous mutants and others, Ororo didn’t put herself through the Krakoan-Era Resurrection Protocol. Life wasn’t a joke to Ororo, even when an easy restart switch was available. Ororo just couldn’t allow herself to allow existence to be erased when she, in her mind, still had the power to stop it or die trying.

Mancin and Tartaglia really hit it out of the park with the visuals. The spread where Ororo was being thrown through multiple realities was amazing! I also enjoyed the panel featuring N’Dara’s “Loomis Push” attack, which deconstructed and then reconstructed Ororo from her sketch stage to the fully penciled and colored state. Again, a shame that Mancin and Tartaglia didn’t have more chapters to play around with the visuals.

Ororo came to a stop on Earth-61391, and that’s where she met Furaha, who seemed to be expecting Ororo’s arrival. Furaha’s return has played a role in the story’s marketing campaign, with many hoping to learn the true identity of Furaha’s father. Frankly, I don’t give a hoot about Furaha. She just appeared out of nowhere for me. It felt as if the narrative was pushing me to invest in Furaha instead of creating an organic bond between her and Ororo for me to care about.

And with only one more issue left in Ayodele’s current Storm run (Again! A dreadfully short run for such an expansive story!), I doubt that will change. But yeah, Furaha is still around, and similar to the other children Storm has had across the multiverse… Whoop-de-doo.

As for the rest of the chapter, we got to see Bogey meeting with the Goddess Hera to discuss the passage of Akujin’s army through the Underworld. Ayodele shared some Marvel-centric Olympian lore regarding how Zeus was still missing after the events of the Thunder War. Hera, Hades, and Persephone were overseeing Olympus in Zeus’ absence. Bogey planned to pay Hera in vibranium for the requested passage. While the Gods couldn’t attack Wakanda unless they were okay risking war with the Wakanda Gods and their allies, Bogey and her team could procure the vibranium.

However, it turned out that Bogey was making a request just to be polite. Hera, Hades, and Persephone were easily disposable inconveniences to her. As she put it, before there were Gods, there were demons. I have no idea how strong beings such as Bogey are supposed to be, but the Storm fanboy in me did get excited over seeing how said beings could dispose of the Olympian Gods and yet still needed to amass an army to face the Omega Weather Goddess of Earth. Like, damn! Ororo has Akujin and Bogey heated!

It would have been amazing to have seen Ororo interact with the Olympian Gods herself. But sigh! Maybe it occurred in some multiverse where Ayodele was able to continue telling his story.

With Furaha working with her mutant teammates to ward off sentinels wanting to capture Ororo, I’m looking forward to seeing how Ororo will return to her reality to face off against Akujin and how that will relate to Mistress Death’s incoming War Above All. I highly doubt N’Dare will be happy about letting Ororo return to her Earth.

Tying up all of the story threads in a single issue is going to be a tall order. And whether Ayodele can stick the landing or not, kudos to him for making such bold strokes with Ororo in his run and opening the doors for future storytelling worthy of an iconic character such as Storm.

Did you read Storm Earth’s Mightiest Mutant issue 4? What did you think of it?

Let us know.

Author: Farid-ul-Haq

Farid has a Double Masters in Psychology and Biotechnology as well as an M.Phil in Molecular Genetics. He is the author of numerous books including Missing in Somerville, and The Game Master of Somerville. He gives us insight into comics, books, TV shows, anime/manga, video games, and movies.

Twitter

Help support independent journalism. Subscribe to our Patreon.

Copyright © The Geekiary