CSBG Archive

The Greatest Storm Stories Ever Told!

This storyline is perhaps best known for the Rogue and Wolverine storyline (they get the covers and this is where Rogue first proves herself as an X-Man and this is where Wolverine’s wedding is called off) but a poisoned Storm becoming friends with the thief Yukio and deciding to change her appearance dramatically still stands out as another MAJOR change from this two-parter by Chris Claremont, Paul Smith and Bob Wiacek.

4. “Duel” Uncanny X-Men #201

The powerless Storm and Cyclops fight each other in the Danger Room for the right to lead the X-Men. Guess who wins (note that this is not the Greatest CYCLOPS Stories Ever Told). Chris Claremont wrote it and Rick Leonardi and Whilce Portacio drew it.

3. “Lifedeath II” Uncanny X-Men #198

In this sequel to the original Lifedeath, Storm travels to Africa to deal some more with her power loss. She encounters a young pregnant woman and Storm valiantly helps save the woman and deliver the baby (and then revive the baby when it is seemingly stillborn). The happiness of the moment is quickly overshadowed by the fact that the village elder now has to kill himself in a tradition where an elder sacrifices themself every time a new baby is born to the village. Storm spends time with him leading up to his death, trying to make heads or tails of his sacrifice. It clearly deeply affects her. Chris Claremont and Barry Windsor-Smith did the issue.

2. “Dancin’ in the Dark” Uncanny X-Men #169-170

The Morlocks, a group of mutants who live in the sewers because they are too ugly to pass as humans, kidnap Warren Worthington, the X-Men known as Angel. The X-Men come to free him and it comes down to Storm challenging the leader of the Morlocks, Callisto, to a knife fight. It is all extremely bad ass. Chris Claremont wrote it and Paul Smith and Bob Wiacek drew it.

1. “Lifedeath” Uncanny X-Men #186

An issue after losing her powers to Forge’s “make mutant powers go away” gun, Storm has to come to grips with what is pretty much the worst day of her adult life. Forge (who she doesn’t know actually invented the gun) takes Storm in and the two spend some deep, personal time together at his apartment getting to know each other as she deals with her great loss. When it seems like the two are ready to take things to another level, Storm learns of Forge’s involvement in her power loss. It would be almost forty issues before they somewhat reconcile. This story was written by Chris Claremont and drawn by Barry Windsor-Smith and Terry Austin. It is hard to properly realize how out of nowhere having a special Barry Windsor-Smith drawn issue of X-Men was at the time, but trust me, it was a big deal.

Rene

Of all superhero comic characters, Storm is the one most different from a hypothetical typical reader (or writer). She is female, black, African, a leader, a spiritual person. No wonder no one can write her well, except the guy that pratically create her (yeah, I know Len Wein created her, but Claremont is the real dad).

Turd Burglar

I wonder if not enough people have read the back-up story in Classic X-Men #39, “Briggs’ Revenge,” which is not only a great non-Claremont Storm story (Ann Nocenti wrote it), but also a great Jim Lee story!

Brian Cronin

Jeff

Claremont is the person who single-handedly wrote Storm the best. But I have so say Lobdell did keep Storm very much on-character during his run, but he was sort of forced to focus on not just Scott and Jean stuff, but Bishop and Gambit and Iceman, seen at the time as “the X-Men’s bad boys” outside of Wolverine (it only recently occurred to me that during that era, Lobdell got very limited Wolverine access, Nicieza’s title usually had sole access).

Brian, It’s worth noting that several of these Storm stories made up the excellent arc entitled “From the Ashes,” collecting original series issues 168-176. It was first published in trade form in the ’80s around the time the “Dark Phoenix Saga” was first reprinted as well. It’s also worth noting that “Phoenix” has gone back to print nearly ten times in the last two decades , while “From the Ashes” is shamefully out-of-print, an oddity about an X-Men storyarc in this day and age. Hopefully someone wise in Marvel’s Collected Editions Dept. sees this post and can change that

ookerdookers

And I can’t agree more with buttler on the Dracula story. UXM #159 was the first Claremont written X-Men issue I ever read (it happened to be the X-Men Classic reprint with the awesome Mignola cover) and it changed my comic reading life forever. I will always love that issue.

TenGermans

I think the fact that most of these stories are from the 80’s says a lot. Starting with “To Have and Have Not” and ending with “The Fall of the Mutants” (which should have been here in my opinion,) Chris Claremont completely fleshed out the character to the point that there was nowhere else to go with her. I think even Claremont realized it at the time by resetting her in a “prequel that’s not a prequel” by turning her back into a pre-teen thief.

Since then she’s spent the better part of two and a half decades just “being there,” carried by her presense and barely at all by narrative. Now she just takes moral stances, which are only as interesting as the morals themselves. Fortunately they set the table for her with “Second Coming” and the Utopia side of “Regenesis.”

I gotta credit Brian Wood for writing the first storyline in years centered around Storm where she was actually interesting (“Blank Generation”). I expect good things from his all-female X-Men series.

chad

surprised to not see the duels storm had with both cyclops even though she had been stripped of her powers by forge in x-men 201 or the one where she fights for leadership of the morlocks. on this list other wise good picks. for both my pick for the one with doom and dracula made the cut

Dave

I agree with 8 of the 10 of these. I haven’t read the one non-Claremont story, but if a non-Claremont story was going to make the list, I figured it would have been Uncanny 289-290, where Forge proposes. Some really wonderful Portacio art on those issues, and the cover of 289 was one of my favorites from the era.

And I’m a little sad that the Storm: Goddess of Thunder story from New Mutants Special Edition 1 and Uncanny X-Men annual 9 didn’t make it. One of the greatest ever pure adventure stories from the Claremont era, and the Art Adams pencils were stunning. I would have put it here instead of the Dr. Doom story, but I wonder if people just didn’t really see it as a Storm story that much.

Were either of these omissions close to making it?

Either way, this is a very good list, and it’s nice that people remember the post-Byrne Claremont era as fondly as I do.

Mary Warner

When I saw the subject, my immediate thought was Life-Death, followed by the Dracula story (I’ve only read the first one, not the annual). I don’t know why I didn’t think of any of the others on the list, because there are some great ones on here.

But Life-Death II was simply awful. Killing an elder anytime a baby is born makes no sense at all. It wouldn’t bring ‘balance’. Even in a rich, developed country like the US, it would cause a continuous decline in population. In a destitute African village it would cause a fairly rapid decline. And labeling the story as a sequel to a much greater story just makes it seem worse.

Michael

The idea was supposed to be that there weren’t enough resources in the village to support more than a finite number of people. The problem, of course, is that Storm has no problem getting in and out of the village when she’s wounded and her powers aren’t working, so why can’t the villagers leave or bring in supplies?

Franklin

If these are her best stories, then it’s no wonder that she’s generally sidelined and mistreated. Not to mention why she has spent 90% of her superhero career (even today) being horribly jobbed out to characters who want to make a point of how powerful they are. Because all her bread-crumbs seeking fans just bob their heads and accept nonsense like this, so long as she’s wearing that “Nostalgia Inducing Mohawk” or engaging in “Classic Goddess Posturing”.

fraser

I love the era chosen for these, but I hated the Life/Death and Dracula stories. Maybe they’d read better as an adult, but they were boring (for the former) and nonsensical (for the latter).

All the other stories (except for Marvel Team Up, which I never read) I loved, and read over and over again. Surprised to see 215-216 on the list. It was a good story, with villains who never lasted, so I figure it would have been forgotten. I really loved all those X-Men issues between the Mutant Massacre and Fall of the Mutants, lots of Alan Davis, and good characterisation, with three of the main X-Men off the team giving space to new members.