Hudlin Entertainment Forum

Maberry''s Doomwar's primary reason for existing was to showcase Doom's might and dominant status with T'Challa, Ororo, Shuri and Wakanda serving as a convenient backdrop.

Maberry wrote the book that he wanted to write with ZERO editorial interference and that's what in my eyes, made his promise to showcase Ororo throwing down in a big way during the event, quite dishonest and disingenuous.

Funnily enough, Maberry rarely (if ever) gets called out by the majority of so-called Storm fanatics who are always so quick to spew diarrhea at Hudlin falsely and maliciously accusing him of "writing Storm down to prop up Shuri" when a cursory glance at Doomwar reveals that it was actually Maberry himself who wrote Ororo, T'Challa and Shuri down to a criminal level.

But then again, what can one expect from a fanbase who systematically (even to this day) ignore the many instances of the X-writers themselves writing their faux "goddess" out of character whilst blaming Reginald Hudlin for all of the characters woes even though it's been almost eight years+ since he penned anything featuring the Weather Witch with the dunmbass hairdo.

If that doesn't equal tyroll like behaviour, I don't know what does.

 

Rutgog

Know what I call a man who tries to make a woman his "true mate" against her will? A rapist. Know what I call the romanticizing of that type story? Rape Culture. The X Verse is full of that.Like Emma stealing Storm's body so Shaw could rape her.Arkon Dracula Emma Shaw ,mind swiped into an intimate relationship with Namor....on and on. I recall Hudlin saying about the marriage I'm paraphrasing heavily at least Storm won't be subject to continuous sexual assault now. I am appalled and sickened by your commentary on this.

Princesa!

I am almost moved to tears by this EXCELLENT and ACCURATE recounting and description of these odious events regarding Ororo and her "noble suitors". You will remove the scales from Rutog's eyes yet. If I were to hear his response to your comment, I wouldn't, for they would fall on deaf ears. As this is a visual medium, I will turn a blind eye to anything he might have by way of defense to this indefensible and disgusting interval in Storm's depiction by the x-writers.

Powerful! Powerful!

Well Done, Princesa!!

And Ororo was not written down to prop up Shuri, Rutog. You know better than that 

I am not in the slightest bit suprised that some of the self-same individuals who reeled back in horror at the concept of the marriage of an African man and African woman (albeit fictional) would revel in describing Storm as a "Queer Feminist Icon.....and symbol of Black Power and pride" when for the most part, especially where the Black Power and pride aspect of the equation is concerned, she's anything but.

1) "Queer" Icon - Queer as in LGBT. As of now, there is only a suspicion that Ororo is bi-sexual. There has been no "David Alleyne/Prodigy" written/illustrated proof that Ororo is bisexual. Yet, on the strength of the desire of the LGBT fandom alone, they have claimed Ororo as a "Queer Icon" and though any deviance in Ororo's sexual preferences remains unverified, her queerness is accepted as fact.

2) "Feminist" Icon - On occassion, Ororo has been depicted as a strong, commanding individual who happened to be female. When I think of "feminist" comicbook characters Thundra comes to mind, not Storm. Still, it appears that at least one person believes the feminists deserve a piece of Storm for themselves.

3) "Black Power and pride" - Like hell. Debating Ororo's physical and cultural "blackness" with some Storm fanatics has been akin to Sisyphus rolling that rock uphill. And when you look at it...Queer, Feminist Icon and symbol of Black Power and pride...the only aspect of this description that isn't pure conjecture is the fact that Storm is black, she is powerful and a source of pride. And it is usually this absolute of this description that is often attacked by her fanatics.

Ororo was created from out of the amalgamation of discarded ideas repurposed with the express objective of creating an exotic character who would fit into the X-men's ongoing narrative as "feared and hated" within the 616 MU but unlike the rest of the X-Men, she was cast as an exotic character of indeterminate racial origins which when juxtaposed against the fact that both of her parents were of African/African-American descent, just came across as a nonsensical explanation that merely enabled the writers concerned to avoid the ramifications of having to actually deal with the real world problems of racism as opposed to the metaphorical conceit that has existed to this very day in the X-books.

Make it plain, Brother!

Black skin on the outside and convoluted and rarely (if ever) explored true knowledge of self in Ororo's narrative within the X-books was always made glaringly obvious when one considered the fact that practically all of the other X-Men's ethnic bacgrounds and cultural idiosyncracies where clearly delineated on page whilst Ororo's remained buried beneath the incredibly patronizing idea that she allegedly encompassed all of the characteristics of ethnicities from across the globe.

Here it is. This is an irrefutable, unassailable, obvious truth. In nearly every X-book we comicbook fans have read featuring Storm, this is how we have seen her. This Storm who admits to herself in X-Men #171 that the things she has done as an X-Man up to that point has gone beyond everything she holds meaningful in her personal life...this Storm, who is so conflicted that she says aloud that her being an X-Man is destroying her, cannot bring herself to leave that which is destroying her because she has come to love that which is destroying her. And her fans claim it was her being Queen of Wakanda that was destroying her. Salustrade has made it plain. What more is there to do?

What I will do is read the rest of this excellent post here again and ask that any others who will, to do so without prejudice.

This conceit set agains the backdrop of the near total absence of Black male mutants in the early days of the "new" X-Men was something that flew over the heads of a lot of early X-fans who were swept up in the fast paced adventures of the X-book penned by Chris Claremont who to this day has been credited for being the single X-writer who wrote the book for the longest time before other X-books started cropping up left and right to capitalize on the increasing interest in all of the mutant characters that were being launched.

As time progressed and various writers and editorial teams came and went, there was a sea change at the X-office which led to a gradual move away from the mutant synonymous with racial discrimination concept to one more in line with the concept/reality of homosexuality and homophobia and this change in direction began to play itself out within the X-books with an ever increasing frequency which in turn began to manmifest itself within fandom with many unexpected results.

Reginald Hudlin, unapologetic, confident and focused on revitalizing the Black Panther character in the wake of Christopher J. Priest's stellar take on the character and his world, wrote a T'Challa who was focused, determined, supremely confident and fiercely dedicated to the protection of Wakandan interests in a world that had always sought to subjugate the mysterious nation and purloin Wakandan Vibranium their most treasured natural resource.

T'Challa was that swashbuckling Monarch who represented all that one could wish for in a character of worth and Mr Hudlin continued from where Priest left off as regards having T'Challa be a competent and extremely compelling protagonist.

All remained peaceful until Reginald Hudlin decided to pick up on another thread that Priest had explored to some degree in the BP series that preceded Mr Hudlin's but it's really important to note that both authors were exploring a concept that had been originally been brought into play than none other than Chris Claremont himself.

Namely, the relationship between T'Challa and Ororo.

Hudlin built up a plausible rekindling of the love between these two characters which culminated in the "Marriage of the Century" with Marvel Editorials full backing and blessing and that's when all hell broke loose.

We're all familiar with the plethora of accusations that began to fill the online so-called comic book "community" with some accusing Mr Hudlin of only marrying two of Marvel's most iconic Black characters because they were African and even more bizzarely some even went as far as accusing Mr Hudlin of being "racist" for putting the two characters together.

Hudlin's Black panther run was extremely successful from a financial point of view and wildly popular amongst a section of Marvels readership that had hitherto always been ignored and most of us enjoyed what Hudlin and Dwayne McDuffie did with the Royal Couple in their respective books and the Marvel events (Civil War/WWH/Secret Invasion) that ran back-to-back at the time.

Unfortunately, there was a segment of readership fueled by a sense of resentment, who kept up a constant level of invective directed towards Reginald Hudlin with the false charge of Hudlin "writing Ororo down to prop up T'Challa" ringing from the metaphorical rooftops

The X-Office and the writers attached to that arm of Marvel did not reciprocate Hudlin's positive portrayal of the X-Men within his ongoing Black panther narrative as they did not seem inclined to recognize the marriage in any way, size or form and this disdain for the marriage on the part of the X-office was solidified by the arrival of Nick Lowe and his taking up of the mantel for Editor of that office.

Reginald Hudlin's departure from the BP book signaled the beginning of the end for the marriage as the X-office went into overdrive in dismantling it via AvX in such a way as to make reconcialition between the two characters virtually impossible but it was the subtext of anti-heterosexual Black male aggression that had long since become a staple within the X-books that really began to show what the real problem was for so many within the X-office as well as a segment of their readership.

The wholesale decimation of Wakanda at the hand of the X-Men's Namor cvlearly illustrated just what the X-office thought of Wakanda and by extenntion, Black people in general and this furthermore goes to show why the marriage between two heterosexuals of African descent was anathema to an X-office hellbent on repurposing the "feared and most hated" tagline and attaching it wholesale to the homosexual cause whilst subliminally throwing a diss towards those xeno(homo)phobic wakandans.

This was the overiding and primary reason why the X-office never supported the marriage and that's why upon engineering it's annullment, Ororo, the former Queen of Wakanda was regressed back to her punk persona (with ridiculous mohawk to match) and turned into Wolverine's bed wench.

The concept of Ororo as Queen of Wakanda was something that these readers could not countenance but the watered down Storm as woman to a man who recognized within the same 616 MU as being an unapologetic mass murderer was fine.

Now, many of those self same readers are clamouring for Storm to be cast as a bisexual character cavorting with the likes of Yukio as they seek to have her take up the mantle of gay icon and in the process, whatever character development that Reginald Hudlin brought to her character is being washed down the drain like so so much jetsam and flotsam. (Yaaaasssssss!)

Only a fool would fail to see that it was a segment of readership with their own ideology that had a problem with the marriage between Ororo and T'Challa and the fact that Marvel pandered to this segment of readership, says a lot about Marvel's faux position on diversity than anything else.

In the wake of BOTA, Kymera was introduced as Storm's daugther from a future timeline accompanied by an actual Black Panther but to date, there has been zero mention or even passing exploration as to Kymera's father is but as we can see from Nick Spencer's Avengers World........



Avengers scribes have no problem clearly delineating who Ororo and T'Challa's children are.

Set against such a backdrop, one is left wondering what it is exactly that Marvel see as the long game to be played out as far as Ororo's relationship with T'Challa is going to be mocing forward but as far as I'm concerned, the queer nation segment of X-readers and the writers who deliver fan-fic masquerading as professional written stories for them, can keep Storm.

The BP mythos don't need to be derailed any further by folks whose agenda is in complete opposition to that which encourages the harmonius union between Black man and Black woman.

In my head Storm is at the minimum bisexual

By proxy - mutants inserted in place of homosexuals - STORM #1 has already addressed the issue of nations either banning or criminalizing homosexuality. And as the overwhelming majority of those nations appear to be African (some Caribbean also I believe), Santo Marco ---the anti-mutant nation---appeared to be populated and governed by black people. One down, maybe one to go. If the ongoing survives, it could be that Ororo has her David Alleyne/Prodigy moment. If so, what now exists only in your head may appear on the pages of Storm's ongoing to be read.

....and some of the fiercest folks I know are LGBTQ POC. To say they aren't synonymous is shocking and misinformed. And sad as I expect better.

"...fiercest..." Fiercest meaning....? The outward appearance? An attitude? The way in which one might do their "little turn on the catwalk?" If so, this superficial means of evaluating one's character and using it to suggest that because that person might be LGBT and POC that the two are somehow synonymous is shocking and misinformed.

Some black women have been angered by white homosexuals who have affected their "fierce" mannerisms in effect, play-acting urban, female and black. This isn't "synonymous". Being a white homosexual male isn't a license to impersonate an urban, black female because they are under the illusion of having some sort of shared social experience with those women.

POC don't necessarily feel any "synonymous" kinship with U.S. blacks. Many attempt to distance themselves from U.S. blacks. Mexicans have acquired the reputation of having a vehement dislike of black people.

Look here....are any of you familiar with the movie "IMITATION OF LIFE"?

That movie is a perfect example of how even some biracial blacks - those able to pass for white, and do so - do not exude Black Power and pride. Wouldn't you expect better of those who actually are black?

Then why be surprised to discover that if there exists ill will between the U.S. black community and the LGBT group that if anything, it goes both ways?

There are many x-fanatics who may be homosexual and mindful of how the U.S. black community in large part, resists all attempts to make their agenda "synonymous" with our Struggle. Those homosexual x-fanatics realize that the X-Men mythos has moved beyond what was the original Civil Rights Struggle analogy and firmly into a concept supporting the LGBT agenda. These x-fanatics might be those who would rather there never be any black male heterosexual mutants and who complained most bitterly when the possibly bi-sexual Ororo Munroe entered into a heterosexual MARRIAGE.

Quote from: sinjection1 on July 27, 2014, 08:04:39 am

Quote from: Vic Vega on July 27, 2014, 05:54:18 am

For all of this fist shaking invective, books that HAVE Black creators like Rat Queens, Vescell, Five Weapons, Midnight Tiger, Miranda Mercury and my personal favorite Molly Danger can barely get a mention around here.

That's  in addition to our own Redjack's Knight Rider and Airwolf comics.

You could even donate to the Kick starter for the second volume of Watson and Holmes. Or order the Volume one trade if you are against donating to business ventures (or online begging if you want to be that way about it).

No mention of these projects at the other comics board? If not, then there should be.

On another note: Vic, you mentioned that STORM ongoing's target audience were not those who wouldn't pull an X-book title with a 10 foot pole. Maybe. Maybe not.

When the Lindy Hop dance was created, white people were not the target audience. However, once some whites saw the dance it appealed to them so much that they made themselves welcome at the venues where blacks danced the dance and then those whites began dancing it themselves. They weren't very good at the dance at first and black dancers remarked in jest, that their herky-jerky motions made them look like "jitterbugs", which at that time was a term used to describe nervous and/or drunk people. But those white people adopted that name and made it their own. Soon, they were jitterbugs and the name of the dance, originally named the Lindy Hop by its black creators, today is better known as the Jitterbug.

From the Lindy Hop, to Hip Hop then. Mindful of the history of so-called black American music being appropriated and expropriated by white imitators, Rap music at the beginning was a very "Afro-Centric" genre. Whites were certainly not the target audience. As before however, once the music began to appeal to whites, they gradually moved to it. First, their presence was nothing more than nibbling at the perimeter of the genre. The Beastie Boys and Insane Clown Posse provided white rap fans with an alternative style they could latch onto while Rap music was still in it's "Black positivity stage". But when Rap music turned from being positive to being gangsta, sending negative messages about black people, the community, its women, and criminal activities, whites latched on to it with a fervor, even encouraged it. eminem is the creation of gangsta Rap. Today, white's essentially run Rap music.

Lindy Hop, Hip Hop...target audience = black people. White people now dominate both. Those black creations were universally appreciated and coveted. Comicbooks seems to be immune to this dynamic. It is a white-created medium of entertainment. Usually, whites follow the developments in black culture, rarely is it the other way around. The black audience for comicbooks isn't as great as the white audience is for anything black people seem to create in the realm of entertainment.
STORM and the X-Men don't have to push for universal appeal. Indeed, they might not desire it. The X-franchise might be happy to be seen as a niche for whites and homosexual comicbook fans who don't want their product mixing with the black niche BLACK PANTHER audience.

So why should any of us bother with that STORM ongoing?

Thank you for this incredibly insightful post, Brotha Sinjection.

Yes Sir, Brother. And thank you.

Now Salustrade...Vic's comment regarding Storm's "target audience" piqued my interest somewhat. What might you make of this, Brother?

"Storm’s punk phase, her trouble adjusting to western culture, her commitment  to her spirituality and devotion to Wakanda, and her complete domination of every new step in her life have all made her the supreme deviant and progressive punk figures in the X-Men. She’s a Queer, Feminist Icon, and a symbol of Black Power and pride."

http://queeringcomics.tumblr.com/post/85079412112/the-goddess-storm-queen-of-wakanda-of-the-many

Remember when by way of attemtping to deny Ororo's "blackness", some asserted that though her flesh was black, her hair texture and "indeterminate features" which seemingly resembled Asian and Caucasian as well as African defied definite identification, that her mutation perhaps caused her to become a "patchwork quilt" of the essence of the totality of humanity...and as such, she wasn't bound to a black classification as a character?

Proponents of that warped opinion likely supported the gradual lightening of the hue of Ororo's skin, the "narrowing" of her facial features and of course she already had the blue eyes and the attention of her red, white, and blue male suitors. They wanted to ignore her blackness altogether.

They experienced a period of horror when Hudlin wrenched her from that wretched existence and installed her as Queen of Wakanda, a Black Queen ruling a Black Nation beside her Black King. But just as whites targeted the Lindy Hop and Hip Hop and have become the prime mover/dominant group in both, Ororo's predominantly white fanbase...with a bit of pepper sprinkled in if we are to believe some accounts...targeted the MARRIAGE, determined to destroy it largely by claiming Ororo was being diminished as a character by her association with all those black people...that is to say...her association with the Black Panther. Their efforts were successful. Today, Storm's character has been diminished by her ridiculous role as Headmistress of a mutant school and bed warmer for Wolverine.

Storm's black fans who also happened to be fans of the Black Panther, were rejected as part of Ororo's "targeted audience". But now that Ororo is back in the hands of those who see her more as mutant than a black woman, a site catering to one aspect of the Ororo/X-Men target audience suggests Ororo is this: She’s a Queer, Feminist Icon, and a symbol of Black Power and pride.

Ororo is by their definition, a Queer, Feminist Icon...........and a symbol of Black Power and pride.

What are your thoughts, Brother? Mine follow this line. Queer, Feminist Icon is not consistent with Black Power and pride. As long as the house of Queer Feminisim is rising and the house of Black Power and pride is not, as evidenced by the disgraceful dissolution of Ororo's marriage to T'Challa, blacks are recognized as a targeted demographic. But if for example, Kymera is revealed to be the child of Ororo and T'Challa possibly re-igniting the love they had for each other I definitely see where the house of Queer Feminism could ally itself with the house of white racism to squash that possibility.

*falls over laughing*

THIS is what Storm fans were waiting for? THIS is the book that's going to return her to her former glory??? *wheezing*

Quote from: sinjection1 on July 26, 2014, 06:09:31 pm

Storm was offered the rulership of Wakanda and the mantle of the Black Panther. She refused both, choosing instead to render every means of assistance to T'Challa, which she did by going into hell itself to keep him from slipping into the eternal abyss. Even then, Ororo fulfilled her role as Queen of Wakanda, dealing with foreign press and giving hope and courage to the Wakandan people such as with her visible efforts in combatting the Doom-created crops failure. If Shuri shined, Ororo glowed. There is no disputing this.

It's like people don't understand how this whole MARRIAGE thing works or something.

Those people understand how marriage works. The problem was that when those people - clearly understanding how marriage works -  saw how well the MARRIAGE was working in this instance and how magnificent Storm was throughout the entire difficult ordeal, they hated it.

The truth that was staring those people in the face was that Storm was NOT second fiddle to anyone. Ororo was T'Challa's or anyone else's "doormat". In fact, the Queen Mother, the Princess Shuri, Wakanda's leading officials and citizens deferred to Storm. Queen Ororo was making all of the critical decisions. Only the Queen Mother questioned one of Ororo's calls and when she did, Ororo quickly corrected the Queen Mother and reiterated her directive.

It's a good thing Ororo gained all of that on the job experience while she was Queen of Wakanda. It helped her deal effectively with being insulted by a petulant schoolgirl. No doubt those people were suitably impressed.

Quote from: Rutog98 on July 25, 2014, 10:22:53 pm

@KIP, how do you know Xavier had a crush on Jean Grey? That's nasty.

Here's the thing, it's not what you think because of reconts.  When the X-Men originally started, the idea was that mutants were products of the atomic age, all of them born after atomic experiments began.  So, Xavier though he was bald, was probably only in his mid twenties in X-Men number 1.  That quickly changed when they started building a back story and started making him older, but when that was written, Xavier might have been only 5 or 8 years older than Jean and back then, that wasn't creepy.  (Plus, while they were all in HS, they were all seniors except Ice Man, and I think they quickly hit the point where only Bobby was under 18.)

It's like Sue and Reed.  Have you ever noticed how when they started, Sue is ten years younger than Reed with a crush, but in all modern retellings of the FF, Sue is the same age as Reed.  What we find creepy today, wasn't so creepy in the 60s.

Kip, I've read one account that Prof X first met Jean Grey when she was still a baby and he was a fully grown man in his twenties. Others say Prof X was a fully grown man who'd met Jean Grey when she was still a small child. The age difference would have been far greater than a mere 5 - 8 year span.

Even if it were however, the relationship Prof X sought - or entertained notions of having - with Jean were highly improper, criminal, and creepy. Today, more and more we see school teachers who are sexually involved with their students. Mary Kay Letourneau pursued Vili Fualaau when he was still a very young student. The age span between those two and Prof X and Jean Grey is comparable I'd say.

Prof X was an older man who was in a position of authority and trust over a still-young lady, Jean Grey. He was interested in establishing what would have been an improper intimate relationship with his young charge. This would not go over today and I'd have to think it wouldn't have been smiled upon in the 60's either.

Quote

Misdirection’s, obfuscations and blatant falsifications reign supreme when fanatics seek to deceive the unwary and easily swayed............

You may call me by the slave name given to me by a seemingly benign benefactor when as a young woman recently come into her power and revered by her people, he plucked me from dwellings ancestral in Eastern Africa, and whisked me away to the land of the white man to join his army.

And oh what an army it was.

Populated with other specially gifted people from different parts of the world, my mind was intrigued with these “X-men” and the man who had drawn us together to fight the good fight in a war that I’d never even been aware of wilst nurturing the soil and crops of my Motherland

For many years I fought alongside my fellow mutants (for in time, I learnt that I was amongst an elite band of beings set apart from the rest of humanity by an X-gene) and there was much joy and tragedy along the way even as my heart was drawn further away from the open plains of the Serengeti that I’d known in my youth but even further away from the love that I found within the presence of another to whom the land had equally been home and hearth.

T’Challa, he who had captured my imagination as a young woman newly awakened into awareness.

I rescued him from the clutches of evil men who sought to enslave him and together we wandered adventuring across the length and breadth of the Serengeti until the call of duty to his homeland drew him away from me and I was once again left alone with thoughts and memories of first love blowing through the aeries of my mind even as I descended from the heavens like an avenging falcon to flay the flesh off of the marauding hordes of Slavers and others who sought to ply their trade in African flesh with impunity.

I never knew if I’d see my erstwhile Prince again and in time, my life was completely subsumed within the never ending cycle of struggle that informed the life of a mutant perpetually feared and hated by my fellow humans.

Funny how I never knew this “hatred” when I was back home in the Serengeti amongst my people.

I wonder what T'Challa i doing with himself these days?

You may call me Storm.

Masterful. Bravo, Salustrade!

You've looked into Ororo's soul and captured the truest essence of this tragic individual.

As a child, Ororo lived in Harlem. After the horrific incident while living in Egypt which killed her parents and inflicted her with claustrophobia, the orphaned Ororo had to resort to thievery to survive. Survive she did, maturing into young womanhood in her native lands and coming to be regarded as a goddess. Ororo would join the mutant supremacy organization a.k.a. the cult of the X-Men and her life would take a turn for the worse. The sad part is her future was written so that she wouldn't have been able to see dangers if she'd tried to do so.

While an X-Man, Ororo - now called Storm - would return to Harlem, to the place she called home as a child only to find it a rundown flophouse for societies dropouts and druggies. The thing is this. Ororo may have walked the streets of Harlem, dealt with a pimp, viewed the physical and psychological ruins of that community. Logan would have referred to Harlem as the slums, but Ororo didn't start slumming until she associated and continued her unfortunate association with that dysfunctional X-Mess.

Once a Queen. Once a glittering Queen.

Now, a lowly wretch lying in the rain weeping over the demise of some runt who'd outlived his usefulness long before now.

How fortunate we are...you and I, Salustrade and the rest of the Mighty HEF membership, that some x-writer isn't penning life's path for our footsteps.