I really hope they keep BP out of the "Storm" title for a while. This is a very hot button issue and I want the title to do well. Storm is a bigger character than Black Panther. There is too big a risk of her character being devalued to make him look good. If this happens, it will alienate readership from the book and there will be another internet uprising behind it reinforcing to Marvel to keep these characters apart.
That said, I think it would be nice if Ororo and T'challa were good friends, but its not an interaction that needs to occur in her title anytime soon. Give the book a chance and let it get some steam first before T'challa shows up for an issue or two...if he even shows.
Why risk her title with something like a Storm/BP reunion when so many of her fans who will be supporting the book HATE it? There is no point to prove in forcing something on the readership they don't want to see. All it will do is tick them off and alienate them ensuring the book's failure.
To me, the bottom line is the X-books don't have a problem putting Black Panther in their books when they want to trash him, but somehow we should NOT want him to show up when we want Greg Pak and other writers to write him well?
That may not be what you meant (and I don't really think that is what you mean), but that's kind of what it sounds like. It sounds like "if Black Panther is not getting outright trashed in an X-book, then Storm fans will be upset, and we shouldn't upset them, because we want Storm's ongoing book to do well."
So many of her fans are pssing me off and have been pissing me off for years over their biased attitudes against Black Panther that I really don't care what they want, because all those types of fans want is for no black man to appear in any of their books, especially when Storm is concerned.
I'm not interested in appeasing Storm's fans, the majority of whom need their heads examined.
And why would her character have to be "devalued" in order to make Black Panther look good? How about writers and editors make them BOTH look good, like professionals should? It doesn't have to be an either/or thing, and neither character has to look bad.
What Marvel should be doing (and should have been doing from the get-go) is making both characters shine, just like their original creators intended instead of turning Storm and Black Panther into an episode of Real Housewives or a reality show on VH1.
And if Marvel and fans keep wanting that, AND WON'T BE HAPPY AND WON'T SUPPORT THE BOOK IF BLACK PANTHER SHOWS UP IN IT AND IS WRITTEN AS RESPECTFULLY AS SHE IS, then both parties should and WILL be called out for their stupidity.
Hasn't Marvell catered to stupidity and racism enough??
Thing is, there has already been an established precedence with Storm's character being devalued for him to look good. To be honest, racism is not the main reason why the Storm fans turned against the Storm/T'challa relationship. Personally, I agree with you that BOTH characters should be written in way that is true to themselves and both written well. Thing is, there is too much emotional baggage here for the time being. That's why I say wait about a year until T'challa (or Cyclops) shows up in her book for an issue or two as a guest-star to give the book every advantage of being successful. People are so angry about the Storm/T'challa thing right now that they are close-minded to it no matter how well it is done. Give them time. Let Storm shine in the way people are used to see her shine (but, this time, enhanced!). Don't force things on the readership they don't want to see. Instead, if you want to see a strong friendship between the two, let it happen gradually during year 2 of the series.
Storm being "devalued" in order for Black Panther to look good is a lie spread by Black Panther detractors because they wanted to use every excuse in the book as to why they did not want Storm with that black man known as T'Challa but would drool and get wet whenever the pairings of Storm and Namor, Storm and Dr. Doom, Storm and Thor, Storm and Wolverine and Storm and any white man in the Marvel Universe is mentioned in terms of romance, babies and marriage.
Storm being "devalued" in order to make Black Panther look good is a lie spread by Black Panther detractors who probably never read Hudlin's book, or just read one panel from a book, read it out of context and spun lies off that one panel to prove that they were "right."
And yes, racist fans will always be close-minded to Storm being with a black man, despite how well it is done, because they are racist. And I don't like rewarding racists by keeping black women and black men apart. That sort of thing is not my bag.
And yes, they are still emotional because they always get emotional whenever they see Storm being in a loving relationship with a black man as intelligent, charismatic, noble, strong, independent and handsome as T'Challa, because she has actually found someone worthy of her love. They'd much rather see her getting her vagina stretched out by a white man.
Don't force things on the readership they don't want to see? Don't force readers to see a black man and a black woman together in a title? Don't force readers to see a black woman and a black man being respectful toward each other in a title? You've got to be joking. Tell Marvel not to force readers to read about a black woman punching a black man in the face, an image that some Storm fanatics are STILL posting gleefully in Appreciation threads as recently as Thursday. Tell Marvel to not force readers to see the ultimate destruction of a black marriage out of the blue all so that it could be part of the stupid AvX storyline.
To say that Marvel shouldn't force readers to see Storm and Black Panther in a book is incredibly insulting, since Marvel and some fanatic Storm fans have been incredibly insulting US and those who want to see a black man and a black woman in a loving marriage and/or a loving relationship, and they've been insulting us for YEARS with their racist bullsh*t.
Don't talk to me about force and what shouldn't be shown to racist readers and Marvel who caters to racist readers.
Prior to Storm joining the BP cast in his title, how long have you followed her?
Storm was TOTALLY devalued in several instances beginning with the mini series. In the original telling of the story where Ororo and T'challa first met as children (CC version), it was T'challa who needed rescuing and Storm who saved him from his would-be captors. It was T'challa who was all googly-eyed over Storm in the original tale as she literally just stole his breath away and his heart with her regal bearing, majestic powers and otherworldliness aura. I can recall at the end of their time together, she told him that the Song of the Wind was speaking to her and telling her to move on. He offered her a kiss and she said something like, "if that is your way." He was surprised that she was not all fawning over the thought of being kissed by a prince and wanted her to stay with him. In real life, the man should put the woman on a pedestal like that. It should not be a case where the woman is chasing the man. The man should be trying to impress the woman.
Dickey totally changed things around and wrote Storm like an ordinary girl living on the streets who was awed by a prince. She was up behind him and he talked down to her telling her to hold her hands together so she did not steal. She went on asking him if she were beautiful and everything looking for his approval. It was CRAPTASTIC and what was done to her character in that story was nothing short of an annihilation! It was TOTALLY disrespectful to that Black woman to rob her of her dignity like that when she had been written better beforehand. What makes it worse is a Black man messed up Storm like that while a White man wrote her up on a pedestal. Not even Jean Grey or any other X-women EVER got that quality of writing in their flashback years as little kids that Storm got. Storm has always been the strongest personality and most regal member of the X-Men. This includes both the male and female cast of the book. CC even established Storm as having a stronger personality and will than Magneto when Magneto joined the team. Got it? So the White writer showed deeper respect for the character than that Black writer, Dickey.
In the original telling of the story, CC's Storm NEVER looked down upon T'challa. She was always gracious and "divine". If Dickey was unhappy with Storm having to save T'challa because she's a female and T'challa is a male, he could have created circumstances to merit that without devaluing BP. What if T'challa ate poisoned berries the night before accidentally or was bitten by a poisonous bug in his sleep which would have slowed him down in that fight? Plenty of scenarios could have been used, but he opted to write Storm down.
Moving on, when the two characters visited Namor in Atlantis, Storm came across like an airhead, kinda like the wife just sitting there while the two men spoke. Storm is much more assertive than how she was portrayed in that story and should have partaken much more in the discussion there while offering a tremendously insightful perspective from her viewpoint. The three people there, Storm, Namor and Black Panther should have all be portrayed as equals. Also, there was some very weird speech patterns coming from Storm in that issue. I was able to look past it since Hudlin was new to the character and Storm is a tough character to write unless you know her. The way she was written here would have worked if it were Invisible Woman and Reed Richards talking to Namor, but not Storm. Of all the Marvel women I can think of, Storm has the strongest, most commanding presence...and that was because of the writing of a White man named Chris Claremont who instilled this in the character from the beginning.
When T'challa met the Inhumans on the moon, Storm should have been present when BP was talking to Black Bolt. Instead, she stayed out with Medusa, the wife of BB. Again, if Sue was being written in the scene instead of Storm, it would be fine. Sue is used to sitting back and letting the man, her husband, take the lead as she follows. Storm, on the other hand, either leads or co-leads.
Of course, Hudlin's Storm got better as he went along and gained a deeper understanding of the character.
Initially, people were open to the idea of the marriage. The marriage issue between Storm and T'challa hit record sales for the title, if I remember correctly. It was the early portrayals of Storm in the title that happened when Hudlin was getting a grasp on the title and that HORRIBLE mini series that alienated the Storm fans, many of whom never came back to the title because of this.
After Hudlin left the book and Maberry took over, what happened to the sales? The first issue of Maberry's run saw a boost in sales from its declining numbers. However, readers picked up Maberry's first issue and read a book about Shuri (a character nobody cares about) and didn't buy another issue. Fans are not going to support a book about Shuri. Storm should have gotten the shine Shuri got there to increase sales. This proves as well that its not entirely because both characters are Black that the book saw a decline in sales. Fans lost faith in Hudlin because of the Dickey Storm mini (which Hudlin did not write) and some awkwardness in Hudlin's Storm writing that happened early on in his writing of the character. I think Hudlin could have brought those fans back by beefing up Storm's role in the title to equal Black Panther's and by telling big, epic, exciting stories featuring Storm's enormous power levels up against antagonists with exciting, earth shattering powers while playing up BP's technological prowess. (BP's technological prowess was played up in the book, but Storm could have done more.) Storm was not doing much in the X-titles at this time other than being wallpaper and tossing a lightning bolt here or there. Storm fans would have flocked back to BP if Hudlin had done this with Storm and the fans got wind of it. It was more like Batman=Black Pather's role in the book and Robin=Storm's role in the book. I think the book would have benefited more if it were 50/50 between the two.
You are quick to blame race for all of this, but I think you are overemphasizing it in this instance. I have shown how White writers have done well by Storm in their writing of her. I remember e-mailing with Claremont during the "Invasion" arc if X-Treme X-Men which happened well before even the idea of a Storm/T'challa marriage. One thing he commented on to me through e-mails was he didn't feel any guy was really good enough to date Storm. He totally held her in that high regard as the unreachable, untouchable "goddess" too good for any mortal man to court. The relationship she had with Forge under his run is essentially like a reflection of what happened when that "unreachable goddess" lost her powers and had to walk like ordinary folk. When she regained her powers, well, the relationship was over. It did not end officially, but it was just over as that chapter in her story was done as far as the writer was concerned. She and Forge were simply portrayed as good friends and nothing else after this.
When Claremont had this blond-haired guy named Cameron or something try and date Storm, there was such an uprising against it like you would not believe. The Storm fans were SO against it and would not let it go, that it drove him batty on the board he was on. They maintained that Storm was too good for that blond surfer mutant and were so successful in their endeavors that CC ended up just dropping the whole thing altogether and dropped Cameron and his sister both from the cast of the title after just a few issues. I can remember one post he made during the whole ordeal saying something like, "Okay, okay, I get it. I made a mistake with this. You don't have to keep rubbing it in. We'll correct it and move on." I was there. Those Storm fans would not let it go until after the dating thing was ended. It didn't take too long for them to get the results. LOL!
