The best gift to this book Marvel could give is pairing T'Challa with a dynamic other love interest so their friendship could resume unencumbered and his base bitterness be assuaged.
I agree with this.
I don't. It sounds like punking out, I don't think we should roll over just because some fans are afraid of a Black power couple. There are plenty of people that hate Superman and Wonder Woman together, that doesn't stop their book from being great or selling well.
For some people, it may have been an issue of the whole "Black couple" thing, however, there were legitimate gripes about the whole marriage thing. Some people were turned against the marriage for reasons good and bad. Many people believed that being married to Black Panther was a drag on Storm's personality. There is merit to this. The whole thing started with the Storm mini written by EJD. In that story, BP proved to be a MAJOR drag on Storm's personality as her character was destroyed here to put T'challa up on a pedestal. Some of her early characterization right after the mini at the beginning of her tenure in the BP book was awkward. I'm thinking now about the issues where she and T'challa visited Namor in Atlantis and the Inhuman story. Keep in mind this all came right on the heels of that terrible Storm mini which drug on for 6 issues. In other words, there was at least 6 consecutive months (a month for each issue of the EJD mini) of really bad Storm writing in an effort to force this marriage followed by some awkwardness in her early portrayals of the BP title as Hudlin was trying to find his way with the character. That is not a good start at all and many of the Storm fans who were willing to give the marriage a chance were permanently lost during this time. While Hudlin's Storm did improve over time (and really arrived the 6 issues before Maberry came on), too much damage was done at the beginning of the project. Adding to this there was no realistic build up leading to the marriage and Storm being rushed into this union did not help things at all. Storm's character totally came out on the losing end at the beginning of this ordeal from the way things were handled at the very beginning.
Below is an article allegedly written by Steve Morris taken from another board a poster presented in a response on a Storm thread. This article summarizes the largest complaints to the Storm marriage I came across from other Storm fans during Storm's and BP's time together:
"As a result of Storm marrying Black Panther, she moved from the X-Men office to the Avengers office, where T’Challa is managed. This meant she had to be removed from Uncanny X-Men, annoying Claremont (who also lost Kitty Pryde at around the same time, and is rumored to be the main point of contention between him and the company). It also allegedly meant that Ed Brubaker’s plans to use her in his Uncanny X-Men run had to be initially quelled, as the focus had to be on establishing her as a supporting cast member to the Black Panther book. The wedding issue saw massive sales, and tied in to Civil War.
Once she moved across to the Black Panther solo book, there was immediate discomfort with Hudlin’s stories – which seemed to have awkward political agendas shoehorned in. To top things off, Hudlin’s dialogue for Storm bore little resemblance to her previous formal style, as she became what was essentially a cheerleader for her husband’s feats. At one point she sentenced somebody to death, when Storm has always been aspired to use non-violence as an answer.
There was respite from the iffy Black Panther title when Dwayne McDuffie decided to use the characters in his Fantastic Four run, brilliantly using them as replacements for Reed Richards and Sue Storm. There was suddenly a dynamic between the couple, which seemed realistic for perhaps the first time. Their repartee was funny, they seemed to like each other, and the series was favored by critics. But this was only a short-term move, and eventually the character returned to Black Panther, which was rapidly losing sales. A series of relaunches followed, none of them lasting for a long period of time despite a number of different sales tactics.
Editorial started to feel that they had a lame duck on their hands, solidified when writers like Warren Ellis brought Storm back to the X-Men and gave her more to do as a guest than Hudlin allowed her in the book she was meant to be a central part of. The marriage became an open joke among fans, who watched as Storm’s status in the X-Men’s world dwindle, to the point where Chris Yost’s 2008 Storm miniseries ‘World’s Apart’ was entirely focused on the difficulty she’d have in living her split life.
Hudlin failed to get the Black Panther cartoon a run on BET, instead having to settle for a direct-to-DVD release. At the same time, he left the comic book and was replaced by Jonathan Maberry, who couldn’t reverse the sales decline. The book was cancelled. Incredibly, Marvel’s most famous female character was now unused. X-Men writers started to bring her back into their world, with Matt Fraction setting her up in the X-Men’s Utopia location for a scattered bunch of guest-appearances. Black Panther, meanwhile, was nowhere to be seen. Having previously been promoted by a number of X-Men titles, the character was now seemingly ignored and viewed as a drag on Storm’s personality."There are some things I disagree with in this article. For instance, Storm sentencing someone to death is within her character. While she did not start out that ruthless, she evolved into a character who was that dangerous. She stabbed Callisto through the heart in a knife fight totally unaware that one of the Morlocks present had the ability to heal the wound and save Callisto's life. She ripped out Marrow's heart in another knife fight in a different issue to stop a bomb and save the life of millions. She's killed Brood in fights and has used lethal force in other battles as well. She normally won't go that far, but push her far enough, and she will. The lady is capable of beserker rages worthy of Wolverine! This is canon.
The other thing I have to disagree with in the article was Storm's treatment when she came back to the X-Men. I can remember a Morlock story where her captors tried to hold her in a wooden coffin underground. (How stupid is that?!) She's pretty much been wallpaper ever since. This is why I've only bought like 7 comics within the last 2-3 years.
One more thing the article points out is the whole situation with the BP animated cartoon that was slated to air on BET. I don't see what that has to do with comicbook/marriage. I think the comicbook marriage and the cartoon are two separate issues and the cartoon thing should not have been included in the article. Nobody is going to be against the marriage because a cartoon did not air on BET.
That said, to be honest, there's a lot of validity to many of the claims made in this article. I've already outlined my personal feelings on why I think the marriage didn't last in the "IGN deems Storm/Panther marriage bad" thread.
That said, the marriage is over. They are not going to put those two back together anytime soon if ever. Its time to put that to rest and look forward to other opportunities that are presenting themselves like this new upcoming Storm mini beginning in July. Buy it! It will be epic and it needs your support.
