>>>Battle, I was trying to keep things kosher. You started in with the personal attacks on me just a few posts ago with the McDuffie thing. You attacked me and I have a right to defend myself. With my last post, I wasn't thinking of trying to get people interested in the book. The post I made above was me taking a shot back at you and the other guy who took a personal shot at me. Again, it was not an attempt at all to try and get people buy the upcoming "Storm" book.
Now, something else I wanted to say on the whole Storm/BP marriage break up thing.
(Spoilers: This has nothing to do with buying the "Storm" book.) While I understand why people are upset about the break up (I think it would have been nice if the marriage was handled in such a way that both Storm and Black Panther fans could be happy with and would have supported), it is imperative to look at ALL of the contributing factors that led up to the annulment of the marriage. It is so easy to try and write it all off as just comicbook reader racism, but when taking a closer look at the situation, there were several different criticisms leveled against the ordeal revolving around the treatment of the character, Storm. In order to get to the truth, one must take a hard look at these criticisms and weigh them fairly to see if there is any validity behind them. While there was a racist faction out there against the marriage for the wrong reasons, there was a far larger outcry about Storm being devalued to make T'challa look good. If you go back a page or two on this thread, I posted an article written by some guy (don't remember who) who outlined what he believed were the problems with the marriage of the two characters. What he posited reflects how most Storm fans who turned against the marriage really felt about the whole thing. Many of those Storm fans that turned against the marriage were Black, by the way. While I do not agree with everything the author of that article said (I addressed some of my points of contention with his piece on that post), there was a lot of merit to some of what he said. I say this as a Storm fan who got into comics because of my love for the character and will only read comics that features Storm in a very visible role. Other than that, I have no interest in comics. You will not find a bigger Storm fan than me and I have a very comprehensive understanding of the character and her canon. On top of that, I supported the marriage and always advocated for it to get better and better and it did get better as their story together progressed. I bought all of the issues of BP from when Storm first started appearing in the title till the end of "Doom War". So, when I say that there are merits to some of the complaints made from the perspective of Storm fans, I speak from a very knowledgeable POV.
Some of you on here are hoping for the marriage to be repaired. If the people who want the marriage to be reconstituted, or , at least a romantic relationship between the two characters established in the future, and wish for the long term success of that reunion, one must examine both the strengths and weaknesses of the handling of the relationship and marriage the first time around so as to avoid making the same mistakes over again IF a relationship between the two is to be attempted once more in the future. Otherwise, you'll get the same results and the relationship and/or marriage will fail again with the readership.
Just like some of you (like Moneyspider) don't trust the X-office with Black Panther, many of the Storm fans don't trust a relationship between Storm and T'challa to be fair to her because of many of the many mistakes that were made with the handling of the character at the beginning of the ordeal the first time around. By the time the book started getting better, the Storm fans had already booked off. Right now, it would be bad for business for the two characters to get together again. It won't have a lot of support. Storm doesn't need to be in a relationship right now, she needs to be alone to get herself together and come once more into her own. This upcoming solo title is a good opportunity for her in this regard. Let the Storm fans get their confidence back in Marvel regarding their favorite character before attempting to put her in a relationship with anyone. That would be the smart play, to be honest. Afterwards, if Marvel wants to try and put the two characters back together, they should examine the strengths and weaknesses of the first attempt to strengthen what was good and eliminate what was weak and replace those weak points with something better.
The reason I've been rehashing old issues is I'm trying to shed a light on the SOME of the truths of the matter that resulted in disaster for the marriage. I see that many people here are disgruntled about the whole thing, and I get that, but I try to offer a fair and balanced perspective on the whole issue. To do that, examples from the past have to be brought up. As far as the racist element goes from some of the protesters of the marriage, there is no point in spending much time on that in discussion. You acknowledge that its there, but then you move on from it. Don't dwell on those people. It will rob you of your peace of mind. You'll never be able to reason with a racist. Instead, look at the other things outside of the racist people that can be worked on, and improve where things can be improved. In bringing in a balanced understanding to the reality of the Storm/Panther marriage failure with the readership, I hope to alleviate some of the cross feelings about the whole thing so people can just move on and hope for a brighter future. It may not happen right away, but coming back to these boards after being out of comics for about 2-3 years and feeling the tension here about the way the marriage thing ended up, I felt it would be good for me to put my perspective out there. Given time, maybe SOME of the posters will who are not happy with the ordeal will come to see certain things and the atmosphere around here will start to feel brighter. That said, I am in total agreement with those of you who are not happy with the way the marriage was ended. I was not happy with the way the marriage was rushed into either, though. Those two instances will always be weakpoints to the whole ordeal.
Personally, I think Hudlin took on a daunting task in writing a Storm/T'challa marriage in the Black Panther title. Storm is larger than life and is truly an epic comicbook character. She has one of the biggest names in the genre and has one of the richest histories/background stories of all characters. (She certainly has the richest and most exciting history of all the X-Men characters!) Trying to balance a title centered on a marriage between these two characters is challenging to do since she could very easily overshadow the Black Panther. At the same time, Storm has to be allowed to shine as the great and monumental character that she is. Not an easy task, but Hudlin took on the challenge and the book was getting better and better.
There is no wonder that whenever Storm is included on an X-Men roster under Claremont, she is always going to be front and center. She has a tendency to even overshadow most of her big named X-Men teammates when written by this scribe who has a great love for the character. She overshadows them many times because her character is so rich, wonderful and powerful that and he puts her inner self and power levels up on display for everyone to see. The other X-Men characters simply can't compete!
(Hey, don't hold it against me for that last paragraph. I'm a Storm fan, I have to sometimes indulge and tell the truth just like it is!)
