An X-men classic - Storm vs. Callisto

[angelophile]

For Black History Week.

Back in Uncanny X-men #170, Angel had been kidnapped by the Morlocks to be their leader, Callisto's, love slave (hey thar Claremont) and Kitty is dangerously ill, thanks to the Morlock Plague. Which leaves the X-men with no choice - the only way to save their friends is to claim the right of leadership over the Morlocks and the only way to do that is by defeating Callisto. Step forward... Nightcrawler! But apparently the leader of the X-men has other ideas...











Lesson #1 in Don't Fuck With Storm class.

Comments

[protogarrett]

Classic stuff. I love this story. =D

And then Callisto was fine.

And then got tentacles.

And then was depowered.

Then got repowered to horrifying proportions.

Now limbo.

[protogarrett]

[zenbro]

Yay, I still have this. I think it was the first time Ororo actually got physical, aside from kicking Sebastian Shaw in the face (which turned out to be a bad idea.)

[budige_at_home]

Great post, thank you.

I noticed something that I'd never seen from this before. In the top middle panel when Ororo stabs Callisto Storm's arm is in the center of Callisto's chest and we can see Callisto's fingers from her right arm in the panel. The shot before was of Storm binding and raising Callisto's arm.

It would have easy to draw or imply the knife entering the right mid axillary region of Callisto's chest, but that's not the case. The middle panel is very clear that Callisto's arm is moving downwards and that the blow is to the medial of the chest or further to the left.

The point being that story tellers wanted the image to perfectly convey the idea that Storm stabbed her directly in the heart and the weight of the moment.

That blade could possibly be long enough to penetrate the heart from the right axillary side but that would be lazy story storytelling.

Hurray for well thought out details. Hurray for proper anatomy. Yeah Storm.

[cleome45]

Paul Smith's stuff didn't do it for me. It was technically nice, but it always felt so... hollow. I could admire it up to a point, but I never warmed to it.

I also remember, at the time, being once again irritated about the whole "ugly"-people (especially women) are evil and bad-- again. I suppose as she got to be more sympathetic, Callisto got more conventionally attractive, right?

[lencannon]

This is my favorite Storm. I really love the character, but her current incarnation isn't doing it for me. I like the IDEA of Storm the Queen, Storm the Goddess, but the one that really draws me in is Storm the Asskicker. I like her thief background, I like her mohawk phase, it just draws me in. She has the best power in the world but she will rip a motherfucker's heart right out.

[namey]

This is a good post and you should feel good.

This was part of DP Returns (or near it), I think? Whole thing was pretty nifty.

[starwolf_oakley]

Part of Storm's issues here was Mastermind screwing with her head... somehow. Mastermind was behind a lot of plots at this point in X-History.

[arbre_rieur]

What are Callisto's powers again?

[proteus_lives]

This could lead to "Chris Claremont's Fetishes" week.

[greenmask]

So good.

So glad they chose to have Storm carry Angel, after beating Callisto. No, she will not stop yet - she has more physical feats to perform and more charge to take.

[mcity]

...Callisto looks like Jane Lynch.

Marking myself as a youngin.

[darkblade]

As someone who grew up on the X-Men cartoon in the 90s and saw this fight with bo staff I was rather shocked when I later read the story out of my Dad's longboxes and saw how brutal it was.