Storm vs. Black Panther!!!!!!

[flint_marko]

This is from AVX Versus #5, by Jason Aaron and Tom Raney.

Storm is battling Black Panther.  Panther uses the counter-measures that he had planned for her to neutralize her weather powers.







They kiss.



We see Storm flying off and Black Panther walking away. Storm's ring lies on the ground. "Winner: ? There are no winners here."

Comments

[shadowpsykie]

they had to go with "If only we had children?" REALLY?

i mean yeah its "A" reason to stay married but.. really Storm?

Also i don't like the art here. i mean they are well drawn, but the fighting, i don't know it should have been more viceral.

also did she HAVE to get shamed by the Wakandan people? i know this was supposed to be a "NO winners fight" but what should have been a great issue was just.. ugh...

[greenmask]

SERIOUSLY.

[sun_man]

god just end this event already. Its so poorly written. I hate how Marvel's dragging storm and half of the other X-men through the mud on this event. Just stupid.

Just another example of how Marvel botched something with immense potential.

[q99]

Though at least you have an X-person winning a fight here.

[protogarrett]

"NO CAPES!" For this exact reason. This was a marriage that needed to end as it served no real purpose in the MU.

[auggie18]

Back in the day, Storm actually needed the cape to fly.


I think that that only lasted a few issues though.

[donnblake]

Did Storm just headbutt T'challa hard enough to send him flying backwards and crack a stone wall?

[q99]

Yea, that's kinda owie!

[fredneil.livejournal.com]

There is some context that makes this better, right? One of them is trying to stop the other from blowing up a schoolbus full of children and crippled nuns for "the greater good" or something? Otherwise, it looks like two people beating each other up because they have problems in their marriage.

[flint_marko]

The X-Men were looking for Hope in Wakanda. This takes place during Avengers vs X-Men #4.

[q99]

Huh, in the fight, she's kinda owning him...

".... for me to see what a terrible husband you are!"

Go Storm :)

[sir_razorback]

Yeah, but I couldn't stop myself from laughing at the cape panel though. :)

[brooms]

"Winner: ? There are no winners here."

i disagree.

[theflames]

ooh, who did you think won? Black panther comes off as needlessly unloving.

[theflames]

HAHAHAAHAHAHHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA.

This is nothing BUT consensual domestic violence. To me, this isn't all that different from Hank hitting Jan (Which Storm and Black Panther are both guilty of to each other), especially since they have little reason to start hitting eachother... your HEROES guys, be an example.

You won't kill bad guys who somewhat need to be taken out, but you'll hospitalise each other over disagreements?!

Storm without the cape and stupid headdress is pretty cool looking, i like the art.

[silverhammerman]

In fairness, at least Hank was going through a complete and utter mental breakdown, giving him some wiggle room in terms of whether he knew what he was doing.
Here the two of them are fighting because they're horribly, emotionally stunted people who can't resolve their obvious issues with word, with Storm coming off worse, since at least T'Challa appears to be defending himself instead of just throwing haymakers while calling him a bad husband.
This is a really bad handling of the break-up.

[mrstatham]

I'm sure whoever wrote the final 'there are no winners' line thought they were being brilliantly witty, but fuck that; Panther got his ass kicked here, and after the bullshit Storm got put through in Hudlin's run, it's about time.

[lucky_gamble]

Finally, this marriage is over =D

[btravage]

There's nothing wrong with hitting a woman, unless you happen to be married or involved in a relationship with her.

This comic is endorsing domestic abuse, and unlike storm, most women don't have superpowers.

[icon_uk]

There's nothing wrong with hitting a woman, unless you happen to be married or involved in a relationship with her.

Ummm.... what? I think I know what you're trying to say, but I suspect it's lost a bit in the phrasing here.

And though it's not the point, I don't think Storm is using her powers here, she's facing T'challa on an equal footing.

[mesmiranda]

Does any superhero in this universe solve problems *without* beating other superheroes up?

[stolisomancer]

All the time.

[silverhammerman]

This is awful. Also, were does this fit into the timeline? Are we talking before or after Namor attacked and BP had the marriage annulled? Because that's what it looks like to me, in which case it means Storm came back for forgiveness, which makes her seem kind of abusive ("I didn't mean to hit you baby, I just got so angry about all the space gods and mutant messiahs and I lost control.")
I greatly preferred this when it was just the cold-hearted annulment, yeah BP came off as a raging dick, but a raging dick who was justifiably upset and not thinking straight, and Storm got goodwill from the fans. Here Storm comes off as the aggressor, and a kinda unlikable one at that.

[darkknightjrk]

Before--I think they said it takes place during AVX #4.

[greenmask]

This is beyond our usual asks, but: unless it's REALLY inconvenient to you, void you use a different image host in future? Clicking the image to see it loaded alone caused my window to be fully hijacked by an ad for "local slags", apparently featuring homemade porno. Less than good! Cheers~

[shadowpsykie]

i wouldn't mind an add for Gay Thugs/Cholos... but i am at work and it would lead me to have to answer some very... awkward questions....

[majingojira]

That's it. There needs to be an Elsewords or What If where Superhero stuff is just Pro Wrestling. Here, we're just seeing an "Invasion" story, where the show X-Men are on and the show the Avengers are on are clashing.

Villains are now Heels and Heroes are now Faces.

And the various junior up and comer types are those in development working to break into the big leagues.

That setting would better explain this crossover event at least.

[auggie18]

There actually was one that was kinda like that. All of the major scrappers with healing factors were in a sort of "death league" wrestling/ultimate fighting thing. I think it was part of the Girl comics mini, with all the female creators? It was a pretty fun story. Bloody as all get out, though.

[mullon]

The marriage ended almost as badly as it began, but at least it ended.

[silverhammerman]

As awful as this is, I giggled at the cape grab and the boxing/wrestling promo image, The Thunda in Wakanda and the T'Chiselled T'Champion T'Challa both made me laugh a bit.
The rest of it made me want to punch someone at Marvel, but that stuff made me laugh.

Marvel....

[silverzeo]

I don't know what's worse, Panther's "T'ch"eesy alliteration intro (two words would suffice, like how Flash is the "Scarlet Speedster" ) or the force in stuff that they were never happy together echoes Spider-Man OMD and that slap in the face "What If" comic take of it...

Re: Marvel....

[mrstatham]

Frankly, I don't see how they were happy together; Under Hudlin's pen - and he's the main guy who had been writing them married - it was basically full of Panther talking down to Storm; Chief amongst them the issue where they visit Latveria and I'm sure T'Challa throws a tantrum because he can't be seen having a woman fly him out of somewhere or speak out of place. This doesn't even strike me as similar to OMD - no-one wanted this marriage, and there were never any particularly endearing highlights to it.

The 'T'ch' stuff is really, really bad, though.

[skemono]

Ugh....

Why are you two fighting!? I know that's the entire point of this book (and the entire event), but what is your motivation?? He was "a terrible husband", so your solution to that is to kick him in the face so hard you rip off the lower half of his mask (how does that even work)?

This just seems so out of character for Storm. Sure, a lot of superheroes, perhaps X-Men especially, leap to violence as a first answer, but I don't really see her doing that. And the line "not the cape" just seems petulant and childish.

And I know Storm is tough and even used to fighting in hand-to-hand combat without her powers, but I don't think she could take on Black Panther in melee. Even if, as other commenters have said, he wasn't really fighting back, he could still have been defending himself. I mean, the fight scene's not bad--it's pretty well drawn, the action flows well, and the two look like competent fighters. But I don't think Storm would really be in BP's league in hand-to-hand.

Also, what on earth is Storm doing in that second panel? Reminds of that terrible Psylocke drawing....

[mrstatham]

Look, if Panther can put the Silver Surfer in a freaking headlock, Storm can beat T'Challa. Simple as.

[md84]

At this point it would feel really forced and awkward if they all of a sudden decide to make up and renew their wedding vows after A vs. X.

So of course that's what's going to happen.

[flint_marko]

Brevoort said "To be honest, I don’t know that we handled Storm and the Panther as a married couple as well as we could have on a consistent basis. This is a byproduct of the fact that they come from different corners of the MU, and it was often difficult to bridge the gap. X-readers and creators wanted Storm to be in the world of X rather than in Wakanda with the Panther, and the Panther’s trajectory was often well away from that X-world. So more often than not, we had the two of them separated, each off doing their own thing in their own sphere, and touching base with the other, but that’s about it. We never found that winning formula to put them into position in the Marvel U as a couple that would succeed long-term." So I guess they realized the marriage didn't work.

[mortimerwclankitybritches]

Hmmm, Im somewhat conflicted as to how I feel about this.

One the one hand this looks like a pretty solid brushing under the carpet of Hudlin's racist and sexist wank fantasy, and the smorgasbord of logical fallacies needed to keep it existing.

On the other hand, as many others have commented, this is still a badly written and badly worded scene, which further makes both characters look worse.

It speaks pretty badly of a comic like this when a genuine OMD scenario may well have been a better choice at retconning the marriage.

[runespoor]

Anyone else feeling like they were reading one of Loeb's Superman/Batman issues there? ...No? Just me then?

[cloud_wolf]

This is a late comment but WOW YEAH. I was wondering why it felt so familiar.

[spacebetween]

I'm rather tired seeing Marvel treat marriage as a joke.

Storm/Black Panther marriage was a joke from the start due to how it came about. From there about 95% of the time it was still treated as a joke all the way to here.

Then you have the Peter/MJ.

I'm just glad Reed and Sue are still together.

[icon_uk]

I'm just glad Reed and Sue are still together.

Though we still had the break up in Civil War where she wrote

"My darling Reed ...
I know Johnny's out of the hospital and the family is back together again. I know I should be happy, but I'm not.
I'm so ASHAMED of you right now, and ashamed of myself for supporting your fascistic plans. I hate what I've become, and that's why I'm joining Cap's SECRET AVENGERS team.
Please understand: This is not another cry for attention. This is not me trying to distract you from your all-important work.
This is because our hands are soaked in Black Goliath's BLOOD and you're so blinded by your graphs and social projections that you can't even SEE it.
Johnny and I will be working UNDERGROUND from now on, and that's obviously no place for Franklin and Valeria {the other kids}.
That's why I've left them in your care and beg you to give them the time you have so often DENIED them in the past.
I also didn't want your last memory of me to be tainted with all the blazing fights we've had in recent weeks.
Hence the oily-fish dinner (good brain-food), the bottle of your favorite claret (an excellent anti-oxidant) and making love one final time (good for the immune system).
I hope I don't look like a coward for leaving this way. I hope you don't think I'm a bad wife or, worse still, a bad mother.
I'm doing this for the best of reasons and pray that your genius can RESOLVE this thing before one side ends up slaughtering the other.
I love you, Reed. More than anything in the world.
Please fix this.
Susan.
XXX"

But that's okay, because she went back to him as if nothing had happened.

[lieut_kettch]

T'Challa: HAH! I have you in my patented Panther Headlock! Not even the Silver Surfer could escape this one!

Ororo: STORM HEADBUTT!

Moral of the story: Norrin Radd should've learned to fight dirty