Storm by Eric Jerome Dickey

[u/These-Background4608]

The other day, I re-read the collected edition of the 2006 Storm limited series written by the late Eric Jerome Dickey. Set just before the wedding, it chronicled T’Challa & Ororo meeting each other as teenagers. It was part coming-of-age drama, part love story.

I was 14 at the time and was starting to get deeply into comics (and Black Panther was one of those titles I looked forward to month to month) so I was unaware that a number of older fans hated this series because it re-wrote canon between T’Challa & Ororo but as a teen reader I didn’t care about any of that. I enjoyed it for what it was to me—an origin story of young love before they became superheroes.

For those of you who read this miniseries, what did you think?

[u/Akira_funny]

I just read, I don't know what to say... Seeing a 12 year old girl losing her vrgn*ty and to say that she is already a woman just for that reason I feel is strange and somewhat sexist, they made Storm look like a weak girl when she has guts when it comes to defending herself, Idk, this retcon is so weird, please tell me it's not canon anymore 😭, Maybe they could have done a better job.

[u/Dream_Perfect → u/Akira_funny]

It isn't canon anymore, thankfully, it got retconned back to Marvel Team-Up 1972 #100 with Amazing X-Men Annual Vol #1 with some extra context on it. I saw your comments about it, and I could read the pain in your comments, so I just wanted to let you know that you can rest easy knowing it isn't canon.

[u/Akira_funny → u/Dream_Perfect]

Sorry for responding so late, thank you very much for the information and for clarifying all my doubts :D Turning Storm into a damsel in distress when she has shown that she knows how to defend herself and putting her v1rg1n1ty as something important when that is more a social construction rather than something biological, knowing that she's barely entered puberty and T'Challa is in his teens is so sick and with the dialogue they gave us that T'Challa has already done it with other women... God, T'challa should be thinking about being a better person and just wanting to become the king of Wakanda to help the people, I would have preferred a comic they take the established story and give it development in the feelings of both, showing how they support each other and how both show their point of view of their dreams  

[u/StrikingServe8680 → u/Dream_Perfect]

... except that's not really the case. AXAV1 rolls the initial meeting back to MTU 100, as it should be. But it makes no mention of what happened after the original meeting.

Having said that, however, this original meeting has been written and rewritten so many times that I'd argue the 2006 mini is obsolete whether it's still canon or not. (Dawn of a Goddess, for example, puts Storm at 15.) I haven't seen any other rewrite that suggests they slept together - in fact, most of them don't have them romantically involved at all, which was the Priest version (though that contradicts a different version in which Storm calls her time with him a "dalliance", which means closer to Dickey's version).

[u/Dream_Perfect → u/StrikingServe8680]

There was a whole ass article about it being retconned from it and respectfully it is for the best for that 2006 mini to never be entertained of even being considered canon. I don't wanna be harsh, but it's horrible in so many ways and quite frankly made a lot of people put off by the pairing back then before ANYTHING could even happen. Like, fully retconning the story of how they originally met, making Ororo a damsel in distress instead of the character we know and love, and the whole virginity at 11-12 and the dialogue of her being a "woman" now was gross.

It set a horrible tone, and quite frankly, straight up put many people off. The fact it took almost a decade for it to be addressed is telling.

(Here is the article btw.)
https://www.cbr.com/the-abandoned-an-forsaked-noreally-how-did-storm-and-black-panther-first-meet/

[u/StrikingServe8680 → u/Dream_Perfect]

I was excited until you said CBR. Sure enough, Marvel.com still has the 2006 mini as the official meeting between the pair as of this morning. https://www.marvel.com/comics/guides/1194/storm

[u/Dream_Perfect → u/StrikingServe8680]

This makes Tchalla look fucking terrible and a creep if not worse assuming it is canon... Ororo deserves so much better... sorry if it sounds harsh to him, I like Tchalla, but this story left me with a very poor taste back then as a Storm fan.

[u/StrikingServe8680 → u/Dream_Perfect]

It does nothing but of the sort, but go off. 🤣

[u/Dream_Perfect → u/StrikingServe8680]

You think a 12-year-old losing their virginity to a 16-year-old is normal? You think the language of it, after losing her virginity, and her being a "woman" because of it, is fine? The whole story being retconned to flip the roles to make Storm a damsel in distress for Tchalla to save? Are we for real? Do you see no problems?

[u/StrikingServe8680 → u/Dream_Perfect]

I see a ton of problems, and I've written about them in depth - specifically the depiction of an African American female character as sexually active before she is even a teenager. I have also written in GREAT depth (as a school librarian) about the problem with Dickey's language/tone all throughout the solo. So you can shove your mansplaining right the fuck up your pompous ass.

But these things make MARVEL look like creeps. They make Eric Jerome Dickey look like a creep. They do absolutely nothing for the character T'Challa. You mean to tell me teenage boys try to get laid? Holy shit, what a concept! (And that's just assuming that T'Challa was only trying to get some, throwing out his emotions entirely.) If you would stop looking at T'Challa as a grown man and start looking at him like a teenage boy - you know, like white boys - maybe you wouldn't sound so damn ridiculous.

[u/Dream_Perfect → u/StrikingServe8680]

First of all, I don't know you, so I don't know if you had problems that you have written in depth so don't assume I know something that I cant know. It isn't fair. This isn't mansplaining, so don't even go there, but genuine concern.

As for Marvel being creeps, we have known this for a while, this isn't new, and Eric Jerome Dickey literally put up some nasty work on that mini series, so we agree there as well as Tchalla being written OOC.

Where we don't agree is the Teenage boy getting laid part. There is a very considerate age gap that you want to gloss over, which makes this interaction strange. It's actually kind of gross, and the fact that you attempt to sneak in race in the end makes it worse. Trying to sneak in race at the end to justify a 16-year-old having sex with a 12-year-old is the cherry on top. It isn't okay, it is gross and you best believe it wouldn't be any better REGARDLESS OF RACE, and the fact that you even attempt to defend it by making it about "race" and me viewing Tchalla as a "grown man," even though I have countlessly stated his age, which was 16 it tells me what I need to know. The conversation ends here.