Storm, Brian Wood, Olivier Coipel – it’s a creative marriage made in geek heaven!
X-Men #1 by Wood & Coipel launched this week with Ororo in command of an all-female team. Wood’s smashing take on the mutant windrider on the previous volume of X-Men last year was a hit with fans. I even declared Wood’s writing of Storm was the best since the Chris Claremont golden years.
The iconic X-woman recently split from Black Panther, joined the Jean Grey School, and is now sporting her Mohawk again. Wood tells Marvel.com how he found a voice for Storm that resonated with fans.
“This is one of those honest answers that don’t always come across so well in interviews, but I don’t know. [Laughs] I remember when I started writing X-MEN [in 2012], I said in an interview something about how I was looking forward to figuring Storm out, to discovering my version of her voice. In the end I went with my gut, and wrote her as a flawed but determined leader, one not afraid to make controversial moves if the end goal is a noble one. And it worked; the reaction to my Storm was beyond overwhelming.
I often write from the gut, or go with instincts. I am not a person who spends much time self-analyzing. I prefer to trust my skills and while not everything I do hits the target, most of the time it serves me well.”
Wood continues writing Ultimate Comics X-Men and now in both universes Storm wears the Mohawk hairstyle she once sported in the 1980’s. Wood explains what the change represents:
“I brought the Mohawk back in the Ultimate version of Storm, in that case mostly because I find it iconic and striking, more of a style thing than anything else, and it made sense in the context of the Ultimate stories. I think in the [Marvel Universe] it can represent a level of freedom she might not have had in the recent past, sure. But I think it can change again—why not?”
One of the most intriguing elements of Wood’s previous run was Storm’s conflict with Cyclops so who does Ororo answer to now?
“I think Storm has obligations to the Jean Grey School, and I think she answers to the general needs and security of mutant kind. She never struck me as a blind follower of an ideology, though. There was this somewhat infamous interview I gave a few weeks back where I brushed off a question asking if Storm was Team Logan or Team Scott; I don’t know, to answer that straight, she is whatever she is in the comics now, right? Whatever writer’s already defined that, that’s what she is. But I’m not going there, personally. I won’t break continuity, but I’m not going to strive to define her actions as a mutant as being in one of two boxes, you know. I like Storm too much for that. She deserves her independent thought.
For the entire interview here’s the Marvel.com link.
Storm appears in All-New X-Men, Uncanny X-Men by Brian Michael Bendis and the new Uncanny X-Force by Sam Humphries.
By Editor