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From Storm Vol. 5 #004, “A Flame in the Wind”

Art by Lucas Werneck, Alex Guimarães and Fer Sifuentes-Sujo

Written by Murewa Ayodele

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Not super happy with how this came out but heres the first Storm of hopefully many!

I do like her default too but usually run Mohawk Rock

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X-Men Annual #6 (Claremont/Sienkiewicz, Nov 1982). I’m not sure if Claremont’s making another attempt at rehabilitating Tomb of Dracula… or simply putting a final stake in the coffin.

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RED SONJA by JOHN ROYLE

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oh miss ororo munroe the woman that you are...

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Justice Society of America (Volume 2) #9

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I gotta hand it to Tyler James Williams's commitment to weird suits. I actually kind of love this one. The exaggerated shoulders, tiny waist and pinstripes give a slick, kind of 80s cartoon feel to look. It's giving MC Hammer and Grace Jones.

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Oh my queen. I admire you.

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Dr. Phosphorus is almost contradictory to himself in a way I find notable.

Assuring Nina with, “I know you can do this, kid.” A term of endearment slipping in, fitting an interaction between a once-father and a young woman who’s spent the overwhelming majority of her adult life locked away and isolated in prison.

Perhaps too endearing, as he quickly undercuts it with “Did it sound like I gave a shit?”

When Weasel jeopardizes the mission, he grabs him in anger, yelling, “You stupid rat!”

But he doesn’t actually try to hurt Weasel. He only got burned once he sunk his teeth too deep into Phosphorus.

Then there’s this scene, where this obviously just him joking around, right? Just him being his sardonic self.

But then later, he seems genuinely offended that Flag is angry with him. That Flag should have taken his actions as a favor between ��friends’. As if he’s actually a little desperate to be liked by the man he was fighting with not that long ago.

(I mean, as a smaller example, his interactions with Nosferata jump from him insulting her to playing freaking ping pong with her)

Then there’s his recurring dynamic with Bride. Despite the ‘I’m a killer who doesn’t care about anything’ idea of himself he pushes, Phosphorus continuously tries to interact with her. Making remarks for her to find amusing, remaking on their bleak situation for her to join in on. It’s like he saw the first person in so long to really acknowledge him in anything close to a meaningful way (“Are you smiling?” “Yes!” “Sarcastically?” “Mm-hm.”) and decided he wasn’t going to let that high just go away.

Even after the mission failed, he tries to push himself as the annoyed, angered man. Angered at Weasel, angered at Nina’s death, angered at their efforts all being for nothing.

But then he’s the only person to comfort Bride in her mourning.

I think these conflicting traits, the outward expression versus the sincerity that slips through, are most well shown during Wonderlust King. Still in the wake of his family’s death (not that it ever ended for him), during his era as a crime boss, he tries to satiate the sadness in himself.

He dances in the Ice Lounge, a display of his power and his wealth for all its attendees to bear.

But then misses dancing with his wife at their wedding, a display of their love for all gathered to behold.

He tries to gain satisfaction through inflicting violence onto others.

But then only misses the love he shared with Parvin.

He tries to fill the hole in his heart with riches.

But it’s meaningless in comparison.

Dr. Phosphorus thought Alex Sartorius died the night he was born, I feel, but despite his own best wishes, he’s still there, the loving man who only wanted to help people he once was.

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I see people for the most part take this scene, coupled with Nina’s failure to kill, as Bride being wrong, that Nina wasn’t a monster and that she never belonged on the creature commandos.

And I do agree Nina didn’t deserve to be on the commandos (though, I think that’s true for all of them), but she did belong with the commandos.

Nina’s narrative and relation with dehumanization lies in the attempt to be normal. She is considered subhuman the moment she is born disabled, but her father’s determination for her to have both a proper quality of life and a normal life results in her mutation.

Then, when the time comes, she wanted the same thing he wanted for her. She wanted to go to school, play sports, make friends, have crushes because she could, because her looking different and having to breathe underwater didn’t prevent her from doing that.

But it sure made everyone decide that it should.

After enduring it as long as she could, internalizing that her father deciding to always love her meant her being alive was a burden to him, she gives up. She abandoned the goal of the ideal “normal life” and decided the only way for her to live in peace would be to isolate herself. Her existence was unnatural, so how could she coexist with anyone else?

And that guilt by existence is why she was locked away in Belle Reve, and eventually put onto Task Force M. A group where everyone’s existence was as unnatural as hers. Where they couldn���t care less if she was walking around in a fish bowl, because who on earth were any of them to judge?

And because she was around them, for the first time in her life someone called her their friend.

Then she gets to know all of them, their rough edges soften in her eyes. They aren’t so scary, or standoff-ish, or cruel for the sake of it. For all their differences, they’re like her.

These people actually see her as a person. It doesn’t matter if she’s a freak, a weirdo, or a monster because gets to be one with them. These are the people she’s always needed in her life.

Unfortunately, what let her finally met them was also what killed her.

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Avengers Assemble. Dr.Henry Pym becomes Giant Man.

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VAMPIRELLA by ELIAS CHATZOUDIS

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Asgardian Storm in What If?

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Hawk: "Gentlemen I apologize for calling you in so early, I wouldn't-"

Low Light: "I'm sorry sir, but are we just gonna ignore whatever the hell Cover Girl is doing?"

Cover Girl: "I'm trying to take my morning insta photo, now shut up while I try and get the cup angle right."

Hawk: "Ms. Krieger's questionable worktime activities aside, We've got a Joe on a recon mission in the amazon whose just requested an urgent extract and you two are the most qualified soldiers on the base, are you up for it?"

Outback: "Don't worry sir, we'll head out and have em back in time for Courtney's evening insta post!"

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Storm by Steve Rude

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Whose "Jason and the Argonauts?"

Creature Commandos Episode 1