Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #2 Review -

Writer: Al Ewing

Art: Andrea Di Vito, Jim Charalampidis, Rachelle Rosenberg, VC’s Ariana Maher, Tom Muller, Jay Bowen, Matt Milla, and Leinil Francis Yu

32 PGS./Rated T+ …$3.99

Publisher: Marvel Comics

Release Date: March 29th, 2023

100 years from now, the Empire of the Red Diamond battles the Cosmic Coalition to decide the fate of a universe. One is the twisted creation of Nathaniel Essex. So is the other one. But between the two… there are rebels. Ororo lives, and her Brotherhood fights on in this week’s Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #2 by Al Ewing in an epic space battle that means life or death for everything that exists!

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THE DISPATCH

So far, out of the “100-year” series, this was the first issue I could genuinely sit down, navigate, and reasonably understand within the first two reads. Unlike the others from this “100-year” series, Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #2 had a few characters still kicking for readers to connect with which provided enough familiarity to keep this reviewer’s interest. You see, where all these issue twos have failed, including Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #2, is that there is a ton of new characters/ chimeras that fans have no connection with. Yet, the writers craft them into the story in such a way that makes the reader feel like they’ve always been there. It’s made the reading extremely tough, taxing, and hard to follow. It’s been so hard to be invested in this entire Sins of Sinister event for that reason.

However, Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #2 was a bit different providing fans with fewer new characters to grapple with and a foundational core of Storm, Mystique, Cable, and Destiny to keep fans grounded in some familiarity. Moreover, as silly as it might sound, I appreciated the Star Wars vibes that Ewing brought to the table and the clever twist at the end that truly made sense from the perspective of Storm. Storm’s reaction to the challenge at hand was totally in the context of how her character would react which is what made the final pages more believable. Granted, the sci-fi sleight of hand as Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #2 came to a close was a bit perplexing as to what exactly transpired the first read-through.

ART

Andrea Di Vito, Jim Charalampidis, and Rachelle Rosenberg craft a very powerful display in this week’s Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #2. My biggest concern was simply the lack of detail on the character’s faces. Even in larger panels, this core artistic group seldom focused on the character’s eyes. A majority of the characters were squinting or had their eyes covered up by a mask or glow. Heck, even the character’s heads were twisted ever so slightly just so they would have their eyes out of focus. Now, my problem with this is that it’s the eyes of a character that truly show the emotion of a scene or situation. It’s the feeling that helps to raise the stakes. Sure, this art team illustrated some pretty stellar starship battles and space fight scenes, however, until almost the very end with Storm, I felt practically disconnected to the outcome due to something as small as the character’s eyes. However, on a more positive note, the colors within the last few pages really popped and helped the issue really come together well at the end.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Storm & The Brotherhood of Mutants #2 made more sense than any of the other issue twos and still managed to hold true to the characters still alive at the time. The Star Wars Space Opera that was the foundational aspect of the issue was a bit cheeky, however, I didn’t mind it as much as one would suspect. No one can doubt the comparisons. Nevertheless, the plot struggles are still very real, extremely complex, and hard to navigate within the Sins of Sinister event. Where exactly are the Moira’s? Who exactly has the Moira’s? Where’s the real Sinister?

Truthfully, what’s the most frustrating is that this sucker is just going to get rebooted anyway. And obviously not until the 1000-year cycle is up. So, what was the ultimate point behind any of this? Granted, if this reboots everyone back to before Krakoa and this was how we escape the Krakoan era like it never happened, that would be quite the nifty writing trick. However, after skimming the solicits, that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen… unless that’s why the June 2023 Solicits haven’t been released yet? Just some food for thought. Overall, it was by and large the best “100-year” story to date. Nevertheless, with almost every notable and knowable character dead, my connection to the event as well as my interest have all but faded away.