Black Panther #18 and Storm #6

SPOILERS
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So now that Ororo and T’challa are finally hitched, let’s take a look back at their respective series. The Storm mini-series, as I have been saying from the outset, exceeded all expectations and proved to be a wonderfully told romance/coming-of-age story… that is, until the climax in the final issue, where it succumbs to a woeful case of plot-induced stupidity on the part of the bad guys. The poachers capture and chain Ororo and T’challa and put them on their helicopter. While on the chopper, sitting directly behind the poachers with nothing separating them, Ororo picks the locks on the chains binding her and T’challa. There are sound effects, so we know this makes noise. They talk in normal voices, not whispering. Ororo attempts to activate her powers. They even have time for a brief kiss. And they somehow do all of this without the bad guys noticing, even though they’re no more than a few feet in front!

Are you kidding me? How stupid do you have to be to let your enemies get the jump on you so easily? And I’m sorry, but there’s no way that guy survives a fall from what must be at least two or three miles up in the sky. I mean, we all knew that Ororo and T’challa would survive this, somehow, because this takes place in the past, but still, that’s a blatantly poor sequence. I know Eric Jerome Dickey’s used to writing less action-packed material, but even he should know better. This almost ruins the entire story, but not quite. There is still lots of good stuff in Storm, and Dickey, though he falls in love with his writing in places (like many writers coming from other mediums to comics), hits way more than he misses.

As for the wedding issue of Black Panther, I guess I expected something would happen that would disrupt the wedding in some fashion, as has been the case in many Mighty Marvel weddings over the years. I’m glad nothing did, though I question how important this event was in relation to the Civil War mini-series. One could easily excise all of the Civil War references throughout the entire arc, few as they are (including the dramatic scene between BP, Iron Man and Captain America) and they would do nothing to impact the main story. I can forgive the BET product placement; having the network cover the wedding certainly makes sense. The appearance by the Watcher could mean just about anything, though my gut tells me it’s not Civil War-related. And the message from Doctor Doom at the end was an inspired touch.

"The Bride" arc was written well overall, and it was nice to see these two major Marvel characters from two different franchises united. (I didn’t realize until Professor X said it to Storm that she is now the highest profile mutant in the world. And the fact that she has married a non-mutant human is certainly quite significant and it’s something I hope will not get lost.) In the end, though, it’s still not enough to keep me reading this book. Hudlin has done some very good things with BP, and I’ve talked about them over the past few months. The problems I had also talked about, though, still linger: BP is still too reliant on crossover events for short-term sales. The continuity flubs are irritating at the very least and could have been easily avoided. The use of Hurricane Katrina, a specific real-world event, in a story arc undermines the credibility of the Marvel Universe superheroes in general and severely questions their effectiveness. And while it has its moments, Hudlin’s BP does not have as much humor, complexity, and sophistication as Christopher Priest’s BP.

More than any of that, however – and this is my own personal bias talking here – corporate superhero titles require a lot to get me excited. As monumental as the BP/Storm wedding is, there will come a day, after Hudlin has left the book, where someone will undo the marriage for the sake of imprinting his personal vision on the characters. We’ve seen it enough times throughout history. The Vision and the Scarlet Witch, the Wasp and Giant-Man, Hawkeye and Mockingbird, Cyclops and Phoenix – they all had long-lasting marriages and they were all undone in one form or another. Even Spider-Man and Mary Jane’s marriage appears to be unsafe, if you believe the things Joe Quesada says. I daresay Reed and Sue Richards might be the only untouchable couple in the Marvel Universe. Because of this, it’s hard for me to get that excited about yet another superhero marriage, even if I do like the idea of this particular one.

I’m just not as emotionally attached to corporate superhero comics as I was as a kid. I can enjoy a given Marvel or DC superhero comic, and there have been plenty of those that fit the bill in recent years, but something inevitably comes along to ruin my enjoyment of it – a crossover, a premature cancellation, a change of artist and/or writer, whatever. Sometimes it’s a bearable change, but most of the time it isn’t. This is why I derive greater satisfaction from creator-owned titles, like The American Way, like Stagger Lee, like The Roach, because I don’t have to worry about a crossover interrupting the story.

I did what I said I would. I gave BP a second chance, and while it’s better than I initially gave it credit for, it’s still not enough for me to really care.
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SPOILERS FOR BP #18 AND STORM #6