Lifedeath

“Lifedeath”
Uncanny X-Men #186 (1984)
Written by Chris Claremont
Art by Barry Windsor-Smith

It’s pretty obvious that Storm was Chris Claremont’s favorite character. She, along with Wolverine, is the consistent center of the cast through his original 17-year run, and the character he gives the richest and most complex inner life. Claremont’s Storm is a woman of many contradictions – goddess and street urchin, compassionate idealist and ruthless revolutionary, leader and rebel. She’s proud and has an incredibly strong will, and most stories that focus on her are about an antagonist attempting – an ultimately failing – to dominate and control her. 

Storm’s original role in the X-Men leaned mostly on her “goddess” role. She was mostly a noble and serene presence – more emotional and instinctive in her leadership than the more cerebral and meticulously strategic Cyclops, more exotic and unknowable than her “girl next door” best friend Jean Grey, and connected to the natural world in a far more beautiful and spiritual way than the brutal and bestial Wolverine. Storm’s story becomes more complicated and interesting during Paul Smith’s run as artist in 1982 starting with her taking control of the underground society of mutant outcasts called the Morlocks after defeating their butch Patti Smith-esque punk leader Callisto in a knife fight, and having a brief lesbian fling with the Japanese thief Yukio while the X-Men are in Tokyo. (That’s not explicitly stated in the text, by the way, but come on.) She debuts her classic mohawk look at the end of that story, giving herself a punk makeover to reflect her emerging wild side. 

Storm was directly inspired to embrace the new look by interacting with Yukio and realizing how much she wanted to be like her. “I envy you your madness, Yukio,” she says in Uncanny #172. “It is a luxury denied me ever since my powers first appeared. My safety, and that of those around me, requires an inner serenity – an absolute harmony with the world itself – I have lost lately.” At this point in the story, Storm is learning to embrace her emotions and trust that her instincts will keep her from unleashing major ecological collateral damage. 

Over the next dozen or so issues, Storm struggles with this and with how other characters respond to her emotional growth. Kitty Pryde, always a harshly judgmental figure in X-lore, is particularly hard on Storm for having the nerve to be something other than the calm maternal figure she had come to love. In Uncanny #180, Storm confronts Kitty and addresses this conflict, with the adolescent Kitty countering Storm’s need to grow and change by petulantly declaring “Some things shouldn’t change, they should be constant!” Kitty comes around to accepting Storm’s tearful explanation of her adult need to find her true self and in doing so learn things about herself she might not like. Storm’s speech to Kitty in this issue reads a lot like someone explaining why they had to come out of the closet. 

All of this is setting the table for Uncanny #186, a special issue illustrated by guest artist Barry Windsor-Smith in which Storm deals with the immediate aftermath of losing her elemental powers and sense of sense of self. After making progress in her quest to balance her emotions and powers, the rug is pulled out from under her when she’s accidentally hit with a shot from a gun that neutralizes mutant powers that was intended for the fugitive Rogue. In this story, “Lifedeath,” she’s recovering in the home of the mutant inventor Forge, who she does not realize is the man who, on behalf of the U.S. government, created the weapon that robbed her of her gifts. 

“Lifedeath” is subtitled “a love story” on the cover of the issue, and is a very peculiar sort of romance. The majority of the issue is about Storm and Forge getting to know each other while she processes her trauma and is forced to reassess everything she thought she understood about herself. Forge is extremely attracted to her from the start, and she develops a crush on him over the course of the issue. He’s presented as intelligent, philosophical, and somewhat debonair, and lives in an elaborate high rise tricked out with incredible inventions – the most remarkable being a sort of holographic imaging that the can make structural elements appear invisible so furniture and bodies resting on them look as if they’re floating mid-air. 

The two begin to bond when Storm learns that Forge has endured serious trauma in his life and that he lost his right leg in an explosion while serving as a soldier in Vietnam. Over the course of a romantic dinner, she reveals to him that her severe claustrophobia is a result of having to watch her mother die while they were both trapped under rubble from a bomb that leveled their home when she was a small child in Cairo. Neither of them is used to this sort of intimacy, so the intensity of the situation is especially strong. They come close to consummating their attraction to one another, but are interrupted by a call – an in listening in, Storm learns of Forge’s complicity in her loss. Windsor-Smith, one of comics’ greatest draftsmen, nails every emotional beat with exquisite nuance.

Forge attempts to explain himself. He was just following orders and doing his job, of course! When he reveals to Storm that he is also a mutant, it only makes her more disgusted, as it’s clear just how much of a sell-out he is. Storm tells him off in rather brutal terms at the climax of the issue – “You live in your high tower – untouched, untouchable – surrounded by illusion, so terrified of the real, living world you cannot bear to violate the sanctity of your space with something as small as a flower. Your home is a true reflection of its creator: Cold, cruel, sterile, and ultimately, a deception.” Forge gets defensive, but it’s a waste of his time. Storm has, at least for now, made up her mind about him.

This is only the beginning of the Storm and Forge story, which would carry on and off through the next few years of Claremont’s run without ever coalescing into any sort of proper romantic partnership. Forge is Storm’s first major love interest, and for a very long time the only notable romantic pairing in her publication history. (She would eventually be in written into a brief and largely miserable marriage with Black Panther, another cold and emotionally stunted inventor/genius type.)

Forge is a very inspired romantic foil for Storm – it’s very easy to understand the reasons she would be attracted to him, but the intersection of his power and personality make him a potent metaphor for a particular sort of disappointing man. He has the power to create literally anything he can imagine, but he’s so damaged and lacking in imagination that he mostly squanders his gifts on flashy home decor and creating weapons. Storm is correct – his need to isolate himself makes him quite selfish, and that keeps him from doing real good for the world. He eventually becomes a member of the X-Men, but he never fulfills his potential in that capacity either. One way or another, he always reverts to form as an aloof government stooge who mostly just builds weapons that inflict the same sort of damage unto others as he experienced in Vietnam.