Do you like the Storm and Forge pairing?

I remember the time when Storm loses her powers and it was Forge who comforted her and everything. And now, Forge is with EXM. Should they become more than friends again or do you prefer them to stay as friends?

It was alright while it lasted. I have no opinion on whether it should start up again or not.

Not really no, always seemed more like Forge pining for someone outside his field. Plus you have to add that it was basically his fault she was depowered in the first place.

+I think she was better off with T'Challa.

bp and storm is bae.

This.

The only man good enough for Storm will always be T'Challa.

@heatblaze123: agreed.

Why can't Storm just take all the mutants to the Savage Land instead of Limbo, then Ka-Zar would crush on her hardcore and they could rule together. A generation of mutants growing up alongside dinosaurs in a prehistoric paradise without the oppressive forces of the outside world would be pretty cool.

@thunderscream: and completely devoid of conflict and drama for the series to tell stories about

@koays: If the writer has no imagination.

There are plenty of dangers lurking in the Savage Land from Garokk to Sauron to any number of undiscovered threats. It's ripe for the discovery of long buried alien ships, lost civilizations and ancient arcane artifacts.

Also, if an entire sub-species migrated from the technologically advanced world to one without wifi or quaint bistros, would they assimilate to hunter/gatherer culture or try and integrate their "old-world" sensibilities to feel more at home? Would there be animosity from the native Fall People or Mutates who have called the Savage Land their home when the land they've felt beneath their feet suddenly quakes at the weight of hundreds more or would they embrace mutantkind as brothers and sisters with open arms? Would the forgotten ones who erected the electromagneticwhatever pillars that maintain the Savage Land's environment revisit their creation when the power of it's inhabitants spikes?

Looks like most of you don't like the Storge pairing.

I'm okay with it. I feel like something will happen with it now since in EXM their relationship has been brought up twice already.

Yes. And anyone would be better then Panther.

It's alright.

Storm and Forge was a interesting relationship but I don't really want to see it happen again. That story has already been told, would rather see somthing new.

I don't want to see Storm with anyone else but Black Panther. It's her only relationship that I felt invested in and that served well her character.

no, storm and peter parker should be together.

I don't mind it. I don't think it could last, though. She's way too much wrapped up in her own head, and Forge is the man who brought her down to earth (both literally via power loss and emotionally via making her concentrate on more base human emotions). I totally understand she has many passionate fans, but she's a strange character to me - she seemed to have more of a personality before the power loss incident, and afterwards she became very hard, and emotionally unapproachable. I've said it before, but the Mohawk phase always feels like a de-evolution to me, and Forge is a big part of that.

All that being said, I think Forge is one of the few people that made Storm feel something and give her a glimpse of how happy she could be if she wasn't a leader, queen, or some other grandiose personage. If I were to play armchair psychologist, I'd say she stays away from him, because she doesn't like the idea of being emotionally vulnerable to someone.

I don't think you understand Storm as a character at all. She was a goddess, a queen and is a leader, she was designed to be grandiose. There's nothing average or easily approachable about her and that's what makes her so great and too good for Forge.

@scorpio_cassadine:

No, I think @phoenixofthetides understands her just fine. Underneath the Goddess/Queen facade she's a flawed, vulnerable person like everyone else. However, she's often in a crucial leadership position where she's required to be the hard, unflinching mother to her surrogate family/subjects. This overwhelming pressure obviously takes a toll on her psyche.

Storm and Forge complemented each other well. They were passionate, insecure and sometimes abusive -- like a real couple. Their relationship was given ample attention(Lifedeath I/II) and developed naturally. They also had the cool juxtaposition of 'nature vs technology'.

Storm and Black Panther were horrid as a couple. Hudlin, the architect of their 'relationship', even admitted that he paired them up solely because they were black. Storm was isolated from the X-Men at a time when they needed her most, and she was made to look inferior to Black Panther. It was a massive disservice to both characters.

I liked her with Logan.

The fact that Storm and T'Challa are both regal Africans is reason enough. NOWHERE else in all of comics is there a Black power couple. Actually there are very few Black relationships at all. Almost every Black character is paired up with someone of another race, as if Black love doesn't exist. It doesn't in any way reflect the real world.

I get that all the interracial couplings is an attempt at diversity, but it's become a cliche that the relationship between Storm and Black Panther destroyed.

I'll even go so far to say that the overwhelming outrage over their marriage is barely concealed racism. It's like one Black character is fine, but put them with another one and add the possibility of procreation and suddenly you get a fanboy backlash. It's racist and asinine.

@scorpio_cassadine:

There's nothing cliche about a black woman and a Native American man having a romantic relationship, especially in 1984 when there were barely any interracial couples in cape comics.

You know what is cliche(and racist)? Pairing up two characters based on nothing but their skin color. Also, what does them being 'African' have to do with anything? Africa is a continent with all kinds of peoples and cultures, it's not a collective hive mind. Storm is from Kenya. Black Panther is from Wakanda(fictional). Two completely different countries that have nothing to do with each other.

As for Storm and Black Panther being a power couple: is that a joke?

What sounds more empowering?

A) Storm leading a team of A-list X-Men in a flagship book.

B) Storm making arbitrary cameos as Black Panther's doting wife while simultaneously being excluded from the franchise that made her the great character she is.

Hint: It's not B

Nothing significant or beneficial came from the Storm/BP relationship. Storm was used as a tool to make Black Panther look good, and she was isolated from the X-Men comics at a crucial time when she could have been a central character.

@sprior93: I agree with that. I don't see why X-Men fans would want Storm to leave the X-Men to be Black Panthers sidekick.

Yes power couple, Storm and Black Panther were like the Beyonce and Jay-Z of comics.

You missed my point entirely. What Reginald Hudlin did was make Storm firmly Black after years of the X-office running away from it and trying to shoehorn her into being an amalgamation of all races.

Hudlin gave her more credibility with some of her biggest fans. Unless you're African-American the significance of the Storm/Black Panther relationship is not something you get to decide. For us it was validating and it was beneficial in promoting a positive role model for young African-Americans.

@scorpio_cassadine: That would be true if Storm and Black Panther were actually relevant as a couple, like Beyoncé and Jay Z are.

Hudlin didn't confirm that Storm is 'firmly' black. Both of Storm's parents are black. We saw them as early as Uncanny X-Men #102. How could anyone seriously question if she's black or not? Yes, Storm has Caucasian features, but they're explained through her shamanistic heritage.

I'm truly happy if you got enjoyment out of the relationship, and you're right that positive black representation is sorely needed, but I think it was handled poorly and done for the wrong reasons.

Good storytelling should always come first.

I never liked her with Forge but I always thought in the right hands her relationship with T'Challa could have been something special.

See the above pictures. Most Black people know and befriend someone else Black and usually have some aspects of our culture. Storm does not. At least she didn't before Hudlin. This is a picture of Storm that's been lauded by Black Nerds on facebook and you'll never see anything similar in a Marvel comic.

Love them together... However I like Storm with Yukio.

Uhmmm no... I don't like them as a pair...

But also, I don't like Storm with Black Panther... or even worse with Wolverine...

I'm not saying that Ororo must remain single, only that I can't think about someone for her now :)

Yes, thank you for commenting, @sprior93. I appreciate it. I have a pretty solid understanding of the character, but the things that I value in her make her more interesting than what some of her most vocal fans value. I'm glad you picked up on that, because I do list her among my favorite heroines. I agree with you in regards to how the Forge and Storm relationship panned out - they had all the hard knocks of a real couple because they weren't perfect, nor was this a storybook romance.

@scorpio_cassadine: Here's the thing - I actually like Black Panther, and have followed the character by reading back issues of "The Fantastic Four", and "The Avengers"...I've mentioned before that I was a bargain bin dumper, and read most first appearances and lineups by getting them for $0.10 - $0.25 each at my old comic store so if I have an opinion on a character, it's based on years of following development, my own postings, and of genuine interest. In terms of T'Challa, and Ororo - no, I don't think they had much in common TBQH, so the relationship just felt forced. I'm well aware what their union represented, and I initially supported it - but it just wasn't executed as well as it could have been, so by the end of it, after issue after issue of Storm racking up frequent flier miles to remain an X-Men regular, I just thought it was time to move on. Personally, I find it more offensive that you think Storm is too good for Forge. He doesn't have as large a fanbase as she does, but I don't think it is fair considering his own history as a supporting character. They had their downsides, but when they parted ways, it wasn't because Ororo felt too good for him - if anything, it was because their relationship ran it's course, and I've already put forth my theory why she might think that's the case. For the record, Storm's already been humbled through experiences with Misty Knight and Luke Cage way back in X-Men 122, and in another book by Luke Cage, for precisely that arrogant attitude, and I think despite her pride, and confidence, she no longer sets herself up on a pedestal like that, and is a much stronger character for it. Her goddess days were an affectation that she has put behind her for the most part. You should note that a lot of Storm fans hated this pairing, and were quite outspoken about it - so I tend to think the reactions to their relationship was a lot more nuanced than you acknowledge. Both characters have/had legitimate fans that didn't think it added to either character - so I can't really co-sign saying dislike of their relationship was thinly veiled racism.

I don't even want to get into the racial politics behind her character design - the panels you cited are some of the most annoying I've ever seen, and I share the annoyed reactions with other fans around the web in regards to how annoying it is that Marvel, in general, kept pushing the "amalgamation of all races", and/or "lineage blessed by an Asgardian goddess to have blue eyes and white hair" angles for years. To this day, we still have characters with African lineages being given blond hair and/or blue eyes for color palette purposes, without any acknowledgment for how important it is to see characters like Monet, Synch (RIP), Monica Rambeau, T'Challa, or Misty Knight, who represent a good range of brown-skinned, brown-eyed characters with differing perosnalities, and backgrounds. /rant

And for the record, I'm African-American - I just chose the profile icon because I like it.

According to Claremont, who sired their relationship....Storm and Forge were never supposed to last. She found solace in him when she was going through tough times, their individual destinies were not meant to coincide. Destiny actually tells Mystique, back before Destiny was retconned to be laughably wrong about everything, that her and Forge were to wind up together.

From what I have gathered from reading old Claremont interviews, Shadow Kings fascination with Storm was going to be revealed to have something to do with her mystical heritage she possessed and would have been linked somehow to the old Vibranium mounds in Wakanda. Storm also becomes associated with Wakanda in Claremonts X-Men Forever, so, it is clear he had been working with that idea for a long time. Though Claremont I believe never intended for Storm to be "tied down" as he viewed her as being to powerfully independent and unattainable, so I don't know if she would have ever had a relationship with the Black Panther.

I am not saying other writers contributions should be ignored, I just like the original authors intent with the characters more than what has transpired, and I personally just like Storm as being single. No man is really good enough for her.

It's also a pretty sad state of affairs for black people and their culture in general in the US when Beyonce and Jay Z, a woman whose songs are written by white people and a rapper who is all but owed by rich Jewish people, are considered the power couple of their community.

@cattlebattle: Well said. I don't really like the "no man is good for her"-type argument, because it always reminds me of the concept of the "strong black woman...always alone, with no partner", which can be very polarizing. I like to think that President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama really exemplify the concept of the "black power couple" to African Americans right now ;).

Yes. She will always be Forge's lady. T'Challa who?