Storm

Origin

Storm was an astronaut who returned from a space mission to find thousands of years have passed and the world has fallen into barbarism.

Creation

At the convention 101 in 1976, artist Don Lawrence met with Bosnian comic producer Ervin Rustemagic, who informed Don of the massive popularity of Don's series The Trigan Empire, which was being reprinted across Europe. Armed with this knowledge, Don queried royalty payments with Fleetway, the British company publishing Look and Learn, the British title Trigan Empire was appearing in. Unable to reach an agreement, Don left Fleetway and took an offer from Dutch publishers Oberon to produce a strip for their new magazine, Eppo. Working with editors Frits van der Heide and Martin Lodewijk, Lawrence developed the concepts for Storm, an astronaut trapped on a barbarian world. The first Storm story was written by Lawrence's friend Vince Wernham, but, deemed not to be quite what was wanted, it was shelved, and Lodewijk wrote a new story introducing the character. Storm debuted in Eppo #11, 1977 with Lodewijk as the series' regular scribe, and proved an instant success. Collected editions of the strip began in 1980, with the first volume Storm: De diepe wereld (The Deep World) reprinting the Storm story from Eppo #11-33, 1977 (Eppo started a new volume each year and renumbered from one). With the series' success, it was eventually decided the time was right for Wernham's story to be published, and it become volume 0 in the collected editions.

History

Storm was an astronaut on Earth. One day a red spot was detected on the surface of Jupiter and Storm was send to investigate it, but something went wrong and he got sucked into the red spot, which transported him through time. Storm returned to Earth to discover that it was no longer the planet he had left - over a thousand years had gone by, and the world had descended into barbarism. There is nothing anymore that he recalls from the past. He is in a strange world without oceans and seas. It is as if the prehistoric has returned. Primitive peoples, bizarre and exotic animals have dominion over the Earth.

Storm is captured by barbarians and brought to a city located at what was once the bottom of the Pacific ("the deep world"), ruled by the tyrant Ghast. In prison he meets Ember and Kiley, freedom fighters who opposed Ghast. Together they escape, chased by Ghast, to an underground power station, Mandros, run by a hologram. He tells Storm that the natural world has changed and why the oceans and seas are gone. Ghast, however, has followed them. He destroys the central computer, which causes all the water of the oceans and seas, contained subterraneanly, to be pumped back to the surface with disastrous consequences. The deep world again fills with water, causing everyone on Earth to seek shelter from the raging waters. Storm and Ember survive, escaping on a raft, and go on to further adventures together, eventually discovering a time machine that takes them across the multiverse.

The chronicles of Pandarve

In this story arc Ember and Storm are transported to the Pandarve multiverse, where they meet a new friend, Nomad, a man with completely red skin. He accompanies Storm and Ember on their subsequent adventures, but they also make an enemy, Marduk, who wants to capture Storm because he thinks the time traveller is an anomaly who could give Marduk control over the multiverse. The Pandarve multiverse defies all forms of natural laws, existing as various planets and where there should be the voidless space with no air, there is a gas that is breathable and allows travel in normal ships.

Powers & abilities

Storm is a normal human with no super powers. However he is in peak human physical condition. He's very skilled in armed and unarmed combat, he has shown great combat skills with swords but also with fire weapons. He has a great tactical mind, leadership and knowledge of computers, other then that he's very skilled in any aircraft thinkable.