Uncanny X-Men #198 (Oct 85): Lifedeath: From the Heart of Darkness Creative Team: produced by Chris Claremont and Barry Windsor-Smith; Tom Orzechowski, letters; Ann Nocenti, editor; Jim Shooted, editor-in-chief
Starting Line Up: Nightcrawler (DNA), Wolverine (DNA), Colossus (DNA), Shadowcat (DNA), Rogue (DNA), Rachel Summers (DNA)
Guest Star: Storm
In New Mutants #32:
The New Mutants follow Karma to Madripoor, but all are captured except Magik and Mirage; the girls teleport to Cairo, hoping to find Karma there; they hit the wrong century twice, then hit the mark; they reunite with Warlock, and team up with Storm.Synopsis: A bleed Storm walks through a raging storm. She commands it to be gone, and it is. She believes her powers have returned and tries to fly, only to fall. She hallucinates of Forge telling her it's a miracle she's still alive. She embraces him out of love, then chases hima way out of hate. She falls again, this time coming face to face with a poisonous viper. She fights with it, unsure if she was bitten or not. She crawls into a cave to die and hallucinates of the X-Men who teamed with her over time. She blames them for taking her soul. Wolverine offers to end it all for her if she says the word. She contemplates, but decides against it. Xavier explains he allowed her to mature by taking her from Africa. She gets upset and the hallucinations disappear. She awakens, and realises she was not bitten. She starts to crawl from the cave, but the viper returns. This time she doesn't panic, and the viper does her no harm. Storm moves on to find a crashed bus with a sole, pregnant survivor. Storm walks with her, Shani, back to her village. Shani explains she left her village to see the city and while there met a nice man who doesn't really love her but is the father of her child. She's returning to her village to raise her baby there. The next morning, they reach the village. The first thing Storm notices are large machines. Shani explains that years ago they were taught how to turn the desert into arable farmland, but the desert reconsumed itself, leaving the village poor. Storm and Shani are welcomed by the elder, Mjnari. Storm finally collapses from her gunshot wound. Much later, she is woken by Mjnari, who has treated her would, and tells her Shani has gone into labor. Shani is having difficulty delivering and has asked form Storm. Storm uses her little medic training and helps Shani deliver the baby. But the baby isn't breathing when it comes out. Storm desperately performs CPR until the baby finally breathes. And the village rejoices. Mjnari leaves them to perform one last duty. He is striped of his robe and walks into the desert. Storm realises he's going off to die. She chases after him to find out why. He explains after the desert reconsumed their farmland, the village had become so poor it can only sustain a limited amout of life. For every birth, there must be a death. He explains to her the technology they used, the combining of two cultures, was not a bad thing, only their own immaturity and ignorance was bad. Storm finally comes to realise that her leaving home was not bad, nor was her returning good. Her home is the entire world. And she has rediscovered her purpose.
Yeah, but is it good? A sequel to last year's original Lifedeath and even more powerful. Where as the previous one was about Storm falling in love, then hate, with Forge, this is about Storm choosing life or death and rediscovering her purpose in life. There's also no action to break up the rest of the story. Some may like that as a change of pace, others may be put off by an all talk issue. I was fairly enthralled by the story. Like the yeay before, scripted by Claremont, but it feels very much like a Barry Windsor-Smith issue. Smith even did all of the art work including colors. Now that's a lot of work. Oh and if you read the New Mutants description for the month, that story takes places after this one.
Significata: Storm rediscovers her purpose in life.
