Episode 045 - A Woman Who Could Fly

==Episode Description== __NOTOC__
In which we discard our regularly scheduled programming to focus on Storm and Lifedeath II; no one draws motion like Barry Windsor-Smith; Storm goes up to eleven; and we really wish we had the frame of reference to place this story in the larger context of diaspora literature.
==X-Plained==
*Forge
*The Adversary
*Uncanny X-Men #198 (Lifedeath II)
*Storm
*The narrative impact of sexualization
*Barry Windsor-Smith
*Extreme weather in comics
*Hallucinatory X-Men
*Storm in adaptation
*The Storm elevator pitch
*Our Storm dream casting
*Mjnari
*Artist editions
*Colonialism
*Storm as a liminal figure
== Listener Questions ==
* Black history month seems like a good time to ask: What the hell is with the X-Men's diversity issue? It seems like every time they get a woman of color on the team who isn't Storm, she vanishes. I started reading in the 90s and I remember how excited I was to see Cecilia Reyes on comic covers because she looked like me. But after a few issues she was suddenly gone. The closest the team has come to diverse females might be Marjorie Liu'sAstonishing, but that that's only if you count Warbird as a person of color.
* Has there been an X-Men story that contemplated the merits of the "solution" that Storm found to her existence before Xavier recruited her? It was sort of the inverse of the superstitious mob pursuing Kurt - use human superstition in a more benign way, and set yourself to be regarded as a goddess instead of a demon.
* So Ororo was the finest beggar in Cairo at six-and-a-half years old. Has she ever run a con or otherwise used these skills since? I want grifter Storm so bad! Also, is this involved in her taking on the goddess identity? That whole transition from successful, self-reliant criminal to agreeing at some level you're a divine being is kind of nuts unless it's a scam.
Category:Podcast episodes