Storm

Real Name: Unknown

Identity/Class: Human mutate

Occupation: Astronaut

Affiliations: Roodhaar (a.k.a. Redhair, a.k.a. Ember, depending on how literal the translators are); Mordegai; Nomad

Enemies: Prov; the Azurians

Known Relatives: Unnamed parents

Aliases: None known

Base of Operations: Earth, a variety of eras, and outer space.

First Appearance: Unknown

Powers/Abilities: As well as being extremely smart and an excellent fighter, Storm later developed (unspecified) powers as a result of his time travelling and space journey.

History: (Book 1) Storm was an American astronaut some time in the future who was sent on an expedition to the Red Spot on Jupiter. Returning to Earth he discovered that thousands have years had passed, and civilisation had fallen. Mankind had regressed to barbarism. Storm was imprisoned by the natives, but with the help of a girl Roodhaar (Redhair) he managed to escape. Accompanied by his new ally, Storm set out to discover the cause of the changes his home has undergone.

(Book 2) The two companions were captured again. Sold as a slave, Storm was trained by his new owner to be a gladiator. After a series of adventures, he manages to escape along with Roodhaar.

(Book 3) Storm and Roodhaar encounter a scientist, Prov, who has been trying to create a new species of humanity that can survive in deserts. Prov had transformed many victims in pursuit of this goal, turning them into "Whites", and now he wanted to use Storm and Roodhaar as his new Adam and Eve. The two escaped and helped the Whites defeat Prov.

(Book 4) Storm and Roodhaar discover the Green Hell, a jungle controlled by the alien Azurians. This ferocious group of extra-terrestrials had been making slaves of humans for centuries, but with the help of the two travellers, the subjugated humans began a fight for their freedom.

(Book 5) Storm became the leader of the rebellion against the alien interlopers, eventually succeeding in driving them from Earth. Some remain on Mars, but agree to live in peace with humanity.

(later books) Storm continued his travels, eventually discovering a time machine which he used in an attempt to return to his own time. This resulted in him adventuring across other versions of Earth, each different from the last, until he eventually arrived at his own time. However he discovered that his civilisation fell almost immediately after his departure to Jupiter.

Comments: Created by Don Lawrence and Martin Lodewijk. Don was one of Britain's greatest artists, and prior to Storm was best known for his ground breaking work on The Trigan Empire. He (co-)created Storm for the Dutch market initially, although the character has been widely published in many other countries. In most of the stories the writers are Dutch (the first was writer Martin Lodewijk, with the assistance of Saul Dunn), but Don was always the artist associated with the character. Normally under my own rules for picking a nationality to list the character under, I use the writer's nationality as a final arbiter. However there is no underestimating Don's level of involvement in the character's creation, so I'm going to list Storm as a joint nationality, in both the British and Dutch sections of the site.

Thanks to Theodoor Westerhof for bringing this character to my attention and providing information about him. Theodoor writes

"Don Lawrence gained European fame and fandom by the "Trigan Empire" comic. This was about thirty years ago, when the comic world of the British Isles was about 30 years behind the times, and evil publishers exploited poor artists and all. Don didn't know that (and was not paid in accordance with his fandom either) before he met his foreign fandom on a comic conference in 1976, including the publisher of the now gone weekly comic magazine Eppo. In that year Don got into a serious conflict and stopped doing Trigan stuff. Together with Martin Lodewijk he got the task to create a new SF-comic for Eppo, well, their first attempt with Commander Grek did not work, at least it was not accepted. It has been published as album 0. (Rule 1: No matter how lame the story, if Don Lawrence has made it, it can be sold) so I have read it, so the second attempt of the creators used a different character, but pretty much the same story:" (see history above)

The story had grown too thin, Storm had lost his drive: Going HOME. This asked for the return of Martin Lodewijk (Co-creator and writer of Album #2). Storm, already bright, martial artist etc. seems to have developed HUGE powers by his time travels (mostly in the Red Spot), he is an anomaly in the Universe. Far from Earth, in a world that would probably stun most Trekkies and Star Wars fans as bizarre beyond anything they knew... Marduk, the high priest ruler of a Dyson sphere, (mis)representing Pandarve, a living planet with an odd passion for mathematical issues, such as is there a largest prime number and such, transports Storm with a beam to his dysonsphere (more or less), to use Storm's power to gain more power, so it ends up with Storm having tremendous powers and little ways to use it (there was that time he used it to make a light to attract attention in a sea of molten lava, but otherwise...) hunted by the sort of would-be ruler of what turns out to be a sort of multi-world anarchy, with a living planet more or less on his side, recently even meeting a Von Neumann-machine, in which Storm more or less meets his parents again... Oh yes, he has a native friend too, a Red Prince mostly known as Nomad...

It seems that Storm's days are numbered, Don Lawrence is growing old and would like to end Storm with a final story, probably involving his death, so I read in an interview. So Storm is now a black-haired experienced adventurer, with a huge but latent power, one that has gone where even the imagination of normal men could not go, the last person alive remembering there was once a president called Kennedy murdered, living in a system of worlds where nobody knows about the existence of a planet called Earth... Nevertheless, even though the character may face the final end, the series has a sort of spin off with lesser artists telling about "minor" adventures during his travels. In a way he resembles Superman, a black haired American, with tremendous power, alone, with a Red Sonja analogue (minus the virgin nonsense) as the person he shares the most similar roots with, with this difference the world he alone can remember is OURS, not some Utopia or Dreamworld."

Theodoor wrote the above on the 11th December 2003. On the 29th of that same month, Don Lawrence sadly passed away at the age of 75.

CLARIFICATIONS: Not to be confused with

Any Additions/Corrections? Please let me know.

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