This past week’s Storm #4 was headlined by Ororo Munroe having dinner with Doctor Doom. With Doctor Doom’s current position as the Sorcerer Supreme and upcoming Marvel event headliner Ororo having a one-on-one meeting was an important one. Doctor Doom specifically attempted to get Ororo to become his mutant ambassador. But as important as that development is there was something else notable about Storm #4. That was the connection writer Murewa Ayodele draws to Masashi Kishimoto’s legendary Naruto series.
A quick recap for Storm #4, as mentioned before, Doctor Doom did try to convince Ororo to become his mutant ambassador. Things ended up breaking down leading to Ororo being forced to use her powers. This action led to the ancient spirit that Doctor Voodoo made a deal with to help heal the deadly radiation killing her to appear and immediately leave Ororo in a near-death state.
Now it is in this development where we saw the connection between Storm #4 and Naruto Chapter 440 appear. In her near-death state Storm went into a spiritual plane where she met her dad. In an emotional reunion Ororo’s father, David Munroe, told her how proud he and his mom are on who she has become. The entire scene immediately brought to mind Naruto’s own emotional spiritual reunion with his father, Minato Namikaze, in chapter 440 of the series.
The scenes in Storm #4 and Naruto Chapter 440 were not word for word. They didn’t need to be. It was truly about the intention of the words being spoken by Ororo and Naruto’s fathers respectively. David and Minato each spoke about how they are proud of everything their respective children have done and the kind of person they are. Ororo and Naruto reacted in a similar emotional manner as the words meant the world to both characters.
These respective scenes played an important role in Ororo and Naruto’s character arcs. Their father’s words came at a time when both were in a state where they all felt lost to them. Hearing their father’s belief in them overcoming all the odds were the words they needed to hear. It is the exact words that could only come from a parent.
This spiritual connection between Storm #4 and Naruto Chapter 440 is something Murewa Ayodele confirmed on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. Being a fan of both the X-Men and Naruto it is incredibly cool to see how one inspired the other to create such an emotionally resonate scene.
Just like Kishimoto did between Naruto and his dad, Ayodele carefully crafted the scene between Ororo and her father to push her character forward. It made the power-up she returned with have a greater meaning.
Given how popular manga and anime are it is not surprising we are seeing comic book creators drawing inspiration from those mediums for their work. Marvel’s upcoming New Champions series has definite My Hero Academia vibes. With Storm #4, Ayodele showed how powerful drawing inspiration from other creators can be.
You can check out my review for Storm #4 and other releases from the past week by clicking here.
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