Storm (Don Lawrence)


Storm is a science fiction / fantasy comic book series originally drawn by Don Lawrence. It tells the adventures of an astronaut who accidentally gets lost in time. The series originated in Dutch, but has since been translated into many other languages.

Publication history

Don Lawrence had spent ten years as the artist behind the British science-fiction strip The Trigan Empire. With its impressive visuals, melodramatic plots, and fully-painted art, the strip developed a considerable fanbase in continental markets, particularly in the Netherlands. After Lawrence was replaced in 1976, Martin Lodewijk and Frits van der Heide, who had been publishing a Dutch-language version of The Trigan Empire in the comics magazine Eppo, approached Lawrence and suggested he create an original story for them. Lawrence initially conceived of a story set in the "Deep World," a future Earth in which the oceans have receded and primitive civilizations exist on the former sea-beds. The title revolved around a character named "Commander Grek", but the first installment was not picked up by Dutch publisher Oberon. The story was later reworked by Philip "Saul" Dunn, with Grek replaced as the main character by the time-displaced 21st-century astronaut Storm. This version did get published by Oberon, serialized in Eppo in 1977, with the "Deep World" setting reused for the first nine volumes of the series.
Storm originated in Dutch, although all the books have been translated into English and German, and some in at least twelve other languages. English translations have been published as part of the Don Lawrence Collection.The Living Planet and The Slayer of Eriban were also published in Heavy Metal magazine in January 1997 and March 1999, while The Navel of the Double God had an early publication in the Dutch magazine Myx.

Characters

  • Storm: an astronaut who is accidentally displaced in time
  • Roodhaar : a beautiful red-head, an inhabitant of the future Earth
  • Nomad: a hairless red-skinned muscle man; makes first appearance in The Chronicles of Pandarve
  • Marduk, the Theocrat of Pandarve: makes first appearance in ''The Chronicles of Pandarve''

Overview

The series consists of two distinct parts: The Chronicles of the Deep World, which takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth, and The Chronicles of Pandarve, which takes place in the Pandarve multiverse.

The Chronicles of the Deep World

Storm is an astronaut in the 21st century who makes a journey to investigate the Great Red Spot of Jupiter. The Great Red Spot is an anticyclonic storm which has already been there for at least 300 years. Once arrived, his ship gets dragged into the storm. While Storm manages to escape and return to Earth, he finds that he has traveled through time. The oceans have vanished, civilization on Earth has collapsed, and barbaric societies exist on the former abyssal plain.
Apart from albums four through six, each album is a separate adventure.

The Chronicles of Pandarve

Storm and Ember get beamed to the Pandarve multiverse, where they meet Nomad, and a new enemy: Marduk, the Theocrat of Pandarve. Marduk wants to catch Storm, because Storm is an anomaly and is the key to give him power over the multiverse. The Pandarve multiverse is a bubble of breathable gas surrounding a white hole that contains Pandarve itself, and thousands of other planetary objects. The main body, Pandarve, is a giant telluric planet. On Pandarve, the normal physical laws are no longer valid; this gave Don and Martin room for incredible stories and magnificent scenery.
Also, Pandarve is a living planet - which means it has intellect and can even interact with other beings. For this interaction she normally relies on her Theocrat, but she is also capable of creating a humanlike representation of herself as Alice from Alice in Wonderland.
Storm's two-time time travel history remains important to the stories, but as Ember has also travelled through time, she is an anomaly as well. This fact is never really used in the stories.
Other planets and planetoids in the Pandarve multiverse described in the chronicles are:
  • Farseid - a synthetic ring world controlled by robots.
  • Eriban - a paradise-like planet containing the academy for slayers.
  • Kyrte - the small home-planetoid of tariev-fisher Rann.
  • Marrow - a crystal-shaped planet, home of the Barsaman-games.
  • Red Tear - a satellite of Pandarve, a few kilometers above the ocean near the city Aromater.
  • Vertiga Bas - a small pirate planet.
  • Waterplanetoid - a fisher-world completely covered with water.
The last three albums form a trilogy wherein Storm & co and Marduk need to work together to save Pandarve from perdition. A strange, gigantic "spaceship" is headed for a collision with Pandarve, which will mean the end of both entities. The "spaceship" consists of various "cocoons". Some time around the 21st century, one "cocoon" was sent into space with the purpose of making replicas of itself. But because of a system error, the strangest "cocoons" started to emerge and cluttered together instead of floating off. There are some references to well-known stories, movies, celebrity actors and some mathematical theorems.

Chronicles of Meanwhile

About the time when The Genesis Equation was published, a spin-off series was started, called Chronicles of Meanwhile. The episodes take place between albums 6 and 7 of The Chronicles of the Deep World. Three episodes were released, drawn by Dick Matena, the first two under his pseudonym John Kelly. By late 2022 Eppo magazine began to serialize the fourth and final episode after a 25-year hiatus. Writer Martin Lodewijk and comic artist Apri Kusbiantoro concluded this series and released as the last album in 2024.

Continuation

Three years after Don Lawrence died, a new team continued his work. Martin Lodewijk maintained the writer role, while Romano Molenaar and Jorg De Vos were selected as artists. Their first album The Navel of the Double God has been available since September 6, 2007 in Dutch. Storm 23 has already been reprinted and has given Storm a renewed international interest. The next album, titled Marduk's Springs, was released in February 2009.
Since July 2008 there has been a second team working on Storm: Minck Oosterveer as artist and Willem Ritstier as writer. This spin-off was called "The Chronicles of the Outer Ring" Their first and only album was called The Exile of Thoem. The series was put on hold after Oosterveer died in a motorcycle-accident in 2011. In 2025 the series continued with Apri Kusbiantoro as artist and Robbert Damen as writer.

Chronicles of Ember

In 2014 Ember was given her own series chronicling the days before she met Storm, the first part was written Roy Thomas and drawn by Romano Molenaar, the current artist of Storm. From part 2, the series will be written by Rob van Bavel and each story will be pre-published in Eppo magazine.
  • 1 De legende van Krill
  • 2 De vijfde toren
  • 3 De Ark van Noorach
  • 4 Het Zwevende Gewest
  • 5 ''De reuzen van het Gebroken Rif''

Albums

Prologue

Written by Vince Wernham, art by Don Lawrence
  1. Commander Grek - Prisoners of time

The Chronicles of the Deep World

Various writers; art by Don Lawrence
  1. The Deep World
  2. The Last Fighter
  3. The People of the Desert
  4. The Green Hell
  5. The Battle for Earth
  6. The Secret of the Nitron Rays
  7. The Legend of Yggdrasil
  8. City of the Damned
  9. ''The Creeping Death''

The Chronicles of Pandarve

Written by Martin Lodewijk, art by Don Lawrence
  1. The Pirates of Pandarve
  2. The Labyrinth of Death
  3. The Seven of Aromater
  4. The Slayer of Eriban
  5. The Dogs of Marduk
  6. The Living Planet
  7. Vandaahl the Destroyer
  8. The Twisted World
  9. The Robots of Far Sied
  10. Return of the Red Prince
  11. The Von Neumann Machine
  12. The Genesis Equation
  13. The Armageddon Traveller
Written by Martin Lodewijk, art by Romano Molenaar
  1. The Navel of the Double God
  2. Marduk's Springs
  3. The Red Trail
Written by Jorg de Vos, art by Romano Molenaar
  1. The Mutineers of Anchor
  2. The Guards of the Tracks
Written by Dick Matena, art by Romano Molenaar
  1. The Race of Opale City
Written by Rob van Bavel, art by Romano Molenaar
  1. The Coral of Kesmee
  2. ''The Executioner of Torkien''

Chronicles of Meanwhile

Written by Martin Lodewijk, art by Dick Matena
  1. The Voyager Virus
  2. The Dallas Paradox
  3. The Stargorger
Written by Martin Lodewijk, art by Apri Kusbiantoro
  1. ''Klein Space''

Chronicles of the Outer Ring

Written by Willem Ritstier, art by Minck Oosterveer
  1. ''The Expatriate of Thoem''

The Collection

The Deluxe volumes are hardback with a leather cover, gold imprint and dust jacket. Each bundle contains two albums and a part of the Storm-dossier "The Search for Storm". The last part also contains "Storm - The Big Picture" which gives an overview of Storm in the press, Storm expositions, the status of Storm in the modern comic scene and a portfolio. Only available in Dutch and English.
  1. The Collection - Part 1
  2. The Collection - Part 2
  3. The Collection - Part 3
  4. The Collection - Part 4
  5. The Collection - Part 5
  6. The Collection - Part 6
  7. The Collection - Part 7
  8. The Collection - Part 8
  9. The Collection - Part 9
  10. The Collection - Part 10
  11. The Collection - Part 11
  12. ''The Collection - Part 12''