Firestorm #97

Shango searches for the heart of Obatala. In Ife, the Orishas confront the Orisha-Nla. Firestorm joins the Orishas and meets his Shadow opposite. Shango finds what appears to be the heart of Obatala in the small clinic of Dr. Efraim Ngai. In Ife, Obatala returns and seeks to bring peace between the Orishas and the Orisha-Nla.

Firestorm826's Panel-by-Panel Story Summary (Spoiler Alert)

A small, modern city with all the attendant goods and ills, nestled in East Africa. Far above, the storm gathers and the thunder rumbles. It is Shango, He-Who-Is-The-Storm, calling the name of his brother, Obatala.

RRUMMBLE! “It is here! I know it!” thinks Shango. “I can hear the heart of Obatala somewhere below, like a beating drum. Why does he not answer? Can he not hear this call? After all this time, could my brother have forgotten who I am - - or who he is himself?”

KKRAKKLE! Lightning shoots down from the sky, striking in the city streets. THWABOOM! KKRAKKLE! “Obatala! Brother!” Shango calls out. “Come forth! It is I, Shango, who calls you!”

Shango slowly descends down into the busy city street. HERNNK! A speeding semi-truck blares its horn as it bears down on him. “Crazy man!” yells the driver. “Get out of my way! I cannot stop so quick!” SCREECH! The tires squeal as the driver stands on the brakes.

“In all the time since the Orishas have walked your miserable world, you have learned nothing!” Shango cries out. He flings his massive hammer toward the truck. “We merely appear and you attack us anew! Learn your folly!”

SPAKOW! WHOOOM! Shango’s hammer smashes into the truck. “YAHH!” the driver screams as he leaps from the cab. The truck crumbles and grinds to a halt. “You crazy, man!” the driver yells, crawling away from the wreckage. “What do you do to my truck?”

“All of you - - learn from the death of this metal beast!” Shango yells to shocked bystanders. “Mighty is Shango! Mighty are the Black Gods…and quick to anger! You attack us at your own peril!”

Shango extends his hand. SKRRRT! As if by command, his hammer extricates itself from the truck. KKKKRAKKLE! On a small ray of lightning, the hammer floats back to Shango’s hand. “Now, quickly - - bring me to where abides the heart of Obatala!” Shango says.

“Put down the weapon!” commands a police officer as he approaches Shango. “Raise up your hands! You are under arrest.”

“Pah!” Shango scoffs. “Mortals! Laws are for mortals. I am a god. Be off with you.”

“Do not make this difficult,” the officer replies, grasping Shango’s shoulder. “I mean what I say.”

“You place your hand upon me?!” Shango says, scowling at the officer.

KKRAKKLE! SCHRAK! WHADAM! Lighting explodes around Shango, blasting the officer into the air! “By Mawu, you make me angry!” Shango yells, smashing his hammer into the roadway. BABOOM! Lightning shoots up into the sky!

“There. I have given my gentlest warning,” Shango says, slowly walking off. “Annoy me no further. Thus far extends my mercy!”

The stunned officer gets to his feet and watches Shango. “I think, perhaps, before I face this one again, it would be best to get some back-up!” he thinks.

Ifè - - the Living Land - - is being threatened by the Orisha-Nla: Shadow forms of the Black Gods that seek to swallow the Land and everything in it. But the Land has a champion. And his name is Firestorm. He blazes through the darkening sky like a beacon of hope, calling forth the Black Gods to battle and to not give in to despair.

And some among the Orishas respond - - Jakuta, the Stone - - Erinle, the Flame - - Ogun, who is Iron - - Adiremi, the Wind - - and Ochun, the Stream, the Sweet Water. In the time of Ifè’s greatest need, the Black Gods respond and swarm to battle!

“There, brothers!” Erinle says as the Orishas race forth together. “There, sisters! Do you see? The impious Shadow seeks to swallow Olorun - - He-Who-Is-The-Sky! Will we permit this and live?!”

“NO!” the Orishas yell as they approach the looming Shadows.

But even as the Orishas begin their attack, the Shadows writhe and take form! And then, the shadow-forms spit out the Black Gods, the Orisha-Nla…and the battle is begun in earnest. Each Orisha matched with its opposite number. Each Orisha trying to subdue itself. While the Shadow seeks to swallow them all. They cannot win. How can you defeat what you cannot touch? How can you defeat a Shadow?

With light. With blazing, incandescent light to drive back even the deepest of Shadows. “Back! Back, I say!” yells Firestorm. He radiates brightly and flies into the melee. “The darkness shall not triumph over the day!

With a champion whose courage radiates and burns as brightly as his fire. This is not his Land, these are not his people, but he has taken their cause as his own, and, live or die, he will fight with them. For a moment, he is triumphant. Then the Shadows spit out a champion of their own…

“Blast! My Shadowform!” Firestorm thinks as he soars around his opposite. “And I don’t know if it’s still leeching power from me!”

…And the battle is rejoined. “This is hopeless!” Firestorm thinks anxiously. “Unless something happens, we’re going to lose and be swallowed whole! And two worlds will follow!”

And, back in the Lower Lands, He-Who-Is-The-Storm strides on, oblivious to the poverty and squalor about him. “Here,” Shango says as he walks into the residential areas of the city. “The heart of Obatala is…nearby. I will let it draw me to where it is.”

Just ahead is the Clinic of Dr. Efram Ngai. “Here,” Shango says as he approaches the door. He steps in to the shock of a family inside. “Obatala! My brother!” Shango calls as he enters. “Where are you? Come forth! Shango, your brother, calls to you! Ifè, our home, is in peril and needs you! Obatala, come forth!”

“Look at those eyes!” a woman whispers as she gazes at Shango. “He’s on drugs!” Quickly, she and her family flee from the clinic.

“What is this?” asks Dr. Ngai as he walks towards Shango. “Who makes such a commotion in my clinic?”

“Obatala?!” Shango asks.

“Who? I am Doctor Efraim Ngai and this is my clinic,” Dr. Ngai replies. “And those were my patients you were scaring and I would take it most kindly if you would stop doing that.”

“Is this the vessel that the heart of Obatala has taken in this life?” Shango asks. “This frail little vessel?!”

“Frail? Because I am not built like the water buffalo does not make me frail,” Dr. Ngai answers. He breathes a long sigh. “Perhaps it would be better if we talked in my office before you scare all my patients to death.”

After Shango has explained… “…and so you see, my brother, how you must return with me to Ifè!” he tells Dr. Ngai.

“Hmmm,” Dr. Ngai ponders. “Let us leave aside, for the moment, the question of whether you are what you say you are, or if things are as you say they are. The real question for me, then, is - - if it is true, why should I go with you?”

“Why? How can you ask this?” Shango replies. “You are our brother! We need you!”

“Look out my window, Shango!” Dr. Ngai replies with agitation. “Here there also are ones needing me! If you are what you say you are, these people have also needed you and your fellow Orishas! And what help have they received?! Even now, have you bothered to look around, to even deign to notice these mortals?! Their lives are brief and unimportant. They are, after all, only mortals. We are gods.”

Shango gazes out the window at the poor and hungered people gathered outside the clinic window. “And so you are better than they?!” Dr. Ngai continues. “I think not! They have not broken faith, not the mortals, for they did not abandon their gods! Their gods abandoned them! And now you dare to come, demanding service?! Better, perhaps, the Black Gods should die! Let them learn mortality! Perhaps it will teach them humility!”

Shango grows angry, raising his hammer. “Beware, mortal!” he says. “You tempt the wrath of Shango! And you have not seen its like! Cross me and all mortals will pay for your folly!”

“Pooh,” Dr. Ngai says, standing unafraid. “The times have changed since you last walked the Earth, Shango. Others of equal power now walk the Earth. More to the point, threaten me again and I will not go with you. And, I think, for Obatala to live again, I must be willing to let him out of my heart. Is this not so?”

Shango lowers his hammer, staring down at Dr. Ngai. “Yes,” he says softly. “Does this mean you will not return with me to Ifè?”

“No,” Dr. Ngai replies. “I will go. To refuse would mean the death of Ifè and maybe more trouble in the already-troubled mortal lands. To be willing to do that, I would have to have the arrogance of the gods - - and I am only a mortal.”

“You shame me, mortal - - and teach me, as well, I freely admit,” Shango says. “I have much to think on. But the need now is great and the battle is being decided. Will you take my hand and go with me?”

Shango reaches out his hand and light dances around his palm. Dr. Ngai reaches his hand to Shango’s. “Yes,” Dr. Ngai says with determination. KRAKKKLE! Lightning flows around the two as their hands meet.

And, in Ifè… “Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!” Firestorm’s Shadow-being says as he and Firestorm jostle. “Why…do you…persist? You must know…you have no chance..!”

“No chance? Always there is chance!” Eshu calls out as he descends. “For in Ifè, chance has a name and its name is Eshu! I have had enough o’ bein’ a Shadowman. Now I do battle wit’ my brothers again. Strike now. Chances are - - now they will be felt!”

“Until, brother, your mood changes,” Ochun answers.

“Until my mood changes,” Eshu echoes.

“This Eshu is crazy!” Firestorm thinks.

And the battle is renewed until…KRAKKLE! BABOOM! Lightning blasts in among the Orishas and the Orisha-Nla and Shango appears. “Brothers! Sisters! Rejoice!” he cries out. “Shango returns among you! And I do not come alone! Look at who returns with me!”

The lightning coalesces. And the Living Land uncovers the mortal frame of Efraim Ngai. It is no longer the frail human who set foot in Ifè. Obatala, Lord of the White Cloth, lives again! All around Obatala, the battle pauses as the Lord of the White Cloth looks about, taking everything in at a glance. And then he acts.

“Come,” Obatala says, walking towards the gathered Shadows. “Let us embrace.”

“Obatala!” Firestorm yells, running after Obatala. “NO!”

“Quickly! Into the Shadow!” Shango directs. “The time he has spent with the mortals has obviously driven Obatala mad! We must rescue him!”

Darkness surrounds Obatala and drowns out the light. “Be calm, brothers and sisters. Fear nothing,” Obatala’s voice says from within the Shadow. “There is no need of rescue. There is no need for war. What is needful is understanding.”

Slowly, light begins to grow from the darkness. Obatala stands with his arm around his Shadow counterpart as they emerge back into the light. “The Shadows, the Orisha-Nla - - these things are not aberrations of the Land. How did you think the Land could do that to itself? No, they are legitimate part of Ifè, for darkness is as necessary as brightness. The Shadows have been seeking - - clumsily, it is true - - their own names. And their own place. And they stumbled, for they could not find their own heart.”

Obatala and his Shadow walk to the gathered Orishas. “Even if you did not have me, you still had the memory of me to bind you to one another, and to the Land,” Obatala explains. “But the poor Shadows have not even had that. So I have given them that. Now the Shadows know they are part of the Land, and it is part of them, and they feel love for it. What is necessary now is that you embrace them and they embrace you…and you accept one another as part of the Land! Only then shall we have peace. What say the Orishas and the Orisha-Nla? Shall we be one Land?”

Slowly, the Orishas and the Orisha-Nla join. “Yes,” Ogun says as he embraces his counterpart.

“We are not truly a part of this, you and I, although you were born here,” Firestorm says. He reaches out to his Shadow opposite. “Still, if you would, I would be friends…brothers…”

“No,” the Shadow being replies. “I am your demon made real. I am your anger given form and the darkness and despair that gnaws even within you and I will not be mollified. To be reconciled, I must give up my anger…and without my anger, I am nothing! I claim my own name! For now and forever, I am Shadowstorm! And whether here or elsewhere, I will make my own life and feed my anger, if I have to consume the world to do it! Ha-ha! Ha-ha! Ha-ha!”

Shadowstorm laughs angrily as he soars up and away from the gathered Orisha and Orisha-Nla. “Now what?” Firestorm asks with dismay.

“Who can say?” Obatala answers. “As you remarked, you are not truly of this Land, so I cannot see…what will become of you and your Darkling brother. But come. I will take you back to your own world - - for I have many ties there still and Dr. Ngai, my other self, has patients who await him.”

“Brothers, may I come with you?” Shango asks. “I would continue what I began to learn.”

“If it’s okay by Obatala, it’s okay by me,” Firestorm replies.

“Then take my hand,” Shango says. He extends his hand and Firestorm grasps it. “A world awaits.”

And in the Lower Lands, the thunder rumbles anew.