Interview with X-Men Fan Film Star, Maya Glick

Well, given that my first intro to Storm was such a powerful one, it was just a let down that the character first of all wasn’t very important in the movie.  I understand that a film can only have so many leads, but she was just kind of background fluff.  And when she did have screentime she was often confused or scared…  At no point did I get a sense of “flying warrior badass who can strike you down with lightning if you piss her off”. She was just kind of a sweet lady in a bad wig who was easily startled.  It would be like if you grew up idolizing Superman, and when a movie was finally made with him in it, he just had a bit part where he ran away frightened to get help from the REAL heroes when shit got real.
It wasn’t so much about Halle Berry,  because we’ll never know how she would have played a character that was written and directed differently.

From your description on your Facebook page, you seem just as upset as I am about Storm’s treatment not only in the movies, but in the comics as well. What is most upsetting about her treatment to you, and do you think the current writers for the X-Men titles are succeeding in rectifying this by having her lead the new X-Men comic?

I don’t have a problem at all with the way Storm is treated in the comic books.  She has had so many different incarnations that it’s easy to just kind of pick your favorite era and stick with that one, which is what I did.  I like her when she was a bad-ass with a knife, even though she didn’t have her powers for much of that time.  In fact especially because of that.  I think it’s great that they have written her as leader again.  It makes sense.   I mean, she controls the f–ing sky… so yeah, do what she says.

Much like Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Ororo Munroe has gone through a number of incarnations during her life: thief, goddess, queen, hero, witch, teacher, vampire (oh yeah, I went there), and fierce, mohawk-sporting punk. What is your favorite aspect of this complex, multi-faceted woman?

Again, I like the mohawk phase best.  For me it’s not just that mohawks are cool and punk rock, although that is also true… it’s that she looks like such a warrior that way.  I have a mohawk right now for the third time in my life.  Each time I have shaved the sides of my head it has been during a major transformation moment or time of crisis when I’ve needed to kind of boost my fighter spirit and feel empowered.  So when I see her like that I relate.  I think “Yeah if I had to fight aliens in another dimension I’d probably need a mohawk, too!
And to me she also looks more black that way as well.  Storm is an African “goddess”, yes, but she is drawn by white men so naturally she’s still drawn to white male standards of beauty.   She has the same long flowy hair that the other ladies have, pointy nose,  and even blue eyes.  But the mohawk alters that for me.  On her it reads like a regal warrior headdress.
A black punk rock chick in leather who is leading a team of mutants with superpowers even at a time when her only powers are her intelligence and the ability to kick actual ass with her fists and a knife.  Yes, please!

Absolutely.  One of the reasons that I needed to create this little piece of art is because I’ve been needing to find an uplifting way to express my own journey through a dark time of powerlessness.  In the “Lifedeath” books, the first page is an image of a powerless Ororo crumpled up in bed, depressed and powerless and naked.  the idea of a superhero in that state is something that fascinated me, and something I related to personally.   A major tragedy at the end of 2011 left me shattered, and so the journey of a woman trying to learn how to literally fly again after losing her powers and her self… there are so many easy parallels there for me personally.  That’s why people love comics.  That’s why I love Storm.

I go to Elite Martial Arts here in Austin.  It is such an awesome experience and I can’t say enough that that is where my life was saved and refueled after the big tragedy I mentioned before.  It’s a mixed martial arts class.  Most people hear that and they think of MMA as in UFC cage fighting.  We do learn MMA style fighting as part of our curriculum, but it is more an actual MIX of martial arts.  My sensei has black belts in several different disciplines and he teaches from all of them which a lot of dojos would never do.  He wants us to have the most practical knowledge from as many styles as we can so we learn elements of taekwondo,  karate, hapkido, juijitsu, and more.   The traditional forms are all different from style to style, but basically once you are actually fighting another person it all becomes kickboxing and wrestling.  I love it with my whole heart.

So yes, since I know MMA, my Storm does too… and you’ll get to see that in action.

Will your film be a completely original story, or will you draw from previous Marvel stories?

It’s an original.  There will obviously be references, but it’s all original.

Do you think that there are some things the first X-Men movies got right? 

Oh I love the very first X-Men movie.  I love how it opened with Magneto watching his parents being dragged off to a concentration camp.  It set the tone in so many perfect ways.  It gave depth to the concept as a whole and it made the “Bad Guy” not such a bad guy.  I love how so many of the characters had that kind of depth.  You saw them struggling with what it was like to be a freak in a world that’s against them.  But we didn’t get any of that with Storm.  A big part of Storm’s character in the books is that she stays as calm as she can not because she’s naturally mild-mannered but  because she HAS to.  What must that be like?  To not be able to express anger or rage when you need to for fear of causing the very sky to erupt. To be calm, but somehow still a quiet threat, like a dormant volcano… all while being haunted by the memory of watching your parents die horribly in front of you. We didn’t get to see any of that depth or intensity from that character.  We just got “pretty schoolteacher who worries a lot”.

My film isn’t necessarily about trying to improve anything. It is simply a story I needed to tell, via a character I needed to see represented in a new way.

Some companies have come down pretty hard on fan films recently, especially with a Wonder Woman fan film I personally had been excited about. Are you worried that Marvel might bring the hammer down on Rain (no Thor pun intended)?

I am trying not to give too much energy to all of that, but I’m aware of the concern (people keep reminding me).  There are some key differences between what I’m doing and another film that Marvel recently shut down.  For one thing,  Disney/Marvel are supposedly working on a film based on the same character as the one they put a stop to.  I doubt there is a studio film being done about Storm right now.  Also, the other film they went after had a huge budget, and their main concern was that people might think it was an “official” Marvel release.  And most importantly, the other film used a pre-existing storyline.  I wrote my own.  In fact at no point in my story will you hear anyone directly even say her name.  Keep in mind that there have been other Marvel fanfilms,  they don’t really worry about them until they start  looking like they were made on the Warner Brother’s lot in Hollywood, using plots that other people have written.  And my film is not for any kind of profit at all.  It’s fan art.  Like a really involved painting that I want to share with other fans.  And my main response to all of that when people bring it up has been the words of Han Solo: “Never tell me the odds!”