American Gods Star Yetide Badaki Still Wants to Play Marvel's Storm

By Jenna Anderson

Out of all of the possibilities within the future of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, fans are especially excited to see how the X-Men fully enter the fold. The iconic corner of Marvel Comics lore has started to be weaved into MCU canon, but we still have no idea who will portray some of the team's iconic characters. American Gods star Yetide Badaki has previously thrown her hat into the ring to portray Ororo Munroe / Storm — and following the most recent social media chatter surrounding the X-Men, she has teased the possibility once again. In a tweet, which you can check out below, Badaki shared a picture of herself captioned "the face when you hear X-Men trending." 

Badaki, who portrayed Bilquis on American Gods and has also had roles on Rise and This Is Us, previously spoke to ComicBook.com about her aspirations to portray Storm, and how she feels that the character has been underrepresented in previous film portrayals.

"I love Storm because to me she has always been a representation of the power of Black Women. She is Omega level, a Queen, a Goddess," Badaki told ComicBook.com. "As a child who had recently moved from Nigeria to the US during a time of unrest I remember being blown away by the powerful Storm I saw on Saturday Morning cartoons. This magnificent dark Black Woman looked like me and made me feel like there was nothing I couldn't do."

"We've had deeply talented Oscar winners portray her and still it always felt like the Weather Witch was never given enough material or screen time. With all that Black Women do to push the needle forward we should be celebrated, especially now," Badaki added. "The way Storm has been treated on the big screen sadly feels like a parallel to how Black Women are too often treated in life, underestimated and underrepresented. As the the world and corporations echo the words Black Lives Matter, it is more important than ever for the MCU to show Storm in all her glory and even more so to celebrate dark skinned women who have constantly been ignored and given less opportunity due to colorism. To those who know, Storm has always been important and her importance to the MCU at this point in time is even more magnified as we all rightfully demand more powerful Black stories in every medium. We need to uplift Black Women, we need to amplify Black Women, we need to protect Black Women and I can't help but think that we have never needed Storm as much as we do right now. It is high time that Storm finally received the solo film treatment that she has so rightfully deserved."

Would you want to see Yetide Badaki portray the MCU's Storm? Share your thoughts with us in the comments below!

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