Storm (Marvel Comics)
- This article is about the X-Men character. For the British/Dutch comic book character of the same name, see Storm (Don Lawrence).
| Storm | |
|---|---|
| File:TurnerStorm.jpg Detail from the variant cover of Black Panther #18. Art by Michael Turner. | |
| Publication information | |
| Publisher | Marvel Comics |
| First appearance | Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975) |
| Created by | Len Wein Dave Cockrum |
| In-story information | |
| Alter ego | Ororo Munroe |
| Team affiliations | Black Panther, X-Men, Morlocks, Hellfire Club, X-Treme Sanctions Executive |
| Abilities | Able to control and create all forms of precipitation, lightning and even the wind which allows her to fly. Invulnerable to the effects of the weather and extreme heat and cold. |
Storm (Ororo Munroe) is a Marvel Comics superhero, a prominent member of the X-Men. Created by writer Len Wein and artist Dave Cockrum, she first appeared in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975). She may be the first black female superhero and remains the most popular.
Storm has the mutant power to control the weather, including lightning, rain, fog, snow and wind. She uses her control over wind to give herself powers of flight.
Storm was a street orphan in Cairo, Egypt, before her powers manifested. Afterwards, she traveled to Kenya, where she was worshipped as a goddess, but joined the X-Men to fight for people who barely considered her human. She was consistently a member of some X-Men battalion from 1975 until 2005, longer than any other character. She often served as the team’s leader.
She has been featured in almost every X-Men animated series and video game and has a theme ride named after her at the Universal Orlando Resort. Actress Halle Berry plays her in the X-Men films.
Fictional character biography
Early life
Ororo's mother, N'Dare, was the princess of a tribe in Kenya and the descendant of a long line of Africans with white hair, blue eyes and a natural gift for sorcery, which Storm's Egyptian ancestor, Ashake was expert in. N'Dare fell in love with and married African American photojournalist David Munroe.
Ororo was born in Manhattan, New York City. When Ororo was six months old, she and her parents moved to Cairo, Egypt.
Five years later, a bomb (or a military plane crashing during a bombing attack) destroyed their home and killed Ororo's parents; although the original version of this story stated that the bomb was dropped by a jet of the Israeli Air Force during the Suez Crisis of 1956, later stories have revised the bombing first to an event of the Six-Day War of 1967 and then to an unnamed military conflict. Ororo was trapped in the collapsed building alongside her dead mother, a traumatic experience that would ultimately leave her with a severe case of claustrophobia.
The orphan Ororo grew up on the streets and became a proficient thief under the tutelage of master thief Achmed el-Gibar. To this day she is an excellent pickpocket and lockpick. One of her most notable victims was Charles Francis Xavier, the later Professor X. He used his mental powers to prevent her escape. He also recognized the child to have a unique mind that would require further examination. However, Xavier was attacked mentally by Amahl Farouk, the Shadow King. The two men were preoccupied enough with their battle to allow the girl to escape. Both however would recall her later.
Shortly after her twelfth birthday, Ororo felt something drawing her to the south of Africa. She left Cairo by hoof and started traveling. She soon attempted hitchhiking. However, the first man who offered her a ride attempted to rape her. Using her knife to protect herself, she killed the man in self-defense. She was horrified by her act and swore to never take another human life. She would come to regret this decision later in life.
Ororo continued her solitary trek for a year. She nearly died from dehydration while crossing the Sahara. Her journey brought her about 2000 miles south of Cairo. During the journey, new powers emerged within her. Ororo proved to be a mutant with the power to control the weather.
Those powers would prove useful in her first heroic battle. Ororo witnessed Andreas de Ruyter and men of the South African Army in the process of kidnapping a young boy, slightly older than she. Ororo saved the boy and learned his identity. He was Prince T'Challa of Wakanda. The South Africans would have used their hostage to blackmail his father T'Chaka, the Black Panther. The two youths continued their journey together and fell in love. However, they soon had to part ways. Storm wanted to continue her journey of self-discovery. T'Challa felt bound by duty to return to Wakanda and train to succeed his father.
Storm's journey next brought her to the Kenyan portion of Serengeti, the land of her ancestors. There, Ororo called out to the Goddess of her ancestors and was rewarded with a vision of her adult self. Though Storm continues to swear by the Goddess or "Bright Lady" as she sometimes calls her, no name has ever been given to this deity. Current speculation is that this Goddess is Gaea who has made multiple appearances in the Marvel Universe.
Ororo came to use her powers to help the native tribes and their efforts in agriculture. She came to be worshipped by them as their "goddess of life." However her powers came with a price. Because her subconscious mind affected the weather around her, Ororo had to detach herself from passionate emotions to avoid causing needless harm. She spent years exploring her powers with the help of Ainet, a tribal elder who became her surrogate mother.
X-Men
Ororo reached her maturity while still in the role of a tribal goddess. There, she was found by her old victim Charles Francis Xavier, who invited her to join his second team of X-Men. Their first mission involved rescuing the original X-Men from the mutant ecosystem inhabiting the Pacific island of Krakoa. Storm was able to combine her powers with those of her teammates and send the entire island to outer space.
Although Storm initially had trouble adjusting to Western culture, particularly the sort represented by her sometimes-vicious teammate Wolverine, she found a home and family among the X-Men such as Jean Grey and Piotr Rasputin who became not only her best friends, but also a surrogate sister and brother. Early battles, however, revealed a significant weakness in her intense claustrophobia, which could be triggered in times of crisis, rendering her panicky and unfocused. She recognized this as a problem and consciously worked on ameliorating her condition. In time, she revealed herself to be confident and pragmatic in battle. She replaced Cyclops, X-Men's longtime leader, when he left the group. When the young Shadowcat joined the X-Men around this time, Storm formed a very close, almost maternal bond with her.
The X-Men spent an extended time in space battling the Brood, an alien race, in which Storm and the others unknowingly became host to future Broods. This left Ororo with a dilemma, to kill the growing Brood within her and break a vow she made when young or to allow it to transform her into another Brood. In the end she escaped out into space deciding to kill herself. This effectively killed the Brood within her but left her vulnerable in space. Fortunately she was rescued by whale-like creatures called the Acanti who could communicate telepathically.
Spending so much time away from planet Earth, combined with the trauma of having a Brood embryo inside her, severed the deep psychic connection Storm had with her home planet, prompting a period of much soul searching. Storm went through some profound personal changes because of this inner conflict, which resulted in her becoming more aggressive and violent. This led to her cutting her hair in a mohawk and wearing leather clothing - changes that alienated her from Shadowcat for a time. Storm was influenced in this by a lover of Wolverine's, Yukio, who became one of her dearest friends; some fans believe the two were lovers, though given Marvel's policies of the time, this possibility was never more than implied. She also fought Callisto for leadership of the Morlocks and won by stabbing Callisto in the heart. Callisto only managed to survive due to the healing powers of another Morlock. The two remained enemies for awhile, but eventually managed to make up and are now friends. Storm now trusts Callisto enough that she asked Callisto to look after Xavier while he was in Genosha.
However her victory over Callisto would lead Storm to fight another Morlock named Marrow years later. Threatening to kill innocent people with a bombtrigger attached to her own heart, Marrow forced Storm to decide to either kill her or let the innocent people die. She did that in the belief that Storm as an X-man was unable to kill. However, during the fight, Storm ripped Marrow's heart out saving the civilians.
Perennial Leadership
Following Operation: Zero Tolerance, Ororo again took sole leadership of a unified—though significantly diminished—group of X-Men while Cyclops and Phoenix semi-retired to tend to Cyclop's recent injuries. It was during this period that the Shadow King returned, and targeted Storm and Psylocke specifically, tricking them into returning to Storm's old village in Kenya, where the events of the Psi-War took place.
After averting the Rise of Apocalypse and spending a couple of months on a leaderless faction of X-Men including Phoenix, Cable, Beast, and Gambit, Storm went on to lead a group of X-Men outside of the mansion in the search for Destiny's diaries, the Books of Truth, inspired at least in part by the events of The Twelve storyline. This team came to be known as the X-Treme X-Men. While searching for the diaries, Storm enjoyed a brief flirtation with a younger man, Slipstream and was kidnapped by the intergalactic warlord Khan who wanted to make her his queen, as several villains over the years were wont to do. Despite being badly injured, struck by Viper prior to being captured and having to fight off Khan's harem, she managed to defeat Khan with the aid of the X-Treme X-Men who came to rescue her. They brought her back to Earth where she spent time recovering with the aid of Wolverine.
Storm continued to lead the group even after Destiny's diaries were rendered inert because she did not approve of the way Xavier was running the mansion. The group returned to help rebuild the Xavier Institute after the mansion was destroyed by a man who was believed at the time to be Magneto, but was later revealed/retconned to be Xorn. From the school, Storm headed the X-Treme Sanctions Executive, a special police task force of mutants policing mutants given worldwide authority. Bishop, at first, was hesitant to join this timeline's XSE, because it worried him that his future as a member of the Xavier's Security Enforcers could still come true.
Due to the Scarlet Witch's magicks, 98% of the mutants lost their powers, but Storm did not lose hers. This is apparently going to make her a more prominent member of the Marvel Universe according to recent interviews.
Relationships
Storm had an on-again, off-again romance with the mutant Forge. She first broke up with him when she discovered that he had created the neutralizer gun used to erase her powers, though she later forgave him. In a battle with the Adversary in Dallas, Storm appeared with her powers--and as a result, her psychic bond to the Earth--fully restored and was able to help her teammates defeat the Adversary.
Believed dead by the world, thanks to the conclusion of The Fall of the Mutants, she and her teammates were resurrected by Roma and transported to Australia, where they encountered and defeated the Reavers, a merciless group of cyborgs. Believed dead along with the X-Men was Madelyne Pryor, Cyclops's first wife. Madelyne held a secret grudge against Cyclops for abandoning her and their infant son, Nathan Christopher for Jean Grey. While she found comfort with Cyclops' brother, Havok, her negative feelings toward her estranged husband and the trauma of losing her son made her vulnerable to persuasion and eventually corruption by N'astirh one of the demons from the dimension of Limbo, leading to the Inferno crossover. After saving the world from being sucked into the hell-like dimension, Storm led the X-Men back to their base in Australia. Following a battle with Nanny and the Orphan Maker, Storm was presumed dead. In truth, though, Nanny had captured Storm and faked her death with the use of a SHIELD life model decoy, which resembled her and was left in the wreckage of Nanny's ship to be found by her teammates. The true Storm, now de-aged by Nanny (approximately at the age of 11-12) was a captive in Nanny's hands. However, she managed to escape and started wandering in Cairo, Illinois, with no memories of the past. Her powers were also diminished, due to her age. The Shadow King decided to use this opportunity to hunt her down, by taking over the body of FBI agent Jacob Reisz and framing Ororo for murder. On the run, Storm returned to thievery in order to survive. The Shadow King's agents ambushed her in one of her capers; luckily, though, she was saved by the intervention of fellow mutant and thief Gambit. The duo formed a partnership, as thieves. Eventually, they battled Nanny and defeated her and during battle, Storm's memories were restored. She and Gambit then travelled to the X-Mansion, where they were reunited with Banshee and Forge. After several tests were conducted, it was clearly shown that Ororo was stuck in her pre-teen form and that the de-aging process was irreversible.
During the X-Tinction Agenda, Storm was captured by Genoshan magistrates and turned into a mutate. After she was blasted in a battle, she regained her personality and was also restored into full adulthood.
Following his battle with the Shadow King on Muir Island, the recently-returned Professor Xavier found himself with the assembled members of both the X-Men and X-Factor. The Professor decided to divide the X-Men into two separate strike forces: the Gold Team, led by Storm and consisting of Jean Grey, Iceman, Colossus, and Archangel, and the Blue Team, led by Cyclops, and featuring Beast, Gambit, Rogue, Psylocke and Wolverine. Moira MacTaggert and Forge lived in residence as well.
As their relationship continued to develop, Forge proposed marriage to Storm. Storm was hesitant, however, because accepting Forge's proposal would mean giving up her place with the X-Men in order to lead a more "normal" life. Forge sensed Storm's hesistation, and asked her best friend, Jean Grey, her opinion on Storm's feelings. But due to miscommunication between Jean and Forge, Forge rescinded his offer, leaving a distraught and teary-eyed Storm whispering that she was going to say yes.
Marriage
Her past relationship with then-Prince T'Challa (the Black Panther) long before she had met Forge later led to a rekindling of their feelings towards each other, and marriage.
When the X-Men journeyed to Niganda to investigate reports of mutant animals, they ran into Black Panther. At the end of the mission, Storm stayed in Niganda to help the mutants affected there. During this time she came into conflict with an African Colonel named Shetani, who was hunting down and killing de-powered mutants in search of Storm. When she finally confronted him, he revealed to her that he was her uncle. Afterward, Shetani told Storm of a hidden village in Northwest Kenya where she met her grandmother for the first time. This finally prompted her to accept the Black Panther's marriage proposal.
The marriage between Storm and the Black Panther is one of the major events of the Civil War tie-in books with characters Iron Man and Captain America showing up for the wedding but leaving before the ceremony because neither of them could stand the sight of each other. Earlier, Charles Xavier makes an apperance, telling Storm that as the queen of Wakanda, she was now the most important mutant in the world, and the living symbol of human/mutant relations. A role, he was quoted as saying, she was born to play. As a gift, Doctor Doom, via a holographic message, invites the newlyweds to his country.
Powers and abilities
Storm is a mutant with the psionic ability to control the weather. When controlling weather elements, her eyes illuminate a white color and aura. She can manifest any degree of wind, temperature, lightning, storm, ice and all manner of precipitation, tornadoes and hurricanes. She has the ability to control the weather on any planet she is on and is able to tune herself to the entire planet. When the elements raged uncontrollably, she was able to calm the planet's elements and heal the planet's ozone layer.( issue see 'Storm front' ). Storm has been known to create cosmic turbulence when a Sentinel was about to affect the Earth with a gamma gun to draw a solar flare from the sun to the Earth[1]. Storm is immune to the effects of all weather. Her body changes to compensate for the extremes she engineers; i.e. her body temperature would rise as she caused her surroundings to become cold. She has the ability to project, focus and aim force blasts of extreme electrical bolts from her hands or the sky using her elemental powers. Storm can alter her visual perceptions so as to see the universe as multi-colored energy patterns. She can change the body temperature of anyone by manipulating that temperature and lowering or raising it. The elemental manipulation of the human body also gives her the stunning ability to drain the electrical energy from mutants brainwaves that will literally cause them to lose power. At times, she has used her ability to manipulate wind in a manner that resembles telekinesis, lifting massive objects like buildings and hurling them against opponents, and stop projectiles like bullets. By manipulating the wind Storm can fly at incredible heights and speeds. Not only can she stop most physical attacks with her powers, but she can also generate electric fields, magnetic fields, high-density pressure fields, strong pressure domes that can cut through a mountain and even electromagnetic fields. Storm once even generated an electrolysis field underwater to surround herself and her teammates with a globe of oxygen in their proximity. While once in outer space, to destroy a brood embryo that was inside of her, Storm took her powers to a unimaginable level by gathering the entire energy of a galactic core which consisted of millions of living worlds and stars [2][3]. She can also control ocean currents [4].
Due to her background, Storm is a skilled thief and a gifted hand-to-hand fighter. She is fluent in both Arabic and Swahili. Storm always carries with her a set of lock-picks and her ancestral ruby, which is capable of inter-dimensional transportation with the help of Ororo's lightning.
Other versions
- In the alternate past depicted in What If (vol. 2) #79, Storm became empowered by the Phoenix force, calling herself Stormphoenix. She was a ruthless and blood thristy tyrant of Earth, killing off those who opposed her by freezing them in the atmosphere.
- In the alternate future depicted in What If (vol. 2) #114, Ororo married and had a daughter with fellow X-Man Wolverine and named her Kendall Logan. This daughter became the hero known as Torrent, having some of her mother's control over weather as well as her father's feral abilities. A relationship between Wolverine and Storm was also shown in the 1990s animated series episode "One Man's Worth".
- On an alternate earth (Millennium Visions) Storm and Gambit have a daughter, Medea. Her powers are a mix of Storm's lightning bolts and Gambit's ability to kenetically charge objects such as projectiles.
- In Uncanny X-Men #160 and in the Magik (Illyana and Storm) limited series an alternate Storm is introduced which lived the remaining years of her life in the demonic realm of Limbo. This Storm turned to her heritage of sorcery in old age as her power over the elements waned. She tutored Illyana Rasputin in the use of good magics and battled the demon Belasco over control of Limbo. She was killed by a demonically altered version of Kitty Pryde named Cat.
Ultimate Storm
In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Ororo Munroe was raised in Morocco learning English from American films. Ororo's family was murdered under unknown circumstances, and she fled to America as an illegal immigrant. She stole cars in Harlem before relocating to Texas. Although Storm's mutant powers manifested during her youth, she was too frightened to experiment with them. In Texas, Ororo was mentored and befriended by slightly older car thief Yuriko "Yuri" Oyama. However, Yuri soon saw Ororo as a rival, and their friendship ended in a motorcycle chase which Ororo halted with a sudden rainstorm; Yuri lost control and had a seemingly fatal collision with a truck. Guilt-ridden, Ororo continued thieving in Texas and at one point even was given the offer of joining Magneto's Brotherhood of Mutants.
Pursued by police after stealing a car, Ororo panicked and lashed out with her powers, almost killing several bystanders before she was caught. Hours later the X-Men arranged her release and recruited her. Still nervous about her abilities, Ororo, now called Storm, learned several new applications of her powers, including the ability to fly, and became attracted to fellow student Hank McCoy a.k.a. the Beast, whose lifetime of mistreatment made him doubt anyone could love him.
After Weapon X had tortured and mutated Beast into a furry, animal-like form he began to feel even more unworthy of Storm and ended their relationship. Later on, after Beast had been recruited by Emma Frost's "New Mutants", a conference they were attending was disrupted by a sentinal attack, during which Beast was killed. Grief-stricken and enraged, Storm lashed out uncontrollably before Professor X calmed her telepathically. In the tragedy's aftermath, Storm drastically altered her hairstyle and clothing to distance herself from her time with Beast. She also became more predisposed to act as the team's conscience.
Storm gradually bonded with Wolverine, and they shared a kiss while searching for an abducted Rogue. After Wolverine left the X-Men, Storm followed him to Canada where both were attacked by Yuri, now transformed into Deathstrike. Storm ended the fight with a lightning bolt and returned to the X-Men with Wolverine afterwards, with their feelings still unresolved.
Appearances in other media
Film
- She is played by Academy Award-winner Halle Berry in the movies X-Men (2000), X2 (2003) and X-Men: The Last Stand (2006). Despite a high-profile actress like Berry in the role, Storm received little screen time in the first movie and took a backseat to characters such as Wolverine and Jean Grey. In the second film, X2, Storm had more screen time but no real story. Berry rallied for more character development and, as a result, her role was enhanced in X-Men 3. In the third movie, Storm takes over as the director of the Xavier Institute, and as the leader of the X-Men after the death of Xavier.
Television
- Storm first made guest appearances on the Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends in the episodes titled "A Firestar Is Born", "The Education of a Superhero" and "The X-Men Adventure". She was voiced by Kathy Garver in "The X-Men Adventure" and Annie Lockhart in "A Firestar Is Born".
- Storm then appeared in a TV pilot that later was released on video in Pryde of the X-Men. Andi Chapman provided her voice here.
- Storm, originally voiced by Iona Morris in Season 1 and then Alison Sealy-Smith for all subsequent seasons, was featured in the X-Men animated series of the mid-1990s. Storm also guest starred in the Spider-Man: The Animated Series in the 1990s in first the fourth and fifth episodes of Season 2, along with all the rest of the X-Men. Then, at the nearing of the show's finale, Storm appeared finally at all of the the Secret Wars arc episodes. In the Spider-Man series, Storm was once again voiced by Iona Morris because it was recorded in Los Angeles, where Iona Morris is now based.
- In the animated series, X-Men: Evolution, Storm was portrayed as a teacher at Professor X's Xavier Institute and was voiced by Kristen Williamson. Storm is an American who was orphaned in Cairo after her parents were killed during an earthquake. Abandoned by fate, she wandered around the Middle East, surviving as a child-thief until her powers manifested themselves, until the day that Professor X discovered her serving as a goddess for an African tribe who believed her to be an Elemental Spirit. Professor X returned her to the States, where she learned to fully manifest her powers and help train other mutants like herself. Storm's powers tie her to all things natural; she has empathy/affinity for the Earth and all things natural. Her room is filled with plants, which she waters by using her powers to make it rain indoors. Because allowing her powers to run free could cause untold damage, Storm must keep her emotions in check. She is therefore outwardly serene. If she were to lose control of her emotions, all manner of weather-related catastrophes could happen. One of the few things that can make Storm lose her cool is her claustrophobia. The earthquake that left her an orphan also left her buried under rubble for days when she was 4 years old. She was left with numbing claustrophobia. She is the aunt of the X-Man, Evan Daniels aka Spyke and a member of the staff at the Xavier Institute. This has confused many fans as to how she could be an orphan and still have a brother or sister in order to have a nephew when it was initially implied that she was the only survivor of the collapsed building.
Video games
- Storm has notably appeared in most of the X-Men video games that have been released on various consoles. The most noticeable ones are Marvel vs. Capcom series and the X-Men Mutant Academy games for the Sony PlayStation. She is particularly popular in Marvel vs. Capcom 2 and is considered the best character in the game.
- Most recently, she appeared in X-Men Legends and its sequel X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse for various game systems. She was voiced by Cheryl Carter in X-Men Legends and by Dawnn Lewis in X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse.
- Ororo also appeared in the EA video game Marvel Nemesis: Rise of the Imperfects. In this game, she is implanted with an Imperfect chip and becomes evil, but Wolverine, after defeating her with difficulty, removes the chip from her body allowing her to become a playable character.
- She appeared in the video game based on the film, X-Men: The Official Game, as a very powerful character. She is "playable" only in two missions. Her voice is supplied by Debra Wilson.
- Storm was recently confirmed as one of the more powerful playable characters who will appear in the upcoming Marvel: Ultimate Alliance. In this video game she will have all her comic powers ranging from tornado, lightning and blizzard summoning to flight, calling down multiple lightning bolts and even harnessing her leadership skills. Costumes confirmed for her in this game, thus far are her iconic Mohawk costume and a capless version of her most recent Uncanny X-Men outfit along with her Ultimate costume, featured in the X-Men Legends games, and a capeless version of her most popular costumes featured in the early 90's and predominately known from X-Men: The Animated Series.
Other
- Storm has, on occasion, appeared in American television commercials for Universal Studios theme park and Visa Checkcards.
- Along with Doctor Doom, the Hulk, the Kingpin and Spider-Man, Storm also has a ride in Marvel Super Hero Island of Universal Studios. The ride (based on a common teacup ride) "Storm Force Acceleration", also includes strobe lights which can be seen if ridden after dark. She is the first superheroine and X-Man to have a ride named after her on Marvel Super Hero Island.
Comparison to Uhura
Storm debuted at a time when memories of Star Trek's Lt. Uhura, with a similar name and Kenyan origins, were still fresh.
See also
References
- MDP: Storm - Marvel Database Project
- Spotlight on Storm from UncannyXMen.net
- Sounds Like a Storm's Comin
- Black superheroes
- Fictional Africans
- Fictional characters with the power to manipulate weather
- Fictional elementals
- Fictional heroines
- Fictional immigrants to the United States
- Fictional New Yorkers
- Fictional orphans
- Fictional princesses
- Fictional thieves
- Hellfire Club members
- Marvel Comics deities
- Marvel Comics mutants
- The 198 Files
- Marvel Comics characters who can fly
- 1975 introductions