Storm (comics)

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This article is about the X-Men character. For the British/Dutch comic book character of the same name, see Storm (Don Lawrence).

Storm (Ororo Munroe) is a fictional character, a Marvel Comics superhero and a prominent member of the X-Men. She first appeared in Giant-Size X-Men #1 (May 1975).

Storm has the mutant power to control the weather, including lightning, rain, snow and wind, which she can use to make herself and others fly.

Having debuted at a time when memories of Star Trek's Lt. Uhura were still fresh, Storm's status as a black female with a similar name and Kenyan origins may not be coincidental. In any case, she may well be the first black female superhero of any note and remains the most popular.

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Character history

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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. N'Dare fell in love with and married African American photojournalist David Munroe.

Image:Stormparents.jpg 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 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 foot 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. Ororo would reconsider that oath in adult life.

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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 her. 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, no name has ever been given to this deity. Current speculation is that this Goddess is Gaia 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.

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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. In time, she revealed herself to be a capable leader and became leader of the X-Men when its longtime leader, Cyclops left the group. When the young Shadowcat joined the X-Men, Storm formed a very close, almost maternal bond with her.

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Around this time, the X-Men spent a long time in space battling the Brood, an alien race. Spending so much time away from planet Earth 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 homophobic 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. Threating to kill inocent people with a bomb Marrow forced Storm to decide if she was able to kill for other peoples live (Marrow had attached a device to her own heart which would have set the bomb on) or not. Beliving she was to weak to kill. However Storm ripped her heart out saving the innocent. How Storm managed with this experience was later shown in the first Storm mini series.

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Romance

Image:Storm-Forge.JPG Storm lost her powers as a result from a neutralizer gun Forge had created to disable Rogue. She also had an on-again, off-again romance with the mutant Forge. She first broke up with him when she discovered that the neutralizer gun used to erase her powers was created by him, though she later forgave him. In the battle with the Adversary in Dallas, Storm emerged with her powers fully restored (as well as her psychic connection to the Earth) to help the team mates defeat the Adversary but only to be sent through the Siege Perilous to later emerge in Australia. While in Australia, she was transformed in to a child by Nanny, became amnesiac, and returned to thievery, during which time, she met Gambit. After regaining her memory, she brought him to the team and was restored to her adult state later in Genosha.

Once the X-Men and X-Factor combined forces and split into the Blue and Gold teams, Forge proposed to Storm, but got cold feet and backed out before she could accept, leaving her distraught and in tears.

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 show in the 90's animated series episode "One Man's Worth".

Her past relationship with then-Prince T'Challa a.k.a. the Black Panther has been confirmed to resume before the two wed in the summer of 2006.

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Leader of the XSE

Storm later led a group of X-Men outside of the mansion in the search for Destiny's diaries, the Books of Truth. On this search, she enjoyed a brief flirtation with a younger man, Slipstream and was kidnapped by the intergalactic warlord Khan who wanted to make her his queen. Despite being badly injured, shot 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 Magneto. From the school, Storm headed the X-Treme Sanctions Executive, a special police task force of mutants policing mutants given worldwide authority.

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 decided to remain in Niganda.

Due to the Scarlet Witch's magicks, 98% of the mutants lost their powers. Storm stayed in Niganda to help the mutants affected there. This change is apparently going to make her a more prominent member of the Marvel Universe according to recent interviews.

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Powers and abilities

Ororo is a mutant with the psionic ability to manipulate the weather over the entire planet and take flight. When controlling weather elements, her eyes illuminate a white color and aura. She can manifest any degree of wind, temperature, lightning, storm, and all manner of precipitation, tornadoes and hurricanes. Storm actually has the ability to affect the weather on a cosmic scale, but does not because she is very environmentally conscious. 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. She is one of the most powerful beings on the planet.

Storm is immune to all effects of weather: her body changes to compensate for the extremes she engineered; 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 perseptions so as to see electrical energy patterns in an object and in the air. She can also change the body temperature of anyone by manipulating that temperature and lowering it or raising it. That 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 been able to use her ability to manipulate wind in a manner that resembles telekinesis, lifting massive objects and hurling them against opponents. She has even been known to stop projectiles such as bullets by using her ability to manipulate the wind. Not only can she stop most physical attacks with her powers, but she can also generate electric fields, magnetic fields, high-density pressure fields, and even electromagnetic fields. Aside from the abilities granted by her mutation, Ororo is highly intelligent and an able strategist and field commander of the X-Men. She also has some minor telepathic defenses (creating intense electrical currents and indestructable pressure domes that can withstand a plane and cut through a mountain.) Her days as a thief have given her mastery of skills normally used by professional thieves, such as stealth, breaking into heavilly fortified areas and picking locks (she always keeps a set of lockpicks in whatever current costume she wears). She is also an excellent combatant in both armed and unarmed combat, having been instructed by Wolverine. Storm is a strong, confident, intelligent, caring, loyal, brave warrior, and most sophisticated and demure member of the X-Men.

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Ultimate Storm

In the Ultimate Marvel continuity, Storm has been re-imagined as an illegal immigrant from North Africa who settled in Harlem. She made a living stealing cars before joining the X-Men. She was much more belligerent and angry than her inscrutable mainstream version and was the long-time girlfriend of Beast. Though, after his death, Storm enjoyed some flirtation and a single kiss with another teammate, Wolverine.

Storm has recently met Lady Deathstrike, a rival from the past who has joined Weapon X.

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Appearances in other media

  • Storm then appeared in a TV pilot that later was released on video in Pryde of the X-Men.
  • 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 90's in Parts 2 and 3 of the Secret Wars arc. In the Spider-Man series, Storm was once again voiced by Iona Morris because it is recorded in Los Angeles, where Iona Morris is now based whearas the X-Men animated series was recorded in Canada and it would have proved too costly to get the Canadian voice actress back.
  • 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.

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  • Along with Doctor Doom, The Hulk, the Kingpin and Spider-Man, Storm also has a ride in Marvel Super Hero Island of Universal Studios. A common teacup ride found in most themeparks with theming, "Storm Force Acceleration" also includes strobe lights which can be seen if ridden after dark. She is the first superheroine to have a ride named after her on Marvel Super Hero Island or anywhere else for that case.

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  • She is played by Halle Berry in the movies X-Men (2000), X2 (2003) and X-Men 3 (2006). Despite a high-profile actress like Berry in the role, in the first two movies, Storm received little screen time and took a backseat to characters such as Wolverine and Jean Grey. Due to her little screen time though, Halle Berry rallied for more development and as a result, the role was enhanced for her in X-Men 3. The third installment is set to be released on May 26th, 2006.

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External links

fr:Tornade (X-Men) it:Tempesta (X-Men) pt:Tempestade (Banda desenhada) sv:Storm (seriefigur)

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