BIOGRAPHY - Page 2
However, some months later, when the X-Men were captured by the living island Krakoa, Xavier felt he had no other choice. After enlisting the help of several other mutants he had recently learned about or who had at one point met his students, Charles Xavier visited Ororo in Kenya and asked her to join his X-Men. He explained that she was a mutant, not a goddess, and that she had a responsibility to the world. Curious, Ororo decided to leave her “nest” and see what the world had to offer.
The old and new teams of X-Men together defeated Krakoa. As part of the X-Men, Ororo received the codename “Storm” and a costume made of unstable molecules. It also contained some of her own elements, like her tribal tiara and her mother’s ruby, which she wore as a brooch that held the cape together. [Giant-Size X-Men #1]
Ororo was naïve in the ways of the modern world. For example, she had no idea why there was any need for clothing, if one didn’t feel cold. This led to some embarrassing episodes with her fellow X-Men. Otherwise, she quickly made friends among the others, regarding them as family. She very quickly forged a bond of friendship with Jean Grey, who helped Ororo buy a new wardrobe. It was during one of their shopping tours that Jean learned of Storm’s severe claustrophobia when the two women were chasing a thief into a subway station. [Classic X-Men #2, 4]
Ororo was also the one member of the team who would stand up to Wolverine when his temper was flaring and, through sheer force of personality, get him to back down. There were aspects of the life as an X-Man that proved hard for her, though, as for example when she destroyed a Sentinel that seemed very lifelike. What if she were ever forced to kill another human being, she wondered? [X-Men (1st series) #98-99]
Storm’s claustrophobia placed the entire team in danger when they battled Juggernaut and Black Tom in Cassidy Keep. In the cellars of the ancient castle, Ororo felt entombed between the walls of solid rocks and went into shock. She could do nothing but cry while her teammates were butchered. Only after all had fallen did she find the strength to fight. However, it was only after the Juggernaut accidentally punched a hole in the wall and she could see the open sky again that she could free the team and turn the tide. [X-Men (1st series) #102-103]
During the X-Men’s adventures in the Savage Land, Ororo was at one point unable to save the villain Garokk’s life, who was falling into a dark pit. She flew down after him but, shortly before she had reached him, she was overcome by her claustrophobia and rushed back to the surface. [X-Men (1st series) #116] Feeling the need to sort this out alone, she distanced herself 
from the other X-Men and wandered around the Savage Land on her own. Bathing in a lake, she suddenly encountered a strange beast and saved a mysterious woman from it, almost losing her own life in the process. When Ororo came around, she found herself in another fantastic dimension adjacent to the Savage Land. M’rin, the woman from the lake, was this dimension’s warrior queen. She befriended Ororo and came to regard her as her surrogate daughter (her true daughter being her mortal enemy). However, after a while, Ororo felt she had to leave her and return to the X-Men. Before Storm left, M’rin showed her how to use her mother’s ruby crystal to open the dimensional gates and come visit her, if she wished. [Classic X-Men #22]
Back in New York, Storm decided to take a look at Harlem, where she was born. When she reached the building where her family used to live, she was shocked to learn that it now was the hideout of several junkie kids. She wasn’t aware how run down things had become in the neighborhood since her family had left. Her friends, Misty Knight and Luke Cage, reminded her that there was only so much that superheroes could do. [X-Men (1st series) #122]
Ororo started to doubt her life as an X-Man. At least in Kenya she could help people. Here, she only seemed to fight. Sometime later, she was kidnapped by Arkon, emperor of the other-dimensional world Polemachus. His people needed someone with control over lightning to restore the machine that kept the energy-rings around their world (in place of a sun) and, since Thor wasn’t available, they abducted Storm. Ororo was willing to help, even though it would have cost her life. However, with the aid of the other X-Men, any loss of life was avoided. This adventure reminded her that life as an X-Man was more than just one battle after the next. [X-Men (1st series) Annual #3]
When a new student, the teenager Kitty Pryde, was detected by Cerebro, Professor Xavier brought Ororo and the others to meet the prospective student. Ororo quickly started to develop motherly feelings towards the girl, whose parents’ marriage was disintegrating. During the same adventure where the X-Men met Kitty, Storm was captured and humiliated by the telepathic 
White Queen, who telepathically probed Ororo for information on the X-Men. When the rest of the team assaulted the building, the White Queen got angry and would have left Storm a brainless vegetable, if not for the intervention of Jean Grey, now known as the Phoenix. This would be the first of many poor encounters between Ororo and Emma. [X-Men (1st series) #129-131]
Sadly, Phoenix died shortly thereafter and her fiancé, team-leader Scott Summers, needed a sabbatical. Xavier asked Storm to become the new leader, a role Storm was first unsure about, even though all her teammates – including the authority-hating Wolverine - applauded Xavier’s choice. [X-Men (1st series) #139] Logan even taught her how to handle firearms around that time, knowledge she abhorred, but which should eventually come in handy. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #187]
One of her early missions as the team’s leader involved the X-Men freeing the villain, Arcade, from the more dangerous villain, Dr. Doom (or actually, as was revealed later, a very convincing Doom-bot). Doom and Ororo felt some attraction towards each other, but that didn’t stop Doom from trapping her and her fellow mutants and transforming Storm into a statue of organic chrome. For a claustrophobe, this was a nightmare come true. Subconsciously, she started to warp weather patterns all over the world, creating a giant thunderstorm. When her teammates finally freed her, she was immensely more powerful and close to insanity in her rage. Eventually, her friends reminded her of Jean’s transformation into Dark Phoenix. Realizing she was heading down the same path, she reined in her power and stopped the storm, even though it almost cost her life. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #145-147]
During a walk in Salem Center, Storm was almost assassinated by a South-African sniper, part of de Ruyter’s revenge plot for her saving T’Challa as a teenager. She reached out to T'Challa, now both king of Wakanda and serving the Avengers as the Black Panther. Solving the case, the Black Panther and Ororo renewed their friendship but both realized far too much had changed since they were children to try and renew their relationship now. [Marvel Team-Up (1st series) #100]