BIOGRAPHY - Page 7
With Cyclops and Phoenix leaving the team to recuperate, Storm was once more leader of a partially untried team that included Marrow, who tried to provoke her at every point and whose very presence reminded Storm of her own failures. Eventually, after some clashes with some of her own teammates (e.g. Cannonball) and Callisto over Marrow, Storm finally offered her hand to Marrow and promised to do the best by her as her leader. By that time, Marrow too, thanks in part to her burgeoning friendship with Cannonball, had mellowed enough to accept Ororo’s peace offering. [X-Men (2nd series) #71-79]
When the High Evolutionary temporarily caused a world wide loss of mutant powers, Storm adopted an even more sisterly attitude to Marrow. While they worked together at a summer camp, Ororo happily observed that Marrow started to act like a normal teenager, crushes and all. [X-Men (2nd series) #99] In the following months, the X-Men were restructured. Some members left, others returned and new ones joined. During that time, Storm took a less active role and belonged to a division of the X-Men that traveled around the world, more or less without a leader, to face some new threats in Venice, Italy, and Russia. [Uncanny X-Men (1st series) #381]
Eventually, the X-Men reunited, but with several of her teammates still recovering from injuries received earlier in battle, Ororo paid a visit to an old friend in need. The Black Panther was struggling with several personal and political crises, one of which included a possible world war in the making, as he was giving asylum to a Lemurian child who was hunted by her own government and several other factions. Storm assured the Black Panther of her friendship but also told him of her fears that he was in danger of going down the same path as Magneto. The King of Wakanda broke his stoic facade for Ororo, admitting to her privately that he had doubts and didn't always know the correct path. [Black Panther (3rd series) #26-27]
Shortly after her brief leave of absence, the X-Men learned of the Diaries of the late precog Destiny, which chronicled the future. With only one book in their possession, Ororo realized that the diaries were a dangerous weapon, a weapon someone as powerful as Charles Xavier couldn’t be trusted with and that she had to find the rest. With a hand-picked team of X-Men, she left the mansion. She especially asked Tessa AKA Sage to be among this group, as her analytical skills would be needed to make sense of the cryptic prophecies. [X-Men (2nd series) #109]
As leader of the new team, Storm struggled with difficulties from the very beginning, not the least of which was the death of her teammate Psylocke at the hand of the mysterious villain Vargas, who claimed to be the true Homo Superior. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #2-3]
Trying to help some Saurian people reach the Savage Land, Storm became a prisoner of an old enemy – Brainchild. When she spurned his affections – as she had done before – Brainchild used his machines to push her downward the evolutionary scale and unleash the savage beast in her. Storm eventually turned against her “master” and her teammate Sage managed to restore her, but Storm’s anger and her fear at how easily her dark side was unleashed remained. [X-Treme X-Men: Savage Land #1-4]
Investigating the death of the Australian crimelord Viceroy, for whose murder Gambit was implicated, Storm and her teammate Thunderbird III met Viceroy's children, the Camerons, who had no idea of their true father’s criminal past. After Storm saved Davis Cameron – the brother – from drowning, the two of them grew somewhat attracted to one another and started some subtle flirting. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #5-9]
The Camerons stayed with the X-Men for protection. Around that time, Gambit asked Storm for the ruby she had inherited from her mother, which – as Sage revealed – was part of a mysterious powerful group of gems called the Madripoor set. The ruby, as well as the other gems, was stolen by the other-dimensional warrior Shaitan, who also abducted Gambit. Shaitan used the gems and Gambit’s power to create a portal - a giant space needle in the making - that allowed the other-dimensional armies of his master Khan, a conqueror of whole universes, to enter Madripoor, while at the same time casting a force field that prevented other heroes from entering Madripoor to help. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #10]
Khan briefly became a prisoner and Storm saved his life from the psychopathic Madripoor crimelord Viper, humiliating her in the process. Khan immediately became obsessed with Storm, recognizing in her a rare kindred spirit who was his equal. When Viper struck Ororo in the back, leaving her for dead, Khan took her with him to another dimension, ordering his physicians to save her as she would be his queen. As prisoner of Khan, Storm used all her wiles to convince him to stop his attempted conquest of Earth. Meanwhile, the other X-Men were racing against time to try and find Storm and to attempt some sabotage, before the space needle completely solidified – which would allow all of Khan’s troops instant access to Earth.
To make matters worse, Khan’s concubines jealously tried to murder her in order to avoid losing their status. Storm won against them, despite her powers not working properly due to her spinal injuries. Storm failed at another attempt to convince Khan to blow off the invasion, when she met him in battle. Together, the X-Men managed to successfully stop the invasion by sabotaging Khan’s castle and blowing up the interdimensional portal, seemingly destroying Khan and his ship in the process. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #11-16]
Ororo’s injuries took a heavy toll on her, however. She collapsed, had a near death experience and was shortly reunited with the spirits of her parents, who told her how proud they were of her. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #18]
Storm woke up again, but was still heavily injured, needing physical therapy for her back and legs. With their mission to find the diaries over (since Rogue now had access to them, thanks to her powers), the other X-Men teams asked what was left of Storm’s team to return back to Xavier’s mansion. Storm, however, was convinced that there was still work for her offshoot X-Men to do. Since the other X-Teams were now exclusively focusing on the rights of the ever-growing mutant population, Storm, Sage and Bishop felt they had to now make sure that somebody defended the rights of humans and make sure that they all can co-exist. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #19, X-Treme X-Men X-Posé #1-2]
While Ororo recuperated in Rogue’s New Orleans mansion, assisted by Wolverine, her teammates, Sage and Bishop, investigated a murder case. The suspect was a 14 year-old, mutant teleporter named Jeffrey Garrett, who had been given asylum at Xavier’s school by Emma Frost, who utterly refused to cooperate with Storm’s team. Storm was clearly hesitant to oppose Emma, until Wolverine confronted her with the fact that she was afraid of the other woman who had messed with her head twice. Storm eventually faced and overcame both her fears and Emma, still disliking the woman, but ready to give her the benefit of the doubt. Working together, both women solved the mystery of Jeffrey’s murders. Afterwards, however, Storm came to blows with Xavier over what to do with the boy: Xavier decided it was safer for all sides to keep on giving him sanctuary, whereas Storm believed that Jeffrey should take responsibility for his deeds in a court of law, to show that mutants are not above the law. Storm’s team left Xavier’s once again. [X-Treme X-Men (1st series) #20-23]