There’s plenty to be said about X-Men ’97, and most of it is great, but perhaps one of the show’s strongest aspects is the ruthless nature of its storytelling.
Indeed, along with wearing the ever-present X-Men theme of discrimination on its sleeve as loudly and proudly as possible. X-Men ’97 also wastes no time plunging its heroes into the most dire straits imaginable, be it the appearance of Madelyne Pryor that’s likely to shatter Scott Summers, or that devastating ego deathblow dealt upon Storm.
So what exactly happened to Ororo Munroe?
What happened to Storm?
During Magneto’s trial at the United Nations headquarters, the Friends of Humanity, led by former FBI agent-turned-career mutant hunter Carl Denti (aka X-Cutioner), laid siege to the building, during which Denti broke into the courtroom and attempted to shoot Magneto with a radiation rifle. Storm instinctually dove in front of him to take the hit instead, and take the hit she did.
The radiation shot resulted in Storm’s mutant powers disappearing, with the effects appearing to be permanent according to Beast’s medical tests. Devastated, Storm departed the X-Mansion in the middle of the night, leaving behind a goodbye note for the rest of the X-Men.
Now, there’s no denying the textual significance of a regular human defeating an Omega-level mutant such as Storm, but the subtext of the fallout here is incredibly profound and textbook X-Men.
In quite literally being forced to suppress her true nature, Storm’s—who we understand to be one of the toughest, most confident figures in the series, and whose comics history is anything but devoid of queer subtext—sense of self absolutely shatters, and the resulting emotional crisis she’s now facing is entirely indicative of what happens when humans are forced to surrender their authenticity to the kind of extreme that Storm’s was. Indeed, X-Men ’97 isn’t messing around here.
(featured image: Disney+)
