While Storm started out life as common street thief, her lineage is far from humble.
Chris Claremont planted seeds throughout his original run on Uncanny X-Men that she was descended from an ancient line of African sorceresses, including Uncanny X-Men #160 and the Magik mini-series where the alternate Ororo whom Illyana and the X-Men meet in Limbo says she’d turned to her magical heritage when her weather-control powers faded with old age.
Figure 1: the older version of Storm who is a sorceress (from Uncanny X-Men #160)
Claremont builds on this plot further by revealing that this ancient line of sorceresses also possessed Storm’s trademark white hair and tampetumus eyes when, in New Mutants #32, he has Magik and Dani Moonstar teleport to Pharaonic Egypt while fleeing the Shadow King where they are aided by a mystic of high renown bearing an uncanny resemblance to Storm, including the blue eyes and white hair. This mystic is called Ashake, and tells the new mutants Ororo is her granddaughter many times removed.
Figure 2: Ashake, dead ringer for Storm who turns out to be her ancestor (from New Mutants #32)
Then, in Uncanny X-Men Annual 2006 Claremont reveals that her mother, N’Dare’s brother Shetani had rebelled against the tribe’s traditions, feeling discriminated against within the female-led tribe.
Figure 3: The power in Ororo’s family, going back to the dawn of humanity, passes from mother to daughter, leaving out those born male in the tribe (from Uncanny X-Men Annual #1 2006)
This is suggesting it is the females in the family that inherit the mystical power (the white hair and tampetumus eyes being the indicator manifesting every five generations). Her uncle Shetani, while bald, had brown eyes so while he felt discriminated against, if he didn’t have the mystical-carrying genes he couldn’t contain the power anyway (unless it came from the females being put forward over the males to consort with some mystical race).
While Storm’s ability to control the weather, and her female ancestry, is obviously inspired by H. Rider Haggaard’s She which in turn was based upon the real-life dynasty of Rain Queens of Balobedu in South Africa’s Limpopo province…
Figure 4: She by H. Rider Haggard (author of King’s Solomon’s Mines)
…the explanation for this magic ancestry has been RIGHT THERE… and yet none of us saw it, but how in the hell could we have MISSED it?
- Faltine are entities composed of pure magic energy.
- Certain ones of them were able to take on human forms, Dormammu and Umar for example.
- When a Faltine and a mortal procreate, the product of this union results in the child having WHITE HAIR and BLUE EYES, with exceptional magic potential (Clea being the Marvel Universe’s leading example).
Figure 5: Clea possesses tremendous magical power due to her Faltine heritage (from Dr. Strange)
Now we all know Storm’s ancestry is priestesses and sorceresses, and they were exceptional magic users, and all those with such power had the tapetumus eyes and white hair.
Figure 6: Richard Leakey’s Eve hypothesis from which Claremont drew inspiration
So has the secret to Storm’s magic ancestry, including her tapetumus eyes and white hair, all along been pointing to their being an inherited trait from a Faltine ancestor?
And just look at the similarity below between Clea when transformed into a Faltine magical energy creature (from Marvel Team-Up #77 by Claremont) and Storm’s powers out of control (from Uncanny X-Men #147 & #172).
Figure 7: Can anyone say “Flames of Regency”?
With this in mind, we need Chris Claremont back to explain not only why Storm’s tribe denied its males from inheriting this power but the circumstances behind their alliance with the Faltine…
Note: Was it perhaps the Faltine who promised Storm to the Shadow King so long ago as he suggested in Uncanny X-Men #265? Why did the Shadow King REALLY want Ororo?
And who did Claremont intend the “Bright Lady” to be?
Filed under: Claremont's X-Men | Tagged: Amahl Farouk, Ashake, Ayesha, Bright Lady, Chris Claremont, Clea, Dormammu, Eve hypothesis, Faltine, Illyana, Magik, Marada, Meroë, Moonstar, N'Dare, New Mutants, New Mutants #32, Ororo Munroe, Rain Queens of Balobedu, Richard Leakey, Shadow King, Shaitan, She-Wolf, Shetani, Starhair, Storm, Umar, Uncanny X-Men #160, Uncanny X-Men #265, Uncanny X-Men Annual 2006, X-Men |
"How Would You Fix...?" 
Yes. I like this one a lot.
One question would be, have Storm and Clea ever been shown meeting each other? If not, that opens up the chance for someone to write a “cousin, don’t you know what you are?” moment.
(On the other hand, if they have met and Clea didn’t mention any connection between them, you could have some kind of Englehart-like explanation from Clea: “Though I immediately recognized you as another Faltine-blessed one, I couldn’t say anything at the time…”)
I never knew all that about the real life Rain Queens. Who says comics blogs aren’t educational?
Glad you like this one.
I don’t recall Storm and Clea ever being shown meeting during Claremont’s run and he didn’t tend to us Dr. Strange enough in the X-titles for such a discussion to potentially arise (since we know Stephen would surely pick up on it).
If they’ve met in more recent years we know the writers of today would not have the nouse to pick up such subtle hints;)
While I doubt this was the intent of the original creators, Wein & Cockrum, I’m sure once the penny dropped for Claremont he began seeding in the mystical heritage to eventually explain her difference in appearance.
Claremont has previously revealed in the odd interview here or there that he was a fan of King Solomon’s Mines which keyed me into his intent to tie Storm into Ayesha and the Rain Queens about 20 years ago now.
All we need to know now is the details behind who promised Ororo to the Shadow King and why…
Storm and Clea might have met when everybody went to pay their last respects to Mar-Vell in the “Death of Captain Marvel” graphic novel. They were certainly shown to be in the same place at the same time, at least.
I suspect Claremont further intended his silver-haired warrior, Marada, to be of the Faltine bloodline.
Her supernatural lineage is hinted at by Kulan Gath stand-in sorcerer, Simyon Karashnur who said “She has powers both temporal and arcane, though she knows it not.”
Similar to Ororo she likewise possessed a catlike grace.
nice it always bugged that chris had storm not only be able to control the weather but as in 160 was a sorceress two yet did not really let storm use those powers only her relitives stating yes she is one though not ever using them again plus still leaving the plot of who was offering storm to the shadow king.
If the Shadow King had waited “a human generation” to seize Ororo, a generation typically being around 25 years, that suggests to me that he was promised Ororo either at the time of her birth or before. Rather than being promised Ororo Munro specifically, he may have been promised the next manifestation of the white hair/blue eyes in that bloodline.
I also wonder if Ororo’s ancestors might have come from Wakanda and been exposed to the mutagenic radiation from the original vibranium meteorite. That happened more-or-less at the “dawn of humanity.” Certainly way back in prehistoric times. Don’t know if that was ever suggested during her recent relationship with the Black Panther. But her ancestors might have been driven out of Wakanda by Bashenga, the first Black Panther, for being mutants.
Interesting theory. It would make sense if the “Bright Lady” were of the Faltine given their association with flame.
If before he had perhaps not been promised her until after the passing of her equivalent from five generations before.
I had thought the same re: their being from Wakanda and exposure to the vibranium meteorite. Perhaps Claremont would have clarified that if Lifedeath3 had gone ahead.
Who among the Faltine do you think would fit candidacy for the “Bright Lady”?
I wonder how Claremont intended to pull it off since Faltine who sought out physical bodies were all considered evil by their own race.
So I’m not sure how any being who kick-started Ororo’s race could be considered “bright/good”!?
Very cool theory here, and of course it would makes sense given the physical characteristics and pre-disposition for magic.
Yeah, it’d be cool as hell if this idea was picked up on in the current MU continiutiy, be considering what’s currently going on right now, not anytime soon.
Can we think of other superhumans in the Marvel Universe who might be Faltine offspring but know it not? Any white haired characters whose powers go above and beyond their abilities? Can anyone say Magneto;)
In some of his earliest appearances, Magneto, also of white hair and blue eyes, was depicted as capable of engaging in astral projection. He has also, on rare occasions, been shown reading other’s dreams, issuing telepathic commands, and probing the minds of others. He has further been shown to have altered the behavior of gravitational fields around him and has demonstrated the capacity to produce a wormhole and to safely teleport himself and others via the wormhole.
So could our so-called “master of magnetism” be another unknowing candidate for Faltine heritage?
[…] answer is where did the vibranium meteor originate from? With my fix suggesting Storm’s ancestry as Faltine, I began entertaining the idea that Vibranium had come to reside on Earth as a result of an ancient […]
Love the theory! This goes a far way in explaining the white hair and blue eyes and the awesome power in Storm’s bloodline!
See Black Panther Vol 5 issue 4 and 5 for more proof of Storm’s connection to the Faltine
This actually fits in with my theory that Storm’s tribe worships Oshtur as the “Bright Lady”. The Vishanti and the Faltine have a history, and it’s conceivable one of them could have escaped to Earth way back when and become the progenitor of Storm’s line.
I really, REALLY like this theory.