X-Men is one of Marvel’s most popular superhero teams. The team arguably comes 2nd in popularity right after The Avengers as the latter has gained a lot of admiration and acclaim since their live-action adaptation in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
Marvel recently decided to revive its popular X-Men: The Animated Series from the 90s under the name of X-Men ’97. The series was highly anticipated among comic book fans until today as the first 2 episodes of the series were released.
[SPOILER WARNING: This piece contains spoilers from the first 2 episodes of X-Men ’97 so proceed at your risk.]
Storm loses her powers in X-Men ’97
Marvel recently released the first 2 episodes of its highly anticipated series, X-Men ’97, and the fans were left absolutely shocked as they saw one of their favorite Omega-level mutants lose her powers in the very second episode of the series.
X-Men ’97 picked up right where Marvel left off X-Men: The Animated Series back in 1997. Our beloved superheroes are still dealing with the death of Professor Charles Xavier as Max Eisenhardt aka Magneto decides to change his ways and succeeds Xavier as the new leader of X-Men.
In order to prove himself as a changed person to his new allies, Magneto decides to surrender himself to a trial at the UN. At the UN conference, some protestors break through the security and X-Cutioner manages to fire a shot from his weapon at Magneto. While trying to save Magneto, Storm, arguably one of the strongest members of X-Men, selflessly jumps in front of him and thus ends up losing her powers in the process.
As Beast reveals later in the episode, the loss of Storm’s powers is most likely permanent as the X-Cutioner’s weapon uses “a concentrated dose of the same radiation” as the inhibitor collars.
Will Storm be able to regain her powers?
Storm losing her powers isn’t something unseen or unheard of. In the comics, Storm once similarly lost her powers when she jumped in front of Rogue to protect her from Gyrich. After losing her powers, Storm decided to leave the X-Men and traveled to Africa to contemplate her life as a human.
After she saves a mother and her newborn child from a terrible accident in Africa without her powers, Storm realizes that she is still no less than a superhero even without her powers. Therefore, she ends up rejoining the X-Men. As it is later shown in Marvel Comics’s Uncanny X-Men #225, Storm’s abilities are restored by a machine that is created by Forge.
Storm will likely regain her powers in a similar fashion in X-Men ’97 as it was shown at the end of episode 2 that she has now left the X-Men just like she did in the comics.
However, whether she’ll regain her powers through Forge’s machine or not is still questionable as the character has never played that significant of a role even in X-Men: The Animated Series.
The first 2 episodes of X-Men ’97 are currently streaming on Disney+.
