Mistress of the Elements: The Best Storm Fan Art Ever [Mutant Week]

No disrespect to Captain Marvel, the Wasp, She-Hulk or Invisible Woman, but we all know who's the most important female superhero in the Marvel Universe. It's obviously Storm. She's been around for 41 years, she's usually the leader of one X-Men team or another, and she's been in movies and cartoons too (although they seem to have a hard time capturing how great she is).

Storm first appeared in Giant-Size X-Men #1, making her comics debut alongside Colossus and Nightcrawler on a soon-to-be-legendary new X-Men team that also included Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean Grey. When Cyclops left the team after Jean (or at least the cosmic entity impersonating her) died, Storm stepped up and became the leader, a role she would keep even after losing her superpowers thanks to a raygun blast meant for Rogue.

Storm's had quite a few notable relationships. Her canonical partners have included Forge (although she wasn't thrilled to learn that he built the weapon that robbed her of her powers), Black Panther (they even got married) and Wolverine (they were still together when he died), while she's also had pretty clear subtextual liaisons with Morlock leader Calisto and Japanese criminal Yukio. Most of her fans are quick to agree that Storm is one of the most recognizably bisexual superheroes in comics, although Marvel has never had the nerve to confirm it.

Storm has also had a variety of looks over the years, form her original tiara-swimsuit-and-cape outfit to the silver '90s shoulderpad suit to her occasional mohawk (originally adopted after her first encounter with Yukio in the '80s, and recently returned after the annulment of her marriage to T'Challa). I did my best to include a variety of Storm looks in this fan art gallery, but the truth is most artists seem to prefer the mohawk, and especially the punk aesthetic that originally accompanied it. But I can't really object, since that's my favorite look too.

The Best Storm Cosplay Ever