In SWORD #7, Storm & Dr. Doom have a romantic space dinner – but it’s not their first! Learn all about Storm & Dr. Doom’s somewhat-romantic history with each other, and determine for yourself if this is bound to be Marvel’s brand new power couple!
Dr. Doom has made it a point to let the X-Men know he is not happy with them.
After the X-Men unveiled their big surprise at the Hellfire Gala about having terraformed Mars and claiming it in the name of mutants and Arakko, Dr. Doom barged in on a meeting between Abigail Brand and numerous alien ambassadors, demanding to speak to the leader of the new planet.
Said leader revealed herself to be none other than STORM, still wearing her gorgeous Hellfire regalia, and telling Victor that any new business with Arakko is to go through her.
But this is not the first time that Storm & Dr. Doom have come face to face with each other….
RESCUING ARCADE
(uncanny x-men #145-147)
The pair originally met back in Uncanny X-Men #145, when Storm and the X-Men raided his castle to rescue – of all people – Arcade.
Arcade was supposedly being held captive by Dr. Doom, and Miss Locke kidnapped a bunch of the X-Men’s friends and family members, threatening to kill them all if the X-Men didn’t help her save Arcade.
The X-Men agree to help, and they travel to Latveria, where Storm is the first to arrive in Doom’s castle. She demands to speak to Dr. Doom and he reveals himself to her for the first time as the Master of the castle.
I think this scene is the inspiration behind the scenes in SWORD #6, where Doom demands to speak to the leader of Mars and Storm is revealed to him. It feels like that’s an homage to this initial meeting between Doom & Storm, except with the roles reversed. Now instead of Storm demanding to speak to a leader and it being Doom, Doom is demanding to speak to a leader and its Storm.
So, while the rest of the X-Men search Doom’s castle in secret for Arcade and deal with his warbots and booby traps, Storm takes the diplomatic route to wine and dine with Doom, and at one point it seems like she even feels attracted to him – though it might be out of fascination as opposed to actual appeal.
But, as it turns out the whole thing was a ruse to trap the X-Men, and Arcade was never Doom’s prisoner at all, but was instead his guest.
Storm tries to fight them both, but she is overwhelmed and Doom transmutes her into a chrome statue, supposedly trapping her.
Then in issue # 146, Dr. Doom has a robot created in Storm’s likeness which he uses to serve him wine and close his windows, while the real Storm herself rages inside the organic chrome prison.
Turns out she’s still aware of things, though Dr. Doom doesn’t know that, and her claustrophobia is causing her to lash out and create a weather maelstrom all over the world.
Doom is impressed by the drastic change in weather and wonders if it has something to do with Storm, but before he can investigate any further, the other X-Men arrive and free her.
They are a bit too late for Storm’s sanity though, and the claustrophobia has caused madness to take control over her and she lashes out at Dr. Doom and everyone around her with the full extent of her powers.
She goes into vengeful goddess mode, and almost kills everyone, but thankfully the X-Men talk her down and help her remember who she really is.
Storm corrects the weather patterns, and everything is hunky dory again, with Dr Doom relinquishing Arcade into the X-Men’s custody so that they can get their friends safely back from Miss Locke.
Dr Doom even apologizes directly to Storm for what he did to her, and he tries to leave things on like a flirty note, which Storm surprisingly responds in kind saying that she’s open to starting things fresh with him.
It’s kind of a weird ending, but in my opinion it was like the beginning of a potential courtship between them, and who doesn’t love a complicated relationship?
SAVING KITTY PRYDE
(fantastic four vs x-men #1-4)
The next significant encounter between Storm & Dr. Doom is during the Fantastic Four vs X-Men min-series from the 80’s.
The X-Men were licking their wounds after having fought the Marauders during the Mutant Massacre, and Kitty was in a particularly dire state of being stuck intangible thanks to Harpoon’s energy spear.
Moira has been unable to help her, and it turns out Reed Richards can’t help her either, but Dr. Doom shows up and appeals to Storm to come visit him, claiming that he DOES have the power to get Kitty back to her regular self.
The Fantastic Four urge Storm not to go, and the two groups fight about it, with The Human Torch accidentally burning Storm in the process.
But even after some of her own teammates express their distrust of Doom, Storm still decides to accept Dr. Doom’s offer for the sake of helping Kitty.
Doom begins to show his goodwill by healing Storm’s burns, and even though the rest of the X-Men are occupied by fighting off robots, it looks like he and Storm are just as cozy as ever with each other.
Even though no one really trusts him, Doom ends up staying true to his word, and he eventually winds up working with Mr Fantastic to successfully re-integrate Kitty’s atoms and make her fully tangible again.
Did he do this out of the kindness of his cold heart, or might it have been a way to further impress Storm? The jury is out.
REGENT OF MARS
(sword #6-7)
And then that pretty much brings us to their most recent interactions today in the Krakoa era. They’ve crossed paths again here and there, but nothing nearly as substantial happened between them until now.
After Storm announced her regency over the Sol System to Doom in SWORD #6, the two of them share an intimate dinner to discuss politics and metaphors in Sword #7.
Doom essentially threatens her for tinkering in things she doesn’t know about when it comes to the mutants’ new intergalactic currency of Mysterium. He offers to be a guiding hand for the mutants in how to navigate the world of magic metals, but at the cost of being in Doom’s debt.
This time Storm not-so-subtly rejects his offer flat-out, and she puts Doom in his place, saying that mutants have no need of him nor his helping hand.
Insulting the Latverian ambassador is a bold move for diplomacy, but Storm is accustomed to making bold statements, and it really wouldn’t be like her to do anything otherwise.
Dr. Doom does not take rejection very well, though, so instead of the budding relationship that I felt was being teased here, it looks like Storm may have actually made herself a new enemy!
I really liked how this dinner between Storm & Doom turned out because it caught me by surprise. Knowing their history, I totally expected the two of them were going to be paired off romantically here.
Technically this scene tried to retcon their previous encounter in Uncanny X-Men #145-147 to being one that Storm had with a Doombot instead of the real Victor, but I’m not buying that, and will instead assume that Dr. Doom’s assertion was just his twisted sense of flirtation.
I actually didn’t mind the idea of Storm & Doom being together – I think it’s unusual enough to be interesting. I like it when Storm is attracted to the bad side of things, and things don’t get much badder than Dr. Doom.
But even though a romance is NOT what happened here, I’m not disappointed that the dinner turned sour, either. In fact, I kind of like it even more. Storm standing up to Doom literally felt like a proclamation of power, and I think it helped establish her new role as the voice of Sol.
The panel really oozes leadership and regency, and it made me feel like regent of Sol was a role Storm was born for.
I didn’t mind her being a part of the Marauders back on Earth, but something about her being on that team always felt a little off, as though the Marauders were just being used as a place-holder team for her until they found a better use of Storm’s time.
Seeing Storm as the Queen of Mars actually feels WAY more in-line with how her character has evolved, and just feels like a natural fit. I think this role is really going to catapult Storm’s profile even higher than it already is, and I’m excited to see what she’ll get up to in space, and how many other Marvel A-List enemies she plans on making.
So what does everyone else think? Did you think that she was going to be getting romantic with Dr Doom like I did, or am I alone in that? Let me know if you think Storm should have given Dr Doom a second space-date, or if they are better off as frenemies.
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