Warning: Spoilers for The Immortal Thor #5!Thor is to thank for the grand entrance that Storm makes onto the battlefield as she and her fellow mutants wage war on Arakko. X-readers will recall that in last summer’s X-Men: Red #14 by Al Ewing, Yildiray Cinar, Federico Blee, and VC’s Ariana Maher, Storm enters the fray of Arakko’s war wearing a red cape. Since no context is given as to why she has the cape, readers just wrote it off as her way to make a cool entrance.
Now, The Immortal Thor #5 by Al Ewing, Martin Coccolo, Matthew Wilson, and VC’s Joe Sabino provides additional context for the cape that Storm wears in the aforementioned X-Men: Red #14. The issue reveals that as far as timelines are concerned, X-Men: Red #14 (also written by Al Ewing) takes place after the events of The Immortal Thor, during which Storm joins the Thor Corps.
This new issue of The Immortal Thor reveals that, as a token of his appreciation for helping him in his fight against the “God of the Super-Storm” Toranos, Thor prepares Storm for her own by gifting him his cape for what she calls “a grand entrance.”
Thor Gives His Cape to Storm in Time for X-Men: Red #14
On the final page of The Immortal Thor #3, Thor realizes that to defeat Toranos, he needs to assemble a team of gifted individuals. He needs not only a set of people whom he trusts more than anyone in the universe, but people he knows are worthy enough to lift his mighty hammer. The first person who springs to mind is Storm, and he spends the entirety of The Immortal Thor #4 trying to convince her to join him, despite her insisting that she’s “busy.” In the pages of X-Men: Red, Storm and her forces have been waging a civil war on the planet of Arakko (formerly Mars) against Genesis and her supporters. With her side forced to retreat, Storm is whisked away by Thor just as she is about to re-enter the battlefield.
Once Thor and his team are successful in stopping Toranos, the King of Asgard offers to help Storm in the fight on Arakko. She points out that accepting the help of a god would create bigger problems for her among the Arakki people, politically. However, she does accept a different reward from the God of Thunder: a ride back to Arakko, and his cape, because she’ll “need to make a heroic entrance to rally the troops … and I do miss wearing a cape.”
The Thor Corps Made an Impression on Storm
While the idea that Storm needs Thor’s cape to make an impressionable entrance is a cute notion in jest, there is a bigger implication here. Her carrying Thor’s influence symbolically through his cape tells readers just how much this Thor Corps mission has had an impact on Storm. It is a mission that, at first, she wants no part of as it will only prolong her return to Arakko. With that said, it clearly leaves an impression on Storm as it brings her closer to Thor as someone with whom she shares a kinship to thunder and lightning.
