X-MEN #60-61: Night / Bolt

Storm faces off with Candra over the External's Heart!

Originally Published January-February 1997

We begin in Storm's attic garden where she is pulling a Dewey Cox and thinking about everything that has ever happened in her life, from being orphaned as a child to wandering the Serengeti and being worshiped as a weather goddess until ultimately being drafted by Charles Xavier to use her powers for the benefit of mankind as an X-Man. She doesn't get much further than that before she is attacked by a most surprising foe...

Ororo quickly deduces that Scott has not elected to attack her of his own volition but that he is being used as a pawn by Storm's old foe, the External known as Candra.

Cyclops comes-to and asks Storm what, exactly, that was all about. It turns out that Storm has some property of Candra's.

As it turned out, as a street rat in Cairo Storm once took it upon herself to liberate the gem known, ominously, as the Heart of Candra, but as soon as she grabbed it she beheld its horrible power!

Disturbing but not a reason for Li'l Stormy to give it back, apparently. She brought it to her master, Achmed El-Gibar, who was like, "Oh, you f#$%ed up, girl, I'd better hold onto this," but eventually when she left Egypt she was given it back to take care of. You might even recognize it.

That's right, that seemingly decorative gem that used to adorn Storm's collar was actually a super-powerful magic artifact! How about that!!

By and by, Storm says that she needs to go meet Candra, alone. And Scott says no, you're not going off on your own to confront this super-powerful and very pissed off mystery mutant. And Storm says, "You're right, go call the other X-Men together," and as soon as Scott's back is turned...

Damn, gets me every time

Down in Washington, DC, Sam is contemplating the recent events surrounding the assassination of Graydon Creed. He reflects on how his father always wanted to see the nation's capital but probably saw more about the true promise of America by staying on "the farm" (which I assume is code for "the mines" because the man was a miner not a farmer.)

His handler, Jean Grey aka Phoenix, wants him to know there's nothing he could have done to prevent it. Sam, for his part, thinks Creed, who existed only to hate, never really lived.

Back in Manhattan, Storm has arrived at the Temple of Dendur -- which has been conveniently transported from Egypt to New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Candra confronts Storm, who asks why Candra suddenly wants the heart back after all these years. Candra's logical answer: "Who f#$%ing cares? It's mine, give it."

Storm asks -- rhetorically, I'm sure -- what's to stop her from destroying this ultra-powerful magical gemstone right here and now, and Candra reveals her leverage. She has kidnapped Storm's little friend Karima (who you may remember -- but I do not -- from a bygone issue of X-Men Unlimited), a fellow protege of the now-deceased Achmed.

She also reveals she has backup in the form of Jamil, a psychic mutant who was also involved with El-Gibar. Candra helpfully explains that she initially transferred her essence into the gem to protect herself from being killed by other Externals, but now she wants it back and Jamil is the one who helped her find out Storm had it. 

For legal purposes Externals are different from Highlanders

Jamil distracts Storm by giving her a flashback to the time she hooked up with T'Challa...

In the confusion, Jamil absconds with the gem but not for Candra... he wants it for himself! That's because he's not Jamil at all, but...

What?!?! Storm's old enemy, the Shadow King??! Wow, now things are really about to kick into high gear! Let's keep reading.

Oh, and now the Juggernaut's involved?

But first we detour to the Manhattan nest of Warren and Betsy, where Angel overhears Psylocke in battle with some magic ninjas.

But when he goes to help her, having to go around the long way through the window, everything seems fine.

As they examine what kind of weird stuff is going on with Betsy, Gomurr the Ancient shows up for some cryptic words about the price for using the Crimson Dawn.

Angel doesn't have a chance to say "I know, I already paid it with my love or whatever vague nonsense! This is additional!"

Anyway, back at the Museum, Shadow King brags about stealing the heart of Candra. Storm, however, suspects this so-called Shadow King is not on the level. She freezes him in a blizzard, and when Candra tries to dig him out they find not Jamil, nor the Shadow King but...

Juggy kind of runs off into the night, and Storm deduces that he is not the Shadow King nor the Juggernaut, but that this is all some weird manifestation of Jamil's psychic powers, perhaps amplified by his possession of the stone.

Candra wants to figure it out too... but without Storm, with whom she re-starts her fight. Storm, for her part, handles her business against the millennia-old mutant immortal.

Thus destroying a thousands-of-years-old relic, and also the Temple

Then Cable shows up randomly. Storm asks what he's doing here, and he says, "I'm a telepath and I heard you needed help so I came." Storm's like, "Nah, that doesn't track, you're obviously Jamil again."

Storm runs from Cable and thinks it over -- this isn't Candra's doing, and if it were really Jamil the illusions would probably be more focused on destroying Storm. That leaves only one possibility. This is Karima's doing!

Meanwhile, Cyclops has rounded up the X-Men -- or at least Wolverine and Jean (who has either teleported from Washington, or was never really there and just psychically projected to Sam, who knows.) 

Jean, weirdly, finds herself briefly in an abandoned version of Manhattan...

Before being pulled back to reality and resuming the search for Storm.

Back at the Museum, Candra is looking for Jamil, but Storm has news for her: There is no Jamil. Karima is the one with the mutant psychic powers, and Jamil was just the manifestation of her desire for companionship. This construct also seems to have caught Candra's desire for the Heart, thus leading to everything going FUBAR.

Candra's like "Okay, whatever, just give me the Heart," so Storm says catch...

But whoopsie! It manages to catch a ZARK.

With that, the X-Men have destroyed this impossibly powerful ancient artifact like crushing a tin can, and Candra just disappears.

Cyclops scolds Storm for running off on her own, but Wolverine sticks up for her by saying she knew the other X-Men would be along to help. Storm is like "Uh, yeah, sure I did. Anyway, I'm taking this little girl home now, bye."

Meanwhile in Hong Kong, Sebastian Shaw drinks a toast to life, having been resurrected by the power of being more interesting than his son. Turns out he was never dead!

Aw man, that means a points deduction for Shinobi!

Remember the Game? Is that still going on?

Further Thoughts:

When I heard that they were doing a story with Storm and Candra, I thought it would in some way follow up on Ororo's recent encounter with Gambit in the Morlock Tunnels to further that story, being that Candra has an association with the T'ieves Guild. I was not excited about that but it would have been a chance to further one of the longest-simmering storylines we've got right now about Remy's Dark Secret™. Instead this is 100% personal issue between Storm and Candra, looking into Storm's past, which is rich territory to be sure, but believe it or not I'm at least a little disappointed -- and trust me when I say this is very surprising to me -- that this did not involve the Thieves Guild at all.

This is far from my ideal X-Men story, a little slapdash and with an air of filler, but at least it had the right idea. After weeks of my kvetching that the X-Men don't seem to do anything anymore, we've got a story with a clearly defined antagonist with a clearly defined goal -- and if some of the twists and turns were a little wonky and not clearly laid out, at least it was something concrete and grounded. It came out of nowhere and does nothing to further the numerous ongoing plot threads we are following, but it was a fine -- far from over-achieving but fine and certainly better than it could have been -- little two-parter in monthly comics.