Storm’s New Brotherhood Can Redeem Her Failure As the Morlocks' Leader
Warning! Spoilers for X-Men Red #1 ahead!
Goddess, Queen, and leader of the X-Men: Storm is a woman of many strengths, and her recent decision to reform the Brotherhood of Mutants is an opportunity for Ororo Munroe to make good on her failure to protect the Morlocks. By forming a new Brotherhood, Storm is creating an Arakii counterbalance for Abigail Brand's Martian X-Men squad. The choice may be radical, but it makes sense for both Ororo and Arakko, and symbolically offers Storm a second chance to redeem her greatest failure.
The Morlocks were introduced in Uncanny X-Men #169 by Chris Claremont and Paul Smith, and are inherently an indictment of Professor X's assimilationist politics. His X-Men are mostly white, often wealthy, and have mutations that still allow them to pass for humans. In contrast, the Morlocks are mostly impoverished people with visible mutations, and they are seen as useless to Xavier and wider human society. However, the Morlocks' greatest tragedy was not neglect, but being the target of the Mutant Massacre. Therein lies Storm's great failure: she was the leader of the Morlocks at the time of the Massacre, and was unable to protect those in her care who were most in need. This loss makes Ororo's role as Regent of Arakko more significant than ever.
Related: Storm Debuts Her Iconic New Costume in X-Men Red #1
The choice to relocate Arakko from Earth to her sister planet after the first Hellfire Gala could be seen as a move to protect Earth from Arakki mutants. This may be true to a degree, but more than that planet Arakko is an opportunity for these mutants to define themselves as a community free from war. This function is not unlike Krakoa's own haven for the mutants of Earth, or the Morlocks'
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