Leading the X-Men gives Ororo a new kind of exposure. Everybody can see what happens when a lightning bolt misses. A decision that leaves a teammate frightened, angry or feeling…

Leading the X-Men gives Ororo a new kind of exposure. Everybody can see what happens when a lightning bolt misses. A decision that leaves a teammate frightened, angry or feeling unheard can be harder to judge, and it still belongs to her. Kitty makes that responsibility especially personal. Their affection is immediate and strong, but Ororo is becoming both a trusted adult and the person who sometimes has to tell her what she cannot do. Caring for Kitty also makes the larger question unavoidable: what does it mean to bring a child into this life? The early stories repeatedly attack Storm's control over herself. The castle confrontation in #145–147 traps her in a chrome form and turns her claustrophobic terror into a dangerous gathering storm. Her teammates have to reach the woman inside the power before the crisis becomes another catastrophe they can only mourn afterward. The White Queen's theft of her body brings a different violation. In #151–152, Ororo has to work through unfamiliar abilities while Emma discovers that having access to the weather doesn't provide Ororo's experience of managing it. The rescue depends heavily on Kitty learning to recognize the person she trusts beneath a face she fears. Then the Brood infection makes even survival a moral problem. Ororo struggles over what she is willing to do about the life growing inside her, and her eventual connection with an Acanti expands her sense of life far beyond the human world. All of this happens to the person expected to keep the others moving. Her leadership develops through those experiences, including the moments when she needs rescue herself. The calm voice still matters, but this period shows how much effort, pain and judgment can sit behind it.