Bloodstorm

Tell your folks: A mutant and proficient thief, Ororo Munro [sic] was targeted by Dracula and transformed into a vampire known as Bloodstorm. Yes she was! But not in the 616 reality. Earth-1298 doesn't have a hard divergance from Earth-616 the way, say, the Age of Apocalypse does, but we know things began drifting pretty early on. One of the changes was that when Storm met Dracula (yes, that's something that happened in the real comics) she was not able to resist his will after being bitten, and so became a full vampire. She regained her own mind only later, and though she stayed away from the X-Men for years, she eventually joined with Xavier's original X-Men to form a team known as The Six, using her vampire and mutant powers alike to help protect a world that hates and fears them. Bloodstorm is a smart collection of new and reused parts. Considering she wears a variation of Storm's "punk" look, it's not a surprise that she'd have the jeans and jacket sleeves from Jessica Jones, but it is surprising that the jacket itself is new. As are her belt and the bandeau top she's wearing, which are based directly on the art in the comics. If you slide the jacket off (no real reason to, since she'd still have sleeves and not bare arms), even the back of her bustier matches what was drawn on the page. Highly unexpected! A second version of Bloodstorm showed up when the original X-Men were living in the present, but she was younger, like them (which made it not-creepy that she and Cyclops had a mutual attraction). If there were any question that this is the late-90s Mutant X version of the character, the facial sculpt couldn't be any more blatantly based on the art of Tom Raney if it tried. I'm not always a big fan of his, but it's impressive how well his style shows through despite the change in mediums. The figure includes two heads, one angry and one calm. They both have her gold hoop earrings and her mohawk/​ponytail combo, though the angry head has the mouth open to show off her fangs, while the calm one just has the fangs poking slightly out between her lips. Amusingly, losing her temper apparently also makes her mohawk stand up slightly, rather than laying down against her scalp. Considering the way that ponytail is moving more to the side, perhaps it's meant to be wind. Both heads get nicely painted red eyes. Although she still has the same weather powers as regular Storm, Bloodstorm doesn't come with any lightning effects or anything, just alternate "gesturing" or "clawing" hands. The action figure moves at the ankles, knees, thighs, hips, waist, chest, wrists, elbows, shoulders, neck, and head. Although this torso is new, she still gets the hinged neck and balljointed head, which is always a better choice than a barbell. There's no hole in her back, so if you want to make her fly, you'll need to find some other kind of stand to hold her up. Having both a swivel waist and a balljointed chest seems like overkill, but better too much than too little, eh? Bloodstorm includes the entire torso and tail of this series' Build-A-Figure, Blackheart, just like '80s Storm included the entire torso of Apocalypse. Though Apocalypse didn't have a tail. Bloodstorm may be the only Mutant X toy we have so far, but then, Multiple Man was at one point the only member we had of X-Factor, and look how that turned out! Even if they don't make the Brute or the Fallen anytime soon, she's a good Legend even on her own. -- 03/05/25 Would you rather get more figures from Mutant X, or the Hex-Men? Tell us on our message board, the Loafing Lounge.