In every installment of “If I Pass This Way Again,” we look at odd comic book plot points that were rarely (sometimes NEVER!) mentioned again after they were first introduced.

Today, we look at Storm's apparently many adventures with a woman named M'Rinn in a far off dimension!

As you may or may not know, in the mid-1980s, Marvel began to reprint the adventures of the All-New, All-Different X-Men in a monthly comic book series called Classic X-Men. The twist with Classic X-Men is that, rather than simply reprint the stories, each issue also include a 10 or so page back-up story by Chris Claremont (and typically artist John Bolton) that would give up further background on the various X-Men characters. These stories would come in two different varieties. There were the flashback spotlight stories, tales of character's past that offer background on a character in the issue that does not connect directly to the plot of the issue being reprinted, but offers insight into a character who appears in that issue (like, if Magneto was in the issue, the back-up could tell a flashback story about Magneto) and there were the continuity insert stories. These were extra stories that were meant to slip in among the narrative of the old stories. Of course, the funny part of it all was that these continuity inserts rarely fit in smoothly. Claremont, in particular, used these continuity inserts to retroactively reveal that Jean Grey was actually hot for Wolverine at the same time that he was hot for her. In the original comic books, she never gives him a thought, but now she is all about Wolverine and just manages to hold herself back.

One of the odder continuity inserts took place in Classic X-Men #22 (by Claremont and John Bolton) and it is set after the X-Men's adventure in the Savage Land. Storm decides to go off on her own and explore the Savage Land before they head off to their next stop on their journey back home. She sees a dinosaur pulls a woman underwater and Storm goes to save her...

She saves her, but she almost dies in the process. Instead, STORM is the one who is saved when they then travel through an interdimensional portal and land on a new world, where the woman Storm saved is quite grateful. Her name is M'Rin and she wants Storm to enjoy this new, fantastical world...

They have some fun and party together...

Oddly enough, despite not looking it, M'Rin is apparently supposed to be old enough to be Storm's mother and they have a mother/daughter thing going on and she wants Storm to stay forever there, but Storm has to get back to the X-Men. As they part, M'Rinn gives her a cameo that allows her to go back to this dimension whenever she wants to...

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One of the benefits of this method of continuity inserts for Claremont is that he could come up with an idea in one month, have the Classic X-Men backup establish it as part of a character's continuity and then tie into it in the regular book right away and say, "Oh, you didn't know this was part of this character's back story all along?"

That's precisely what Claremont did in Uncanny X-Men Annual #12, a tie-in with the Evolutionary War that really sort of spoiled the whole "Arthur Adams doing art for X-Men Annuals" thing, as it seems like such a waste to have Adams draw a tie-in to something like the Evolutionary War. Luckily, Claremont tries to do something different with it.

The X-Men travel to the Savage Land, where Terminus has seemingly wiped out much of the populace.

It turns out that, instead, M'Rin has saved the people by bringing them to her dimension and the X-Men follow...

Note that this reveals that Storm has returned to this dimension MULTIPLE times for a number of adventures. It would be interesting to see some of those adventures in the future. Essentially Storm as John Carter of Mars.

In any event, the people of M'rin's dimension help the X-Men take down Terminus...

Terminus turns out to be Garokk (from the previous Savage Land story that was reprinted in Classic X-Men #22) and Storm and M'Rin say goodbye again...

I believe M'Rin has not appeared since, THIRTY YEARS later.

I wonder if Storm still has the cameo?

If anyone else has a suggestion for an interesting plot point that was introduced and then almost instantaneously ignored, drop me a line at brianc@cbr.com!