Oh man, you just reminded me of the Mystic Arcana series we got and that ALMOST led to more magic Storm, years ago. I wanna say it was around....2008 or 2009 or so? I had friends who worked in the X-office back then and would give me some pretty reliable scoops, and I know for a time - when they were still trying to figure out how to handle Wanda's character post House of M, before they did Young Avengers Children's Crusade and then fully brought her back into the fold with Avengers vs X-Men - anyway, there was at one point plans that they actually STARTED to go through with, releasing the four one-shots that made up
the Mystic Arcana linked series. The Magik one-shot featured the Sword of Bone (the Cornerstone of Creation representing the element of Air) and had Illyana meet an ancestor of Ororo's, and delved into the whole link between her bloodline and Oshtur. And then there were three other one-shots for Black Knight, Wanda and Nico Minoru.
The thing is, this series of one-shots was originally just intended to be a precursor to a whole direction they were thinking of doing, that made the magic side of the Marvel Universe more focused on and front and center than it'd ever been previously. I don't know why they changed course, but I'm pretty sure it had to do with plans for the MCU and the fact that they didn't intend to focus on any mystical franchises in the Phase 1 movies and so didn't want to make them a heavy focus in the comics if they weren't going to be doing anything with them in the movies either. But anyway, point being.....there was briefly a whole plan to have Wanda's 'redemption' in the comics come in the form of replacing Dr. Strange as the Sorcerer Supreme. Like the whole storyline where Jericho Drumm became the Sorcerer Supreme after the Eye of Agomotto abandoned Dr. Strange and chose him instead? Yeah, originally it was supposed to go to Wanda, and there was gonna be a whole thing about how nobody was really happy or trusting about her being Sorceress Supreme but like, it wasn't up to them and the power had gone to her regardless, yada yada yada.
Anyway, it was well over a decade ago and I don't remember the specifics at all, I just was reminded of it by your mention of Mystic Arcana because I just remember how bummed I was when those four one-shots were all we got, because I remembered my friends talking up how excited they were by all the big plans Marvel writers/editorial were working on for the various magic characters. It was supposed to lead into Magik returning to the comics in a different way than we actually got, and Wanda kinda rallying the various other sorceresses/female magic-users of the Marvel universe into helping her fulfill her duties as Sorceress Supreme when none of the major heroes had any confidence in her, and thus a kind of de facto alliance of Wanda, Illyana, Sersi, Nico and a couple others. And I know there weren't like, plans to make Ororo a full sorceress or anything, but there WAS mention of her being more involved in a sequel series to Magik's Book of Air adventure, that at least put Storm directly in connection to a couple big magic plots, via the stuff with her ancestral bloodline, and so at the least we would've gotten more about her connection to Oshtur, I'm pretty sure. Ugh. What could've been.
Anyway. Largely pointless ramble, even by my standards, but this comment made me get my Nostalgia on.
Aside from the big 'everyone in the universe died' event stories like Secret Wars, which like you said don't really count, lol, the only death I can remember for her is right before the Outback era, when she was one of the X-Men who briefly died when Forge used all their life essences to defeat the Adversary. They were all resurrected almost immediately by Roma - and tbh, given that Roma's magic stems from Otherworld and Gaea's own magic/essence, its an easy hop from her to Oshtur and like, you could pretty easily spin some take where Ororo's own connection to the Elder Goddesses helped give Roma the 'hook' she needed to be able to bring them all back as simply as she did. Its not like Roma tends to go around resurrecting people all willy-nilly, it was pretty much just that one time.
As to other topics from the past few pages....
I agree Storm would have trouble with Wanda given the sheer boundlessness of how Wanda's reality warping/chaos magic has been used to make pretty much all kinds of major events or stories happen....but that doesn't mean that its still not blatantly obvious there's an element of 'we all know why' when it comes to how its not just Storm, there's pretty much no major black character that Marvel is likely to stand by as someone who could go toe to toe with Wanda or other characters of a similar profile. Its a huge part of why I'm impatient for them to hurry up and confirm Synch is omega, because as we've stated before, the lack of characters of color on that omega list definitely stands out.....even though there's more than a few obscure or lesser known black mutants who could EASILY be brought back and clarified as omega level. Like, pretty much all the white mutant reality warpers are confirmed as omega or might-as-well-be....but there's definitely been a few black reality warping mutants who are just as plausibly on that same level:
Joseph Calhoun
William Evans, Jr.
Like, either of them could easily be the equal to Proteus or Jamie Braddock, or potentially even on the same level as Wanda. Willie was introduced as someone who might grow up to be on par with Molecule Man, who Marvel frequently depicts as being god-tier.
And speaking of being able to take on Dr. Strange, that pretty instantly reminded me of Alpha Flight character Laura Dean aka
Pathway....a teleporter who would be easy to classify as omega level, given her ability to open interdimensional portals and pathways has canonically stumped even Dr. Strange's ability to follow or find her.
Has the superhuman psionic ability to open portals into other dimensions at will. She can mentally close any interdimensional portal that she has used. She can also make portals to travel all across the world, as well as has the skill level to open portals underneath people making her opponents to fall into them. She can also create portals to empty pocket dimensions. Her skill level is so great, that Dr. Strange nearly died trying to probe the interdimensional crossroads trying to find her with no luck.
Like I've said before, I don't think who can beat whom is necessarily the best or only measure of a character's power, even (or especially with omegas), as the specific nature of various omegas' powersets lend some to having direct advantages over others, while still being on mostly the same 'level' of power overall. But its unavoidable that as long as Storm remains basically the only PoC on the Krakoan omega list (let alone woman of color), there's a scrutiny paid to her that the other omegas don't have to deal with. Like, it doesn't feel like there's as much 'pressure' on omegas like Hope, Bobby, or Vulcan to prove how powerful they are and thus 'worthy' of being considered omegas, even if they can't actually beat every other omega on the list. Whereas every character Storm isn't
guaranteed to beat, gets raised as a point against her power level or omega status.
If Marvel would unclench and boost the profile/visibility of other black mutants, however, so that Storm isn't holding down the omega list solo....but rather is just one of several black omega mutants along with Synch, Joseph Calhoun, Willie Evans, Pathway, etc.....with each of them having their own list of other omegas or uber-powerful Marvel characters they could take down.....then there's less pressure put on Storm to 'prove' how powerful she is every time discussions about omegas or most powerful mutants get raised. It makes it that much easier to just...treat that as a given, much like is the case with characters like Elixir, Magneto and Exodus.