Hi there, everyone! I’m Matt, sometimes known as Monzo. I don’t have a comic strip or anything to link to, but I thought I’d take the time to write to everyone reading this.
Super Powers Firestorm talks to the scientist in his head
Who is Firestorm, the Nuclear Man? He hit the American comic book scene in 1978, co-created by industry stalwarts Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom. They introduced him as a super-powered being born out of a nuclear accident that fused a high school jock (Ronnie Raymond) and an atomic physicist (Martin Stein) at the molecular level; the accident furthermore granted them matter transmuting powers and the ability to split into their original forms. Being negative four at the time, it didn’t really catch my interest, but as it happens the series only lasted five issues anyway.
But that was not the end of Firestorm! He scored himself a gig on the Justice League of America (Conway was writing that too), which, over the course of a few years, both landed him a new ongoing series and raised his profile enough to get him a boot-clad foot into the door of Hanna-Barbera’s Super Friends/Super Powers program. This is where I came in.
I can’t pin down what made me like Firestorm on Super Powers – heck, I’m not even sure how much of the show I originally saw. I’m pretty sure I didn’t see the first season that featured him at all, which cuts out half of his appearances! But he somehow wedged himself in my preschool-age brain, aided I’m sure by my owning his Kenner Super Powers Collection figure.
Brave and the Bold Firestorm talks to the jock in his head. Pretty sure he got the rawer deal!
Years later, when my fondness for the character caused me to pick up back issues of Firestorm from comic store quarter bins… I dunno. I just couldn’t make a connection; what I read didn’t grab me, and so I never tried collecting the rest of his series when I got more “seriously” into comics. I don’t want to say “the comics didn’t live up to my memories of Super Friends”, because that feels, uh, much harsher than I intend… but it basically sizes up what happened for me. I still dig Firestorm in general, but the love only holds up in plastic (DC Universe Classics Firestorm, hurray!) or animation (Batman: Brave and the Bold Firestorm, double hurray!). Such is the way of life and media tie-ins.
Oh, and just to get this out of the way – I’m aware that the Canada-tastic MightyGodKing blog did an article on Firestorm’s incredibly overmatched villains a few years back). Nobody’s going to believe this, but I didn’t find out about the article – or, to be honest, the blog itself – until after I wrote up this strip and was looking for artistic reference for Dave. Logically, this parallel development can only mean one thing: the mediocrity of Firestorm’s villains simply transcends all rational human thought.
Of course, that still puts them one up on ‘60s Daredevil villains…
I find myself being the same way with Firestorm. There are plenty of memories from when I was little when his “Kid Appeal” for the Super friends show had me watching it. Even picked him up when I saw him released through the DC action figure line.
What’s not to like about a guy with flames for hair?
Firestorm – such great powers, such idiotic uses… All I ever remember of this character is seeing him in crossovers, with the floating head nearby saying “OK, remember, water is H2O”… and thinking about what an idiot the main person must be that he couldn’t remember basic chemistry when his powers were based on it…
…actually, I recall his main villainous threat being Typhoon, a guy who was literally a living hurricane. Said villain has shown up every now and then in DC Comics.
Hyena was a were-hyena (and very contagious, one bite turned you) and was not transgendered, it was actually two villains, one an ex-girlfriend and one the ***hole who turned her into one. Add to this that Firestorm can’t affect living tissue, so… Hyena was basically a villain because it hit close to home, not because it was more powerful.
Then there was a walking fusion reactor, and the guy with the opposite powers (energy into energy, not energy into matter), oh, and the serial killer with ice powers, and then there was the Russian Superman-wannabe, ooh, and the guy who absorbed energy and created duplicates of himself (sort of like a souped-up Madrox the Multiple Man), an immortal fire giant that’s a match for Superman, and…
Basically, yes, he did have some really cool villains.
And yes, I am an utterly massive geek.
While most of his villains were of the “painfully lame and ridiculously outclassed” variety, Killer Frost was awesomeness in a ICEE cup. Not only could she freeze objects (like entire city blocks) to absolute zero, she could drain the heat out of Firestorm in a heartbeat. Also she had two mental settings: ordinary psychotic killer and “I ought to be dating the Joker”.
I love Firestorm and found him in the same way you did, but I did enjoy the old comics. They were awful, but I get a kick out of his horrible, horrible rogues gallery. I want every single one in DC Classics.
My knowledge of Firestorm is limited, but I do know Daredevil, and I’ll say this: he was a blind guy. It would be WAY too one-sided if he had to face tougher guys than Stilt-Man, Leapfrog, and Matador.
A blind guy whose superpower…is the ability to see!
I had a Firestorm when I was a kid. No packaging, just the action figure. I guess it was probably the very early 80s.
Since I was a country kid, I had no idea what he was. In fact, I didn’t know until I read this strip! So thanks.
Firestorm’s original run was five issues, and died at the same time as a billion other DC books — the “DC Implosion” — that presaged similar troubles following market flooding that Marvel had in the 90′s. However, in 1982 he got a second run that went through to 1990, as well as other factors and Justice Leaguish stuff afterward. The character got a reboot in 2004.
Firestorm’s most notable villains, were probably Multiplex (who gained fission powers the way Firestorm gained fusion ones), and most notably Killer Frost, who was popular and well utilized enough to make it to Justice League Unlimited among other things. However, the real core of the series was a coming-of-age story where a selfish and self-absorbed scientist and a vapid jock both suddenly had the responsibility of life and death put on their shoulders. In a real sense, the 80′s run of Firestorm was “what if Flash Thompson had become a superhero instead of Peter Parker,” and Ronnie Raymond’s greatest supporting cast contagonist was certainly Cliff Carmichael, who was effectively Peter Parker and who hated Ronnie passionately.
I will acknowledge, however, that Slipknot was a majorly lame supervillain. His one thing going for him was his rope was made out of hemp, so Firestorm couldn’t transmute it or phase through it (Firestorm’s powers, at the time, didn’t work on anything organic). As I recall, it never occurred to Firestorm to just set the damn rope on fire.
Oh, to add — Cliff Carmichael eventually became a Supervillain himself (as “the Thinker”), then went on to be a supporting character in several runs of John Ostrander’s Suicide Squad. Ultimately, he betrayed the Squad, King Faraday and Amanda Waller, and Faraday used his ultimate power against him — shooting Cliff several times in the head.
The ‘subverted Spider Man’ concept was intentional, by the by. Gerry Conway had done an impressive run on Spider Man first, but felt that there was a lot of stuff they hadn’t been able to explore, since… well, Peter had to be the sympathetic character and at the time Flash Thompson had to be the stereotypical jock jerk. By making a not-too-bright but well meaning jock and an intellectual bully, in a college setting where no one really cared how many squat-thrusts Ronnie could do, Conway got to set a lot of stuff on its ear.
(Another notable Firestorm villain: Plastique. The… er… Quebecois separatist terrorist, most notable for being betrayed by Deadshot in the Task Force X episode of JLU and for marrying Captain Atom in the comics.)
Why do I care? Well, because I liked the Firestorm comics. It helped that I liked Pat Broderick’s art, and he was the major artist of the 80′s comics run), but somehow the supporting cast and character arcs of Firestorm worked a lot better than most, for me. Later, they decided to make Firestorm an elemental, kill Dr. Stein (several times), kill Ronnie Raymond, make the other half of Firestorm into a Russian just in time for the Cold War to end, and finally go a completely different direction in the 2000′s, just in time for Dan “I want comics to be exactly like they were when I was 14″ DiDio to bring Ronnie and the Professor back to life and make that whole thing a part of Brightest Day.
Speaking of Brightest Day, I can’t help but wonder if the Black Lantern version of Firestorm wouldn’t count in some way as Firestorm’s greatest foe?
Pillar of salt. <.<;
Huh, I forgot the Russian guy.
The whole elemental thing worked into my pet theory applying neoplatonism to the DC universe, with each “element”, including the Green, the Speed Force (making The Flash a “Speed elemental”), the Godwave, the Morphogenic Field from Animal Man, etc., as aspects emanating ultimately from the Source, which I identified with the neoplatonic Monad. It worked out really well, but then they had to go and break it after 52 by making the Source Wall the barrier between parallel universes.
I love me some Firestorm, but I can see where you are coming from.
I run a Firestorm blog (http://firestormfan.com ) and featured your Shortpacked strip today. Thanks for the laugh!
The Irredeemable Shag
http://firestormfan.com