Kistler's History of Firestorm
Saturday, September 12, 2009 at 01:31PM Before we begin, I want to thank writers Michael A. Burstein and Bob Greenberger for their invaluable/helpful contributions to this article and its research. Thanks, guys!
OUR HEROES IN A NUTSHELL
With rare exception, the power of Firestorm is such that it's meant to be wielded not by one heroic person but by two working in conjunction.
It began when a teenager named Ronnie Raymond was caught in a nuclear explosion along with Professor Martin Stein. Rather than being atomized, the two were fused into a super-powered being who could fly, fire energy blasts and rearrange matter at will: Firestorm, the "nuclear man." With Ronnie as the dominant personality, Firestorm became a formidable super-hero and for a time he served alongside the Justice League of America as its youngest member at the time.
Eventually, it was discovered that the nuclear explosion which created Firestorm had been intended to turn Martin Stein into a fire elemental. Ronnie's presence had been accidental and disrupted the process. When Stein at last received the power he was always meant to have, he became an elemental and used his great powers to find a new life in the stars. Ronnie was left on Earth, powerless and human. Later on, Stein gave the young man a portion of his cosmic power, allowing Ronnie to now become Firestorm all by himself at will. Without the guidance of Professor Stein, Ronnie now had a harder time operating as a super-hero but still gave it his best. Eventually though, he was killed in battle.
But energy cannot be destroyed. And so, even with Ronnie's death, the power of Firestorm didn't simply go away. Instead, it journeyed outward until it found a new host: teenager Jason Thomas Rusch. After merging with a variety of different people to help activate and stabilize his powers, Jason now fuses with his girlfriend Gehenna whenever he needs to become the nuclear-powered super-hero. Like Ronnie before him, he has served alongside the Justice League and has gained a mentor in Martin Stein, who has recently returned to Earth and is once again a normal human being. What will happen to Jason next remains to be seen, but he's having a fun time while he's at it.
A lot of heroes have trouble at times balancing between their two lives. They’ll be on a date and then a super-villain will tear through the city and they have to think of some excuse to give their friends or co-workers about why they suddenly need to leave, etc. Well, imagine how much more difficult it would be if you not only had to balance your own double-life, but also the life of another person entirely.
That's the basics. Want the full story? Read on ...
RONNIE AND MARTIN
Two divorced men, one is messy, one is neat … no, just kidding. The duo we're speaking of is not Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon but rather Ronald Raymond and Prof. Martin Stein, the odd couple of super-hero stories.
Created by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom, Firestorm was not just a hero but a story about two men coming into each other's lives in a rather unique way. Martin Stein was a Nobel Prize-winning scientist at the top of his field, working at the Hudson Nuclear Facility in New York. Ronnie Raymond was a high school student living in New York. He was a good guy and a pretty good football player, but in terms of grade he was never up to par (which I can relate to, having been very disinterested in most of my classes before college).
Ronnie had won the attention of a smart and pretty girl named Doreen Day. And this particular girl was the object of desire for a grade A student/jerk named Cliff Carmichael, who immediately decided that Ronnie was his rival. Ronnie felt like Cliff made him look stupid and decided he had to figure out some way to impress Doreen so she'd think otherwise (an amazingly realistic portrayal of the limited mind of many teenage males, sadly).
A new experimental nuclear facility had gotten the attention of many a protestor. Ronnie decided to join this group, feeling it would show he was both politically savvy and sensitive to major issues. The group was called the Coalition to Resist Atomic Power (or C.R.A.P., if you will) and was led by Eddie Earhart, who was actually using the group as a cover for criminal activities.
While this was going on, Professor Stein was having troubles of his own. He was in charge of the nuclear facility's design, having engineered the place to be completely safe and automated. But at the last second, his former assistant Danton Black entered the room. Black was a petty man whom Stein had fired when he’d been a miserable lab assistant. He now claimed that the experimental facility was HIS design and that Stein had stolen it. The plant was to be delayed in its opening while the matter was investigated.
But Stein refused to this happen, fearing that no matter what explanation was given, it would cause the public to believe that the only reason a nuclear plant was delayed was because his promise of it being "safe" plant was obviously a false one. As soon as he was alone, he began the plant’s automatic activation sequence.
It was here that Ronnie Raymond came into Martin Stein's life. It turned out Earhart was actually planning on blowing up the plant, pinning the crime on Ronnie who would be left behind to die in the explosion. Stein stumbled onto Earhart and his group and tried to ward them off, aided by Ronnie who refused to be a part of anything that risked actually hurting people. Stein and Ronnie were over-powered and knocked out. They were left next to the reactor, with the bomb lying beside them. Ronnie woke up just seconds before the bomb went off. The explosion breached the reactor and caused an atomic blast.
You'd think these two men would be goners due to the whole atomization/disintegration thing that happens when a human being is caught in ground zero of such a blast. But instead, the nuclear energies somehow fused them into a new being of incredible power, a glowing being of atomic energy with flaming hair. What’s more, he heard Prof. Stein's consciousness in the back of his mind. Stein seemed almost unreasonably calm considering the situation (being reduced to a telepathic presence while his body was fused with a teenager he didn't know). He even had enough poise to explain to Ronnie that the young man was the dominant persona of the matrix that made up their composite being because Ronnie had been the only one conscious during the blast.
Ronnie realized that this new fused body he now possessed had quite a few abilities. He could fly and had great strength and resiliency. He could emit energy blasts from his hands (which he called his "fusion blasts") and alter his molecular state to become intangible. He could phase through solid matter.
The most interesting and soon to become most famous power was the ability to rearrange inorganic matter. In his new super-powered form, Ronnie had "quark vision" which allowed him to see the atomic structure of everything around him. As a scientist, Stein could then guide Ronnie on how to alter the structures, transmuting the inorganic matter in a variety of ways to achieve different effects. Not only was this a unique partnership in super-hero comics, but it was a fun way of giving readers lessons in basic science.
Believing he needed a cool outfit (wouldn't YOU think that if you were a teenage guy and suddenly had incredible super-powers?), Ronnie used his matter-rearranging abilities to create a costume out of the air molecules around him, based on a design he quickly thought of in his mind. Years later, Grant Morrison would comment that this costume made Firestorm look like a "Las Vegas performer" and many have shared this sentiment. But you have to admit, it was certainly eye-catching.
RONNIE: "Since I've got the powers of some crazy kind of super-hero, I might as well have the duds to match! What is it you call the aftermath of an atomic explosion? A firestorm! That's it! That’s what I'll call myself — FIRESTORM, THE NUCLEAR MAN!"
After bringing Earhart to justice, Ronnie saw his reflection and freaked out when he saw his strange new face, glowing eyes and flaming hair. Through force of will, he reverted back to normal, forcing Martin Stein to separate from him in the process. Helping Stein off the ground, Ronnie realized that the professor had no memory of their time together as a fused entity. As far as the professor was concerned, he'd just blacked out.
And so it began. Whenever he saw there was trouble, Ronnie would duck into a corner and will himself to become Firestorm. And wherever Martin Stein was at that time, he'd simply vanish away as he was transported to wherever Ronnie was, forced to join in the fusion. With a flash of light, the two would be merged into one and Firestorm would be back in action again.
Each time Firestorm separated again, Stein would have no memory of what he'd been doing for the past several minutes or hours and had no idea why he'd randomly woken up somewhere else with Ronnie Raymond close by. It was only when they re-fused into a super-hero that he would again be aware of his double-life as Ronnie's aid.
Unbeknownst to Ronnie or Martin Stein at the time, Danton Black had still been in the facility and had likewise been caught in the blast. Rather than merging with someone else to become a fused entity, Black gained the ability to absorb energy from outside sources and then use it to split off into two or more copies of himself. The more "duploids" he created, the smaller they all were, due to the fact that he couldn't create extra mass (there's that science lesson again).
With this strange new power, Black now called himself Multiplex and became a regular enemy to our composite hero.
Eventually, Ronnie came clean to Martin about their strange super-hero situation and the two began a strange friendship. Although Martin felt he was doing good as Firestorm, and now remembered his time spent fused with Ronnie, he still had to deal with the fact that, no matter what he was doing, he could be instantly transported away because somewhere else Ronnie had spotted trouble and simply reacted. On the flipside, the knowledge of Firestorm meant that Stein could now cause the transformation himself if he likewise found trouble, meaning that occasionally Ronnie got to experience the frustrating experience of being teleported miles away and forced into battle with no warning.
FURTHER DEVELOPMENTS
Firestorm had been part of the "DC Explosion" that was meant to introduce a whole slew of new comics and characters. Sadly, sales and related things led to DC having to go back on this, and fans called what happened next the "DC implosion" as various new titles vanished, Firestorm included. Gerry Conway started putting Firestorm in back-up stories of Flash comics.
In the new Firestorm series, Conway tried to add a "Spider-Man sense of fun” that he felt had been lacking in the old series. While fused, Martin and Ronnie would often banter and argue in rather amusing ways, as Stein would try to rein in the well-meaning, but occasionally over-reactive teen while Ronnie would simultaneously be telling the older man to lighten up and stop over-thinking things. This rather unique secret identity gimmick made Firestorm a favorite among many fans. Much as he wanted to at times, Ronnie couldn’t ignore Martin's voice in his head. By the same token though, he was never alone, as Martin was there to offer advice and help when he needed to.
Martin Stein eventually got more character development. It was revealed that he'd been a man desperately trying to rebuild his reputation after personal difficulties such as a drinking problem and troubles with his wife who later left him. We also learned about two students of his, Crystal Frost and Louise Lincoln. Crystal Frost had quite a crush on Martin, which would later come back to bite him when the girl became the villain Killer Frost. More on her in a bit.
In light of some of this new information concerning his personal troubles and feelings of inadequacy, it was clear that Stein's refusal to let an investigation delay his experimental plant's activation had not been arrogance so much as a desperate need to prove himself again.
And it turned out there was more to Ronnie's family than met the eye. Apparently, Ronnie's birth name had been Ronnie Rockwell. But years ago, his father Ed had been testifying against a gangster named "Shoe" Shine who later bombed the Rockwell's car, killing Ronnie's mother. Thus, Ed Rockwell took his son into witness protection. For whatever reason, only their surnames were changed and apparently they didn't move that far away from their original home because it was stated that the Rockwells had merely lived elsewhere in New York state. Hmmm. Sounds like something to retcon/revise slightly if anyone ever has the inclination.
THE RIVALS
Firestorm had a small personal rogues gallery. There was Multiplex, as mentioned before. There was the Hyena AKA Doreen's sister Summer Day who operated as a vigilante. Later, her psychiatrist became the second Hyena, except he was a straight-up villain, not to mention a vicious hyena-man.
Another villain was the Weasel, who was ... well, a vicious weasel-man. There was also Slip-Knot, a deadly killer who used nooses as his trademark. And Plastique, an explosive-themed villain who, years later, would reform and become the love of the hero Captain Atom.
One of the major baddies was the water-based shape-shifter Typhoon, able to control the weather. He actually made his first appearance in Cancelled Comics Cavalcade, but when he was later introduced in the main Firestorm title His origin was altered a bit and the story seemed to retcon away the earlier appearance.
The new origin made Typhoon more interesting, revealing that he was motivated to reunite with his children who had been separated from him by his ex-wife. This, along with his ruthlessness and raw power, made him a fan-favorite for many.
One of the nuclear man's biggest villains was Crystal Frost AKA Killer Frost, who was later succeeded by her friend Louise Lincoln who became the second Killer Frost. Crystal Frost had an unhealthy obsession with Martin Stein and an accident left her with ice-powers, along with the need to feed off the heat energy of others, making her a sort of vampire.
After her Crystal's death, her friend Louise convinced herself that she would give "Killer Frost" a second life by continuing the career.
And hey, remember that jerk Cliff Carmichael? Well, that guy continued his attempts to discredit and get the better of Ronnie Raymond. A few times, he came close to realizing Raymond was actually Firestorm, but instead conluded that the super-hero may have been a friend of Ronnie's who looked out for him from time to time.
When Ronnie still came out on top again and again despite Cliff's efforts, sometimes seemingly with the help of Firestorm, Carmichael's frustration with the good-looking jock turned into a serious obsession. At one point, he cut the strap of Ronnie’s football helmet, hoping our hero would get hurt during the next game when the helmet came loose. But the helmet was used by Cliff’s cousin Hugo instead and when it came loose, it led to the kid getting paralyzed during a game.
Cliff was traumatized by his failed revenge hurting his cousin instead, so he went to a rooftop and contemplated suicide. A storm was raging and the winds knocked him off the ledge. Firestorm flew up and saved Cliff. The suicide attempt led the authorities to conclude Cliff was unstable, especially when he began to bllame Ronnie for his attempted suicide and all of his other misfortunes. All this led to Carmichael being sent to a mental institution.
What happened to Cliff next? We'll get to that in a bit.
ALLIES AND CHANGING TIMES
Ronnie and Martin weren't completely surrounded by villains, however. One attempt by Firestorm's enemies to create a villain actually wound up giving him an ally. Lorraine Reilly was genetically engineered into the being Firehawk. Although she did not have to fused with another person to activate her super-powered form, she had abilities very similar to Firestorm. The two became allies and were involved romantically for a time.
Though some may have seen him as a second-stringer, Firestorm often proved how formidable he was to readers. In fact, in one adventure, Firestorm was forced to fight against the entire Justice League of America and did quite an impressive job holding them all off for a short time all by his lonesome. Since Gerry Conway was also the writer for the Justice League of America, he had Firestorm join the team after impressing Superman with his abilities.
After operating as a hero for some time, Ronnie eventually went to college in Pittsburgh, where Martin Stein got a job as a teacher. The two divided their time between classes and JLA meetings. Ronnie was a rookie on the team, but was also able to pull his own weight and had some good stories lent to him. When the Red Tornado realized he was not merely an android, but an elemental spirit housed inside an android body, Ronnie was the only Leaguer to learn this truth and helped Reddy come to terms with it all.
And there were other perks to being a Justice Leaguer. Whenever the JLA teamed-up with their predecessor the Justice Society of America, DC's first super-hero team (and the first super-hero team in comics history), Ronnie always jumped at the change to flirt with the JSA's youngest member Power Girl.
Eventually, since more and more often several of its members weren't showing up for missions because of personal matters and concerns, the JLA disbanded. The League then reformed into a new smaller team that was based in Detroit. Firestorm did not join this team, deciding to become a solo hero once again (if you can accurately describe a composite being as ever being "solo").
As time went on though, reader interest in Firestorm began to flounder. He was a fun young hero, yes, but it was beginning to feel to some people as if he would stay that way and not grow up.
DC then published one of its most famous stories, and certainly its most famous crossover, Crisis on Infinite Earths. During this story which involved the entire multiverse being at risk, Firehawk got herself a new costume and Ronnie had to deal with Killer Frost having her mind telepathically altered so that she was temporarily in love with him.
Before Crisis on Infinite Earths (which would later be called the "First Crisis"), DC Comics had wound up with a full-blown multiverse. Not only had the company created a few parallel universes for different original characters (such as the Crime Syndicate of Earth-3, evil counterparts of the Justice League), but every time they bought a smaller comic book company that company's characters would be said to live in yet another alternate universe. For instance, super-heroes of the comic book company Charlton Comics were said to live on Earth-4 after DC bought the rights to those characters from Charlton.
At the end of the Crisis, these smaller universes were merged into the mainstream DC Universe. Continuity was altered and history re-written here and there so that, as far as canon was concerned, these various heroes and villains had now always inhabited the same universe. This was DC's way of attempting to simplify their fictional reality for new readers and since history was being re-written, it allowed them to do some house cleaning and do away with any stories or ideas that they felt simply didn't work anymore.
As a result of this continuity revamp, Firestorm got a new rival of sorts. Before the Crisis, Captain Atom was a nuclear powered hero who inhabited Earth-4. In the new continuity, Captain Atom was a man with quantum powers and was just now making his debut as a new hero. Due to his name and remarks he made to reporters, most of the public saw him as a nuclear-based hero rather than as someone who used quantum energy in a variety of ways. As an agent of the military, Captain Atom was given serious public relations management and was sold to the American people as a charismatic, upstanding hero.
With all this, young Firestorm couldn't help but be jealous of this new kid on the block who seemed to be stealing his thunder as a "nuclear man" and was already seemingly more popular with the public. This led to a small fight between the two heroes and even after they settled things, Ronnie still looked at the silver-skinned Captain as a rival, even if he knew they were both fighting on the same side.
And what about Ronnie's true villains and rivals? Well, writer John Ostrander wound up using some of Firestorm's old baddies in his Suicide Squad title. The series featured "Task Force X", affectionately referred to by its members as the "Suicide Squad."
The Suicide Squad was a government-sanctioned covert force that utilized super-criminals as agents, sending them into missions where they needed firepower but didn’t want to risk either valuable/loyal agents or being found out by the public. By using criminals who were offered shorter prison terms in exchange for their services, the government risked no one deemed "valuable" and could also disavow any action that the criminal took.
Firestorm's enemy Slip-Knot joined the Squad, only to lose an arm during a mission. Multiplex joined the Squad and then was seemingly killed by the villain called Parasite. Some fans who’d were upset about the changes Ostrander later made to Firestorm (which we’ll get to soon), considered these events in Suicide Squad as proof that the man simply hated the Firestorm characters as a whole. I think that’s a bit of cynical, frankly.
Cliff Carmichael later volunteered for a meta-human experimentation program. His experiments involved use of the "thinking cap" that had enhanced the brain-power of the Golden Age villain known as the Thinker. Cliff studied the tech and made chips based on it that he then implanted into his brain. As a result, Cliff (sometimes referred to as Thinker II) became a literal "cyber-punk", with genius-level intellect and limited mind-control abilities. He joined the Suicide Squad himself afterwards, eventually betraying the team and then escaping. He wouldn’t be seen again for a number of years.
ELEMENTAL CHANGES
The mid-1980's began a dark time for super-hero comics. After the successes of Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns (featuring an older, less mentally stable Batman coming out of retirement in a dystopian future) and The Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons (featuring Charlton Comic character analogues in a deconstructionist view of the super-hero genre), as well as other succesful dark stories, it was believed by man that super-hero comics needed to be more "realistic" for the modern reader. And many took "realistic" to mean "darker" and "more violent" and "more tragic."
Firestorm was certainly affected by this attitude. Ronnie's carefree ways were tested and thrown back in his face when he handled new menaces and threats, such as his father suddenly missing or friends being threatened in new, terrible ways. And Martin Stein became more and more angsty about having to sacrifice so much of his life and personal time in order to be the second wheel of a fused super-hero.
Eventually, John Ostrander took up writing chores for Firestorm. In later years, Ostrander would become known for doing series in which he tried to make characters of incredible power and focus on how emotionally interesting they were, as seen when he became the writer of the acclaimed Spectre series and Martian Manhunter series. Tom Mandrake did the art for both of those series and joined Ostrander as penciler for Firestorm. With the nuclear man though, rather than take the previously established character and try to work with what was there, Ostrander decided to throw things onto an entirely new course.
It began when Martin Stein realized he had a brain tumor, possibly due to the radiation effects of constantly merging with Ronnie into Firestorm. He and Ronnie spoke about his oncoming death and Martin mentioned that he wanted to do one last great act for humanity before he died. He convinced Ronnie that the Cold War needed to be stopped somehow (this was the mid 1980s, remember).
And so, Firestorm publicly demanded the destruction of all the nuclear weapons in both the U.S. and Russia or else he'd do it himself. After fighting the Justice League and local forces, our hero was confronted by a Russian metahuman named Mikhail Arkadin AKA Pozhar, whose powers were also radiation-based.
As Pozhar and Firestorm battled in the Nevada desert, the US government decided that the nuclear man had become a threat. They dropped a nuke over the area that Firestorm adn Pozhar were fighting in and the whole place was blasted away.
And here's where things start to get tricky.
Somehow, a new version Firestorm was created, one with a completely different appearance and nature. Whereas before Ronnie and Martin had been the two people making up the combined "Firestorm Matrix", this new being was composed of a fusion between Ronnie and Mikhail. The nuclear blast had not only fused these two into a new version of Firestorm, but it had somehow separated and transported Martin Stein safely several miles away. Though amnesiac for a time, Martin was able to telepathically control the new Firestorm despite the distance between them and so the nuclear hero continued to pursue an agenda of forced nuclear disarmament.
The new Firestorm was not just another super-hero. He was a philosopher, seemingly detached from basic human emotions and his stories dealt heavily with social issues and Cold War politics. One excellent example of the new Firestorm's personality was shown in a Neil Gaiman story published in Swamp Thing Annual #5. The hero was asked by government agent Sarge Steel to stop a falling satellite from striking Earth and causing a lot of damage. Gaiman described this new Firestorm as "a man who was no longer a man. His humanity had been burned away long since; and the heart that blazed inside him was a heart of flame. If it was a heart at all."
Firestorm attempted to stop the sattelite's descent but found that something was disabling his powers (due to the fact that there was an elemental spirit aboard the satellite, something our hero was unaware of). Rather than rush to discover what else he could do to stop the satellite or call for help or even alert the area to evacuate the incoming crash site, the new Firestorm went to a phone and simply told Sarge Steel that he was sorry, but he was unable to do anything (he also made it a point to tell Steel that he had been doing the man a favor and didn't take orders from anyone). When Sarge Steel asked where the satellite was now, Firestorm merely remarked that it was probably still falling towards Earth and hopefully would land harmlessly in Tampa.
About that very moment, the thing hit Tampa with the force of a large meteor. The new Firestorm didn't rush to see who he could save or what he could do. Instead, he simply continued speaking on the phone: "Did you hear that, Steel? That was Tampa. I fear I must tender my apologies. I trust your luck will improve in the future. Good-bye." And with that, he flew off, not interested in what was going on or how the satellite had counter-acted his powers. It wasn't his problem.
Many fans were outraged that a character they had known for years had been altered into someone completely different. Others who felt this way at first came to think that this was an interesting way of injecting some life into a declining series. I spoke to multiple Nebula and Hugo award-nominee writer Michael A. Burstein on this matter and asked him his opinion, considering he is a big Firestorm fan. He commented that while he was originally upset, he came to believe that such a change was necessary for Firestorm to evolve as a character.
I believe a parallel can be made to when DC had the Green Lantern Hal Jordan replaced with Kyle Rayner. Some hated it, some found it interesting, but the biggest thing was that at least people were talking about the title again. The same was true when Ostrander changed Firestorm. However, the buzz died down and readers weren't showing enough interest to save the title. And so, it was decided that the series would end with its 100th issue.
By this last story, some truths finally came out. Firestorm was not just a super-hero. He was an Earth elemental. Or at least, he'd been meant to be.
Try and follow me here. First, let's backtrack to some years before when Alan Moore was writing Swamp Thing. For you who don’t know, Swamp Thing was originally created as yet another man-trapped-in-the-body-of-a-monster story. Alec Holland was a scientist who died when his lab was set ablaze. His body on fire, he'd leapt into the swamp to douse himself and the swamp waters apparently reacted with chemicals he'd been working with, turning him into a plant-like creature called the Swamp Thing.
When Alan Moore became the writer of Swamp Thing years later, he flipped things around by revealed that the Swamp Thing was not Alec Holland. Alec Holland was dead. The Swamp Thing creature was actually a plant elemental that had been born that night and taken on Holland's memories, just as each plant elemental was born when a man died in fire, taking on their traits in order to give them a sense of humanity. Years later, in the aforementioned Swamp Thing Annual, writer Neil Gaiman showed that apparently a doll called Brother Power had been consumed in fire by a lightning strike and this event had inadvertently given birth to a rogue elemental based on the doll's form.
So taking the idea that Earth elementals were born out of fire and explosive force, Ostrander revealed that Firestorm was an elemental as well. Or at least, he should have been. Martin Stein was supposed to have died in the blast of nuclear fire when the experimental plant blew up and would then ahve been reborn as Earth's fire elemental (unlike Swamp Thing, who was born thinking he was Alec Holland but was not truly him). But Ronnie's presence during the blast threw things off.
Now though, it was time to set things right. After some more conflicts and events, Mikhail Arkadin and Ronnie Raymond were reverted to normal, powerless humans and Martin Stein (now cured of his brain tumor) fully came into his identity as a fire elemental, a singular changed being who did not need to fuse with a second person. Ronnie and Mikhail returned to their lives while Stein, as the new elemental Firestorm, took off into space to find his place in the cosmos. Which, if you think about it, is a bit strange for an Earth-born fire elemental, but whatever.
And so, with everything wrapped up, the Firestorm series came to an end. Readers were left wondering if Martin Stein would appear again in some later mini-series or perhaps join a super-hero team such as the JLA again. And what would happen to Ronnie? Hopefully he'd live happily ever after, but perhaps not. This is comics after all.
It woudl be a few years before any answers to these questions would be given.
BACK IN THE SADDLE
For a time, Firestorm was not seen (except for an odd cameo in DC's War of the Gods story). In the mid 1990s, Ronnie turned up in the pages of Extreme Justice, a Justice League spin-off that featured a team led by Captain Atom who believed in proactively hunting super-villains rather than waiting for disaster to occur.
In the pages of Extreme Justice, we found out that while he was no longer a super-hero, Ronnie was still touched by the legacy of Firestorm, but in a tragic way. Apparently, he'd developed cancer as a result of the radiation that had remained in his body after being separated from the Firestorm matrix. To help his condition, Ronnie was undergoing chemo-therapy. But during one of his therapy sessions, something bizarre happened. Somehow, Ronnie became Firestorm again, the classic super-hero Firestorm, though without needing to fuse with a second person.
Sensing what had happened, Martin Stein, still an elemental, came back to Earth and realized that part of the Firestorm matrix had remained with young Raymond. Combining his powers with Captain Atom, Stein cured Ronnie's sickness and left him with the stabilized ability to become the classic Firestorm whenever he wanted to, all by himself. Stein then left for outer space again and Ronnie was now able to resume his double-life as a super-hero. He quickly joined the Extreme Justice team, working alongside folks who acted very differently than his old JLA comrades.
Sadly, DC didn't seem to understand what to do with Ronnie now and seemed to be fall on rehashing old story ideas. First there was the whole Ronnie having cancer story, which seemed rather akin to when Prof. Stein had had a brain tumor. And later, Ronnie realized he was an alcoholic, which seemed to harken back to when readers found out that Martin Stein had that very same problem. And rather than have Ronnie return to school in some way, our young hero began a career as an underwear model. The one interesting thing about him was that now, without the presence and scientific knowledge of Martin Stein, Ronnie had a lot harder time achieving desired effects when he tried to re-arrange matter.
Eventually, Extreme Justice was cancelled. After that, Ronnie made a few cameos here and there in other titles. His problems with alcohol were not mentioned and it was understood that he was now taking college classes again, making a special priority to study science so that he would know how to better use his powers of quark vision and matter rearrangement.
Firestorm showed up in Kurt Busiek's Power Company series and made a memorable appearance in DC 1 Million. He also was seen in a JLA story in which the hero called the Atom (real name: Ray Palmer) was attempting to teach Justice League reservists and lower-tier members how to best operate in certain combat situation where simply hitting the bad guy wouldn’t work. In the story, Power Girl, Steel, Firestorm and others were shown an explosive device and asked what could be done to deactivate it. The heroes all argued about the possible measures that could be taken, when Firestorm then suggested first looking for an "off" switch, which it turned out was the correct answer. Even without a professor to back him up, Ronnie was showing readers that his years of experience had given him the right instincts for the game.
Speaking of the professor, he did show up again. While teaming up with what seemed to be a robotic Green Lantern, Ronnie found himself on a planet that was being terrorized by a "god of fire." You guessed it: the "god" in question was Martin. Apparently, the good Professor had now lost all his humanity and was acting very unstable. With Ronnie's help, Stein regained his footing and decided to become a proactive outer space protector in order to make up for his actions, seeking out cosmic menaces wherever they were.
When Joe Kelly took over as writer for JLA, he wrote a story caleld "The Obsidian Age" wherein the team was believed to be dead to the rest of the world. A program Batman had installed into his computers later activated, bringing together a group of individuals that Batman had considered as a fine replacement for the previous League. Firestorm was among the recruits and enjoyed being part of the League again, remembering his old days during the team’s "classic era."
When the true JLA returned, Ronnie stuck around for a while, happy to once again be working with the likes of Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman once again.
After a few adventures, Ronnie left the team to focus on his studies, venturing out as a super-hero as often as he could. Several months later, there came the story Identity Crisis. This story is renowned for having shaken up quite a few things in the DC Universe. And it had a very direct effect on Firestorm.
In Identity Crisis, a mysterious killer was apparently targeting the family and loved ones of certain super-heroes, including the Sue Dibny (wife of Elongated Man) and Lois Lane. Earth's heroes mobilized to find out who was doing this and they all divided into teams to shake down various villains for information.
Firestorm joined with Captain Marvel, Vixen and the Shining Knight in trying to capture the villain Shadow Thief and find out what (if anything) he knew about the mystery killer. During the chaotic fight, the Shadow Thief grabbed the Shining Knight’s sword (a blade enchanted by Merlin himself) and stabbed Firestorm with it. The mystic blade did more than cut Ronnie. Somehow, its magic breached his body’s energy field, unleashing the full power of the Firestorm Matrix.
Realizing this was causing a chain reaction, Firestorm looked up and desperately pleaded to the heroes that they had to tell Loraine Reilly (Firehawk), Martin Stein and Ronnie's father how much he loved them. Ronnie then flew as high as he could get and exploded in a blast of nuclear energy.
Ronnie was gone and Lorraine Reilly retired her Firehawk identity, out of grief and shock over Ronnie's fate. Things looked bleak.
CHANGING OF THE GUARD
Jason Rusch was a kid living in Detroit with barely any money. His mother was out of the picture and his father was an occasionally abusive man who was still dealing with feelings of inadequacy and resentment due to a work accident he'd suffered that had left him disabled, feelings he took out on his son. Jason was a good kid though, despite his hardships. He was determined to work his way into college and get involved in science, no matter how long it took.
When he lost his job at a restaurant, Jason panicked and thought for a moment that he was about to lose his one chance to get out of his house and make something of himself and for his future. He went against the advice of his friend Mitch and wound up borrowing money from a local criminal. It wasn't long however until he realized his mistake and became a marked man.
And that's when things changed. One second, Jason thought he saw a shooting star. The next, he was hit by a bundle of energy and transformed into the new Firestorm. But that wasn't all. While half of his mind existed in the real world, the rest of his consciousness perceived a mental representation of the Firestorm Matrix itself. He saw that as Firestorm he was now a fused entity, created by the merging of himself and the same criminal he'd taken money from.
After reveling in his new powers for a while, Jason wound up in a fight and then discovered to his horror that his unwilling partner was dying. Somehow, being the second half of the Firestorm Matrix meant that the man's life energy was being fed upon and eventually he was disintegrated, leaving Jason alone once more.
After that, Jason found himself flung into the world of super-heroics. Whenever he wanted or needed to become Firestorm again, he'd find someone nearby and "borrow" them for a while, fusing with them so he could resume his super-hero identity. Of course, Jason was careful not to spend TOO much time as Firestorm now, lest he risk injuring or killing any of his recruited partners. While they were fused, the partner could communicate with Jason telepathically, as Martin Stein had with Ronnie. As soon as Firestorm separated again, Jason was fully aware of what had happened but none of his partners remembered the experience of the merging or even the few moments of their life leading up to when Jason had found them.
Now, Jason did not have the exact same abilities that Ronnie and Stein had possessed as Firestorm. Like I said, Jason could fuse with anyone he wanted to. Secondly, unlike Ronnie, Jason was able to manipulate organic matter as well as inorganic. Other than that, it was the same package as the original Firestorm entity. Flight, fusion blasts, intangibility.
Jason was approached a couple of times by the Justice League, who were investigating Ronnie's disappearance and were curious why this Detroit teenager seemed to have similar powers. At one point, the new Firestorm flew up to the JLA Watchtower and met with Batman and the Martian Manhunter. The Manhunter did a telepathic scan of Jason and said he found no trace of Ronnie's mind. They explained to Jason what had happened to Ronnie during the battle with the Shadow Thief and that they believed their old friend had died instantly when his form exploded moments later. His displaced energy seemed to have struck out at Jason at random, granting him access to the Firestorm matrix.
Jason shifted between wanting to enjoy and let loose with his new power and wondering about if he now had the responsibility to live up to a legacy. The issue was brought to a head when he was approached by Lorraine Reilly, who was investigating him in her effort to learn the full truth of what had happened to her old friend. No sooner had Jason spoken to Lorraine than Killer Frost came into the picture.
Suffering from cancer, Frost tricked Jason into curing her of the disease before embarking on a path of violence again, now more powerful than she'd been before. Realizing he needed to become Firestorm again, Jason acted on instinct and fused with Lorraine. But rather than just becoming Firestorm, he and Lorraine both took a mental backseat in the Firestorm Matrix as, to everyone's shock … Ronnie appeared in Jason's place, dressed in his classic costume.
Apparently, a remnant of Ronnie had indeed remained in the Firestorm energies Jason wielded and the process of merging with Firehawk had re-awakened him. When Firestorm separated, only Lorraine and Jason were returned to their physical forms.
Ronnie's body had been disintegrated, so he now only remained a voice in Jason's mind. Their were two side-effects of this: 1, Jason could now become Firestorm at will; 2, while in their super-hero identity, Jason and Ronnie could switch places as to which of them was in control of the body.
Killer Frost eaves-dropped on a conversation the new Firestorm seemed to be having with himself (he was speaking with the mental voice of Ronnie) and quickly realized that, although she still didn't know who this new Firestorm was, the original had been Ronnie Raymond who was still alive inside the new hero's head.
Killer Frost then called up Cliff Carmichael, who had been conducting experiments on both Typhoon and Multiplex for months to make them more powerful. Hearing that Ronnie Raymond had been Firestorm and that he was alive inside the new kid's mind somehow, Cliff put on his new battle outfit and got Typhoon and Multiplex ready for action.
Now, readers had seen Multiplex die years before, killed by the Parasite. So some readers immediately cried out that this was a mistake in continuity and simple ignorance by the writer. But let me suggest an alternative, considering how much respect Dan Jolley had been showing for the past otherwise. This new Multiplex was never unmasked before us (he was even wearing the mask when Cliff was experimenting on him). Although it seemed to be Danton Black, his powers were different. His duploid remained the same size he was, no matter how many he split off. And he was now energized, such as when he displayed enhanced strength. With that in mind, I would suggest that it's possible Cliff Carmichael either cloned Multiplex or recreated him somehow, possibly transferring his powers to someone else. This would also explain why Cliff was not aware of Ronnie's dual identity until Frost told him, since Multiplex had known for years and so you'd think he would've mentioned it once during those months of having Cliff poke and prod at him.
Whatever the case, when Cliff found out that his old enemy Ronnie had also been his rival Firestorm, and that Ronnie was mentally alive inside the "new guy's" head, he went nuts and immediately hunted the hero down. With Typhoon and the new Multiplex at his side, Cliff engaged in a heavy no-holds-barred battle with Ronnie and Jason.
During the fight, Jason realized that Multiplex's duploids were not actually alive. He then used his transmutation abilities to destroy them, not caring about the mental feedback that this caused the true Multiplex. Although he realized Jason was acting half out of panic, Ronnie decided to take the reins and took over. For old readers, it was a thrill and for new readers it was an education, because Ronnie showed that he was a true hero, wading through the battle with the experience of a man who’d been doing it for years and whose powers were second-nature. Jason realized that ever since he'd gotten these strange powers, he'd been acting too much on baser instincts and being a hero meant you had to be better than that.
Sadly, Ronnie seemed to be working on borrowed time. In the mental realm of the Firestorm Matrix, his body started vanishing and Jason feared that he was dying as his original partner had. He wanted to shut down the Firestorm entity and turn himself back to the human Jason Rusch in order to give Ronnie a chance to "recharge", but Ronnie said that wasn't an option. Cliff Carmichael had used his telepathy to confirm who they both were and was crazy enough to go after their families. Cliff had to be stopped and he had to be stopped now and if Ronnie died in the process, that was just how it had to be.
RONNIE: "He'll go after them, I know he will. I've seen it happen before. We don’t know how long it'll take to FIX me - if I even CAN be fixed. And by the time we find him again, my parents could be dead. Or YOURS."
JASON: "But he was KILLING us! And LOOK at you! I can't let this happen — I can't let you do this to yourself!"
RONNIE: "Jason … Listen to me. Doing this … BEING this. It's not like a job you can just walk off of, it's like you're a soldier in a WAR. Do you hear me? You get what I'm saying? … There's a secret to doing work like this. Y'know, work that might KILL you? … Don't THINK about it. Just concentrate on getting this one thing RIGHT. Never mind the rest … This is what we do. This is what we are. We're FIRESTORM."
Using his transmutation powers, Firestorm liquefied the cyber-circuits in Cliff’s brain, causing the villain to go into a catatonic state and very likely causing brain damage. The threat was over but Ronnie started fading away. He wasn’t scared or regretful. He’d done the right thing.
JASON: "I can't do this without you, Ronnie!"
RONNIE: "You CAN, pal … You just needed … a kick in the pants, was all."
Ronnie then smiled and saluted as he vanished away from the mental world of the Firestorm Matrix.
RONNIE: "Besides … who knows? This might not be the end … right?"
And then he was gone in a flash of light.
Jason visited Ronnie's father afterwards. He explained who he was and all his experiences, including Ronnie's sacrifice. When he left, Jason felt a new sense of purpose. He was not just some teenager lucky enough to be a hero. He had a reputation and a tradition to uphold. He would never forget Ronnie, a person he’d known for just over a day, and even altered his costume slightly to more closely resemble Ronnie's old duds.
JASON: "My name is Jason Rusch and my life is changing. I’m not sure exactly where it's going — haven't been sure for a while. But now — now I think I finally know how to get there."
NO REST FOR THE WICKED
Jason went on with his career as Firestorm. Although he was now able to transform into Firestorm by himself, he would still occasionally merge with someone if he felt their knowledge would be helpful or essential. On the flipside, he lost his ability to be intangible. He got a job at S.T.A.R. Labs for a while, only to later be laid-off when the Detroit branch closed, leaving him once again without funds and desperate for a way to finance a college career.
And then the villains came. Recently, many of Earth’s super-villains had organized themselves into "The Society." Apparently led by Lex Luthor, they went around persuing new personal agendas. At one point, they captured Firestorm and used him as a power source. The hero escaped later but due to the Society’s manipulations, his friendship with his best friend Mitch was now seriously strained. The kid couldn’t catch a break.
And before he could even get his bearings, he found himself recruited by Donna Troy, sister of Wonder Woman and a former Teen Titan. The events of Infinite Crisis were happening all over the DC Universe. One of those events was a spacial anomaly/vortex occurring in the center of the universe. Donna recruited several heroes, Jason included, and they went out into space to tackle it, merging with his best friend Mitch in the process. And it was out there among the stars that Jason (with Mitch as his mental partner) met a flame-haired, rather aloof entity who introduced himself as "Firestorm" and looked at the young hero curiously as he said: "Ronnie?"
Martin Stein was back. Introductions were quick and then the battle resumed. Apparently, Martin had seen the oncoming crisis from afar and had also had a vision of something terrible in Jason’s future. Determined to prevent this, he killed several Thanagarian soldiers he’d fought and taken captive and then had set out to meet the new young hero.
SIDE-NOTE: We know that before the original Crisis on Infinite Earths, many DC heroes had counterparts on other Earths. Power Girl of Earth-2 was the counterpart of Supergirl of Earth-1, Jay Garrick was the Flash of Earth-2 while Barry Allen was the Flash of Earth-1, etc. During Infinite Crisis, it was revealed that in the original multiverse, before the Earths were all merged together, Jason Rusch had lived on the previously unheard of "Earth-8" and would have become that world's version of Firestorm.
During the chaos of the space battles, Jason was seriously injured. Mitch's spirit was apparently killed in the process and it looked like Jason was about to suffer Ronnie's fate. But Martin Stein intervened and the two began to merge.
In a mental realm, Stein explained that together the two of them would become the NEW Firestorm, merged together just as he and Ronnie had been in the past. He also decided they needed to guide the nature of how this new Firestorm was going to be.
MARTIN: "Ronald died under unusual circumstance … But essentially, he could no longer contain the energy within him. In a way, he had become a true nuclear reactor. Just as I, in my wanderings through the void, lost a great deal of my former humanity … The longer a person wears the mantle of Firestorm … the less HUMAN he becomes … We must be very careful in the process of rebuilding. The power of Firestorm is infinite — in theory. But in practice, infinite power would burn a man out in the wink of an eye. So the crucial decisions are not which powers to grant ourselves but which to give up."
First, Martin streamlined Firestorm's abilities, making his absorbtion of solar and stellar energy more efficient and ensuring he wouldn’t have to feed off the energy of people merged with him anymore.
As before, Firestorm would have flight and fusion blasts. The costume would now be functional, with exoskeletal support: microfibers and relays to the joints to channel the energies more effectively. Transmutation remained but the ability to alter organic matter would taken away, as it was tricky and caused feedback problems. Also, Martin decided it would be better if they weren't able to become intangible, as he believed that a side-effect of this was that the hero became mentally as well as physically apart from the world around them. On Jason's suggestion, he allowed the fiery hair to remain, as it "looked cool."
Martin made himself and Jason the "default" partnership needed to create Firestorm, he also left the backdoor open that they could merge with someone else if they needed to, though preferably for short intervals so as not to cause any problems. What's more, there would now be a smoother mental connection between them so that they could exchange information more easily.
Martin briefly pondered his own strange ability to see flashes of the future due to subatomic wormholes that existed in the Firestorm Matrix, but did not state whether or not he was tabling this ability, keeping it or simply wasn't sure how to affect it/change it one way or the other.
It was done then. The new Firestorm was born, with Jason in the driver's seat and Martin the mental voice of wisdom. Martin smiled, saying he felt like he’d come home and certainly many readers agreed.
Sadly, it was not to last.
ONE YEAR LATER …
At the end of Infinite Crisis, some of the space-bound heroes who had teamed up under Donna Troy and Cyborg's leadership were mysteriously transported out of sight. Before their fate was revealed, DC has pushed all their titles one year into the future of their storylines.
When we read "One Year Later" in Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, we found a few changes. Apparently, Professor Stein was missing and Firestorm was now created by the merging of Jason and Lorraine Reilly, with Lorraine now taking the role of the mental guide whenever they became Firestorm.
But this wasn't like before where one of them could be in a different state and start the merging mentally. Both had to remain no more than within a mile of each other’s presence or else they'd risk mutual death apparently. This has caused a relationship even more strained than Ronnie and Martin's, as the two reluctant partners couldn't have their own lives without consulting each other constantly.
Now that it was one year later, Jason was no longer the rookie he had been before. While we saw this more experienced version of Firestorm starring in his own title, we also saw what had happened during that mysterious year in the 52-issue weekly series 52. In that title, we saw that the energy beam which transported some of the years had sent them back to Earth eventually, though in a bad state. In Firestorm's case, his body was somehow merged with the hero Cyborg and it took some doing to free them and leave each whole again.
It was then revealed Jason and Martin had continued working together as Firestorm but that Jason had a very hostile attitude towards Lorraine, blaming her and the rest of the space-bound team he'd worked with in Infinite Crisis for indirectly causing Mickey's death by insisting that Firestorm join them in the fight.
The Justice League of America had disbanded soon before Infinite Crisis and during 52, Firestorm, Firehawk attempted to form a new Justice League with other heroes. This team included the new Bulleteer (introduced in Grant Morrison's Seven Soldiers mega-series), the new Super-Chief (descended from the old Native American hero of the same ridiculous name) and the ever-comical Ambush Bug (a comedic character who is basically a delusional homeless guy in possession of a costume that lets him teleport). Despite their efforts, the team just didn't gel together and were not taken seriously by others.
Months later, Martin Stein vanished and Jason found he could no longer turn into Firestorm without him (unlike Ronnie, he couldn't simply summon Martin to fuse with him from any location on Earth). Needing help in finding Martin, Jason turned to Lorraine and the two settled their differences as the young man acknowledged that heroes he'd worked with during Infinite Crisis were not responsible for Mickey's death.
When the super-human Black Adam declared war on Earth (as depicted in 52: World War III), Jason felt Firestorm was needed again and asked Lorraine to fuse with him since Martin was still missing. Just like when Ronnie returned, there was an unforeseen side-effect this time. Their energy merge somehow caused the side effect that meant they were now bound to each other and could not separate over too great a distance without endangering themselves. Which, naturally, led directly into the "One Year Later" story.
Back in the normal Firestorm title, taking place in the modern-day, Firestorm continued searching for Martin Stein, aided by a young girl named Gehenna who would not speak of her past and had the ability to teleport. Eventually, Gehenna revealed that she had been grown from the DNA of Ronnie's old enemy Tokamak, making her a sort of clone/daughter. "Gen" helped Jason finally find and free Martin from the Pupil, a villain (and Stein's former asssistant) who had kidnapped the scientist in the hopes that he could reveal any and all secrets of the universe he had learned as an elemental.
After freeing Martin, Jason's abilities stabilized and he could now merge with others again rather than being bound to Lorraine. He and Gehenna began dating and she insisted on becoming his second half as Firestorm as often as possible. This brought a new element to the fused hero, because now Jason had to deal with his girlfriend occasionally criticizing him during a battle or giving him attitude if it looked like he was flirting with someone.
Eventually, Firestorm was cancelled again. Its final issues involved a battle with the New Gods and acted as a bit of a prelude to the upcoming Final Crisis crossover that DC was getting ready to unveil. In this story, Firestorm learned that, as an elemental, he possessed one quarter of the "Life Equation", the one thing that could directly counter the "Anti-Life Equation" that the evil New God called Darkseid was constantly in search of, since it was a mathematical formula that robbed free will from others. Presumably, Earth's other elementals would each have another quarter of the Life Equation.
In any event, Firestorm was cancelled, though the character joined Earth's heroes in fighting Darkseid during the story Final Crisis.
When Dwayne McDuffy took over writing chores on Justice League of America (the team had reformed in true form after all), he added Jason onto the team by having Batman draft the powerful young hero. Though Jason said he wasn't sure he could dedicate the time to the team, Batman said the young man had no options since he refused to allow someone so powerful to run around without supervision and guidance.
Now Jason, like Ronnie, was truly a member of a team involving Earth's greatest heroes such as Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman and others, including a chance to now work alongside other great black super-heroes such as Black Lightning, Vixen and the Green Lantern John Stewart.
Though he was young and a bit impulsive still, Jason took quite nicely to the team and proved his worth in battles against the Shadow Cabinet, the new Injustice League and others.
Recently, DC has begun a new crossover called Blackest Night. In a nutshell, the story involves the Black Lanterns, animated corpses of old heroes and villains. These strange, speaking super-powered zombies (I love alliteration) are seeking to kill any heroes and villains who cross their paths, gaining more power from taking their hearts.
One of those re-animated dead heroes? Ronnie, garbed in his familiar costume. Exactly how this can be when Ronnie was, essentially, disintegrated and left no body behind to be re-animated, hasn't been explained yet, but I'm sure we'll get there. Either way, this should be a scary and exciting fight for Jason.
What the future holds for Jason is still unknown. We'll just have to wait and see. Hopefully he'll stay with the JLA for a good long time and will have a few fun mini-series here and there if not his own regular title again.
But if anyone at DC is reading, how about some more Firestorm trades, huh? Its ridiculous that none of Ronnie's adventures are in easily collectable trade format!
On that note, I think we should have a Firestorm movie and/or TV series. Think about it, man. Buddy comedies do well these days and Firestorm is such a great sci-fi twist on the buddy film concept. It could work, I tell you!
Anyway, that's all for now, folks. I hope you enjoyed this and learned something. Cheers!
Reader Comments (4)
Keep up the amazing work! I'll be sure to link to this article.
The Irredeemable Shag
http://firestormfan.com