Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities The often imitated never surpassed FIRESTORM!

Ronnie had a killer rogue's gallery! Loads of great villains!

Tokamak was a little dull, but I loved Multiplex! (Although his powers were completely changed once he was used outside of Firestorm's exclusive rogues gallery.) The Hyenas were also cool, and I kind of like how they kept getting killed, and then showing up again, like nothing happened. In my head-canon, they are kind of like werewolves, and can only be permanently killed by a special substance / method, but it isn't silver (since they are were-hyenas, not were-wolves, and they'll pretend to be killed by silver, just to confuse the issue...)

Granted, I was much more a fan of Firehawk, because of those awesome fire energy wings (later blue in color than the red above), than Firestorm himself. What an amazingly cool spin-off character!

Firehawk does have an awesome visual with her blue fire wings!

I love Firestorm's ridiculous blousey costume and flaming head. I think of all the JLA Firestorm and Red Tornado had my favourite visuals when I was a kid!

I love that one story where Martin Stein whipped Hector Hammond's ass too, that is one of my favourite JLA stories in general

His work on Firestorm is possibly THE career highlight for Pat Broderick! He and Gerry Conway did a bang-up job on Fury....earning, imo, a favorable comparison to to Lee/Kirby/Romita Spider-man! No, I don't mean it's AS good as all that, but I think Fury was the most well done a teen hero was depicted to that point since early Peter Parker. Since then, you could definitely argue Tim Drake, but between Peter and Ronnie, it was.....a teenage wasteland!

Man... I wish I was at a real computer so I could link to Firestorm's awesome first appearance on Super Friends!

One of the fun parts about Firestorm was I could relate to many of his early problems! I always wished I had such cool powers in real life so I could escape from the awful parts of school

And now I can!

Firestorm was fun to read. Despite Ronnie's problems, there was a light touch to the comic. It's art was good and Ronnie's powers always made things interesting. There were also plenty of new villains and a strong supporting cast. Firehawk for the JLA!

Stormy also brought a lot of energy to the JLA, with his enthusiasm coupled with Stein's knowledge behind him.

Every couple of years, it seems like one company or the other attempts to create a 'Spider-Man' for the new generation, a young hero who has to juggle powers and a life.

Firestorm felt like one of the more successful attempts at capturing that dynamic, and the decision to have the young hero not be the genius in and of himself, but to have a genius sort of on-call in his brain, with the Professor, was a neat touch, and might have even made him a tad more relatable than Peter himself, as Peter, for all his woes, is far from the 'everyman' that he's sometimes touted as.

It's funny how often they attempt to recapture that dynamic. The last version of the Ray, the post-death of Superman Superboy series, the Ronnie Raymond Nova, Speedball, the new Ms. Marvel/Kamala Khan, etc. That sort of 'young hero, grappling with self-discovery and life events' gets recycled quite a bit.

Unlike the mentored heroes (Robins, for instance), there's a lot of uncertainty and false starts with these stories, which can make them fun. After a time, we expect the heroes to grow up (and stop making dumb mistakes), so it allows a kind of storytelling and character growth and learning curve that we wouldn't tolerate if it happened to Batman or Captain America (who we expect to be pretty darn near the top of their 'learning curve' by now!).

Poor Ray. Having such a manipulative &!&!&!&#& for a dad. (I'm looking at you Golden Age Ray!)

But I digress...

Firestorm's earnestness and ability to laugh at himself was very refreshing. Having him be so powerful only added to likability of the character. And I have to say, despite his young age and inexperience he seemed to fit right in with the rest of the League!

The influence of Stein, I think, gave him a sort of Captain Marvel vibe, in that he could act more mature than his years, 'cause he had an adult in his head to keep him from saying anything too dumb.

I think there could have been some good interactions between him and others, particularly Batman, who likes to 'figure people out,' based on this sort of contradictory output from him, one minute saying something mature, that an experienced teacher with many years of dealing with students might say, or something scientific and technical with the Flash or Atom, and the next acting more like a high school kid who is getting B's in science and has to work to not make a fool of himself in front of a pretty girl. (And I can imagine it being distracting for a hormonal hetero teenage boy to hang out with Wonder Woman, Black Canary and Zatanna, in their typical fishnets, sports bras and / or star-spangled panties.)

Batman being Batman, I could see him getting awfully suspicious about Ronnie's personality / knowledge inconsistencies and it turn into some sort of comedy of errors...

I just searched this to make sure: Did you know DC has never reprinted the old Firestorm series....not even in the massive cheapy B&W "Showcase Presents..." series! What the hell?!?!

There is a TPB of Firestorm's first series, however, which I believe I reviewed here somewhere!

Oh! I overlooked that one! I never read any of his short-lived original series, and I don't think I read those back-ups it reprints, either! eBay, here I come....

The Jason Rusch Firestorm had a weird fascination with Doctor Light in her "covers everything" costume, and didn't really so much as glance at Zatanna in her fishnets or Vixen with her V-necked costume. Hmmmmm!

Any idea where the review is?

Okay, not actually much of a review, but at least a few comments can be found here and on the next page.

Yep, about as long-winded as I expected! For a guy of your profession, your reviews tend to be incredibly......concise?

So....did you kinda love it, really love it or totally love it?

Honestly, I don't remember it too well, other than the generally positive feeling towards it!

Definitely an early Spider-Man kind of vibe to it, though!

I'm on such a huge '70s comics kick lately (Avengers & X-Men mostly, with cravings for defenders, Dr. Strange and JLA) that this trade suddenly feels like a MUST-HAVE!

I am all about the Silver/Bronze age right now. Here's Firestorm trying out for League membership in "Another Nail" alongside new takes on the Astral Mage and Halo.

Firestorm, along with Flash, was the first DC hero I loved as a really little kid, because of his awesome costume, name and issue covers. Later I loved the powers, duel-person motif and of course Spidey vibe, which I agree was done perfectly.

It's criminal that DC allowed what was essentially their brightest "new" star fade away in the late 80's--especially since he was probably the last truly iconic hero DC had ever had. Ostrander's run, while well written, is partially to blame I think.

Still, there's never been a reason why the series couldn't work again. As much as Jason Rusch's addition always felt lame and forced, even with him as part of the series it would still be easily doable. All you need is a creative team that actually loves teen protagonists and superhero comics.

Preach it, my bruthah!

Honestly, I was looking forward to the New52 relaunch of the book because: a) Ronnie was back to being a part of Firestorm, and b) Gail Simone was co-writing it. But, OMG, was this an abortion or what?!?!

I think DC was so intent on making this Firestorm different and cutting edge that they forgot that the original concept was already all of those things and so much more! Just tell a goddamn story working with the amazing core concept, and it'll be fucking GREAT! This is FIRESTORM, Not Captain Planet meets Psi-Force meets someone's crappy wet dream of what a great comic should be!