I wish I could have found a regular video instead of a YouTube short, but this was my introduction to Firestorm, the “nuclear man” before that other one from the Superman movies. Created by the recently passed Gerry Conway, Firestorm quickly became one of my favorite superheroes. He had a cool powerset that was different from the ones I’d seen in previously, though my comic journey hadn’t yet included the likes of Martian Manhunter as far as passing through objects. Restructuring atoms and flight were probably not new, either, but they were new to me, and after picking up my first issue of The Fury Of Firestorm at the local grocery store I found a really interesting character that I wanted to see more of. He’s also one of the inspirations for the main character in my dream project, which is sadly a long ways off.
Sadly, someone lost the plot when it came to Ronnie Raymond and Professor Martin Stein. Strange decisions like forcing Firestorm’s Russian counterpart into the mix and causing a confused Firestorm, deciding Martin was supposed to be the only person in the Firestorm mix because he was really a fire elemental planned by the Earth goddess Gaia (someone was ripping off Captain Planet), replacing everybody with Jason Rusch and whomever he could get into the thinker seat that story, killing Ronnie Raymond and turning him into a Black Lantern, and then the New 52’s Firestorm In Name Only total reimagine that would have been much cooler as it’s own series instead of reimagining a character and concept I already liked. Yes, that was a paragraph-length sentence, but that’s how badly the character’s been done dirty since the Superfriends went Super Powers Team and the show ended. I never understood what the point was, but I never understood the point of the New 52 outside of Dan DiDio’s ego.
Gerry Conway already had a great concept, but DiDio’s “Project: Firestorm” concept is still in place because DiDio’s Darker DC is still in place. Now I catch this video from Jeff Lemire talking about his new Firestorm comic and how he’s building off of that…and I am not happy with what they’re still doing to my boy. It seems the Firestorm form has become its own persona…and Doctor Manhattan, in that he lacks humanity and wants to experiment with his powers. What makes it worse is Lemire’s reasoning and that of the editor, Andrew Marino: to explore Firestorm’s power in “reality”, another termed butchered by modern writes. At least we can’t claim anything political on this one, because I’m stick of bringing up the culture war, but it still isn’t the Firestorm I knew and loved seeing in action, and what passes for “reality” with modern writers is just the same thing we get from Watchmen and it’s atomic man. We can’t have fun in our superheroes anymore.
