Wildfire....Do we ever see him punch anyone ever? I don't recall any such moments, he always blasts with his enti-energy. In The Legion of Super-Heroes #283(January 1982) its mentioned that he's able to perform amazing feats of strength, agility and metamorphosis. How much of these powers is he considered to have lost after emptying out his containment suit when he fought the Devourer (Agriculture eating machine)? He can't metamorphosis any more and duplicate other powers, but is he still considered to have the Super Strength, Agility and Invulnerability. Seems to me he does, but I would like to clairify that.
This sentance I read in the Encyclopedia Galactica section of this web site.
"He waived personal combat training, as none of his containment suits allow for complex enough movements necessary for effective use of the more sophisticated techniques."
Has anyone every seen Wildfire get into a brawling Hand-to-Hand fight? The above indicates he hasn't had any training in hand-to-hand combat.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
I think at one point it's stated that he's the strongest Legionnaire, short of the Kryptonian class members. I don't recall anything offhand of him engaged in hand-to-hand combat, but I believe there are examples of him lifting heavy stuff.
Posted by googoomuck on :
Who needs to fight hand to hand when you can blast 'em with Anti-Energy?
Posted by Chief Taylor on :
I remember recently re-reading Drake's first appearance (as ERG-1) and how he displayed more super powers than I ever saw him shown as using as Wildfire. I can't remember them all offhand, but there sure was an ASS of them! Anyone know why that changed after he was brought back? (Other than the writers not wanting him to become Mr. Deus Ex Machina, of course!) Any in-comic explanation or, contrarily, examples where he DID use that range of powers again?
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
The in-comic explanation was that only Professor Vultan's original Wildfire suit gave him that range of powers. Brainiac Five's duplicate suits didn't work as well.
Posted by Phantom Girl on :
I've started statting Wildfire for my Legion rpg and it raised some questions. I was inclined to give him a mid level invulnerabilty, mid level super agility, though higher when flying and some super strength based on the way I recall seeing him presented.
What would you folks suggest based on our readings?
Ive never really seen him display great agility unless he was flying, anyone else have a different opinion?
I guess I've always saw him as one of the more powerful Legionnaires, thus as long as its reaconably accurate I'd like to think he is a little below Ultra Boy, but still one of the top guns.
Opinions?
Posted by Crymsun on :
The only time I can remember him punching anyone was during the Great Darkness.. he punched the Servant Guardian of the Universe.. although he had yellow anti-energy surrounding his fists at the time.
Posted by stuorstew on :
In S&LSH #225 there is a mostly shadow brawl between Wildfire and Superboy and in the same issue it is implied he has some sort of telescopic vision still which he uses to track down the Resource Raiders.
Then S&LSH #227 he and Superboy are shown punching Pulsar Stargrave into a nearby sun.
[ July 09, 2010, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: stuorstew ]
Posted by Kent on :
I think when he was in that alt-dimension with Jacques and the fake Lyle, he *may* have taken a swing at Jacques. Of course, he seemed to be in human form at the time.
otherwise, I can recall no punch.
Posted by Set on :
He originally had Kryptonian level powers *and* could grow like Colossal Boy, in addition to shooting ridiculously powerful energy blasts, in the first suit. I think he even went intangible and walked through a wall, at one point. He might as well have been the Composite Superman...
The suits made by Brainy, a million times smarter than the guy who made that first suit, are inexplicably incapable of any of these stunts. [From a 'meta' narrative standpoint, he pretty much needed to be toned down.]
But he has no need to punch someone.
He shoots (and is made of) energized anti-matter plasma. Anti-matter explosions are four orders of magnitude more powerful than nuclear fission, making one of those explosion where his whole 'body' blows out of his uniform 10,000x the potency of a nuclear warhead the size of his body. (or ten orders of magnitude greater than chemical explosives, so assuming an 180 lb. 'mass' he'd detonate with the force of 1,800,000,000,000 lbs (or 900 million tons) of C4. (Note that these numbers assume that he is in a place with material for his anti-energy to react with. In the vacuum of space, he'd make much less of a boom, as the free-floating atoms of hydrogen and such would be few and far between. The results might be more like a hand grenade, than an atom bomb... He'd explode nicely in atmosphere, and even more spectacularly in denser atmospheres, such as underwater.)
In Drake's case, being 'the most powerful Legionnaire' has nothing to do with how much he can bench-press.
If anything, punching someone could be a bad idea, as he could crack open the gauntlet of his containment suit on a suitably tough-skinned opponent (like the Silver Slasher) and, after the explosion, be helpless.
Posted by MLLASH on :
I DO remember that punch with Superboy against Pulsar Stargrave!
Posted by SharkLad on :
quote:Originally posted by Set: The suits made by Brainy, a million times smarter than the guy who made that first suit, are inexplicably incapable of any of these stunts.
I always found that odd too ... but then Wildfire was one of those characters I tried not to think too much about in terms of plausibility ... he was one of my favorite during the original Levitz/Giffen run ... the scene when he blew himself up after Dawny left to seek her soulmate always stuck with me ...
But, to stay on topic ... I don't remember off-hand if he ever punched anyone ...
Posted by Phantom Girl on :
As the Stargrave punch with Superboy was mentioned, only then did I recall it. I'm just trying to stat the character for the game and my research was lacking. I had always considered him to be one of the more powerful Legionnaires and I'll having to categorize him in a grouping based on overal power, skills, and traits. I'd like him to be put in the highest of these four groupings if possible, along with Superboy, Supergirl, Mon'el, Ultra Boy and maybe Blok. That is of coarse if wildfire appears to be in the same league as the rest of them.
The next group below that would be individuals such as the three founders, maybe Element Lad and Sun Boy or Star Boy as well.
Posted by future king on :
Anyone ever wonder how Drake would make out power-wise if the energy that makes up his unstable form were put to use other than in a human form body containment suit to act as a hero (by his own choice)?
I mean if you think about it he could basically "possess" the circuitry of a interstellar battle cruiser, let's say, and turn it into a powerful mega monster battlecruiser capable of now quickly dispatching any invading unknown alien forces, etc. Or how about assist a scientist by donating his energy into an instrument designed to, oh I dunno, cut through the core of a planet or sun or something? Can you imagine how Wildfire could influence any man-made instrument by amping up its power level?
I wonder why Drake was never utilized in this fashion in any past stories. Maybe no writer has thought to do so yet. Maybe someone should.
Posted by Dev Em on :
I remember a reference to him being one of the most powerful Legionnaires during the Earthwar story when he, Ultra Boy, Mon El and Superboy "contained" an explosion by surrounding the bomb.
Posted by Dev Em on :
quote:Originally posted by future king: Anyone ever wonder how Drake would make out power-wise if the energy that makes up his unstable form were put to use other than in a human form body containment suit to act as a hero (by his own choice)?
I mean if you think about it he could basically "possess" the circuitry of a interstellar battle cruiser, let's say, and turn it into a powerful mega monster battlecruiser capable of now quickly dispatching any invading unknown alien forces, etc. Or how about assist a scientist by donating his energy into an instrument designed to, oh I dunno, cut through the core of a planet or sun or something? Can you imagine how Wildfire could influence any man-made instrument by amping up its power level?
I wonder why Drake was never utilized in this fashion in any past stories. Maybe no writer has thought to do so yet. Maybe someone should.
Interesting...I have a twist on this in store in my fanfic.
Posted by DrakeB3004 on :
quote:Originally posted by future king: Anyone ever wonder how Drake would make out power-wise if the energy that makes up his unstable form were put to use other than in a human form body containment suit to act as a hero (by his own choice)?
Someone did use Wildfire as more of a power source. (I don't remember the specifics) It happened near the end of the twoboot Legion when he switched from the Coipel armor to the modified Cockrum suit. That look didn't stick though.
And I would say that WILDFIRE is absolutely among the heavy-hitters. He's there though solely because of the power of his anti-energy blasts - he's not extremely versatile. I would gauge his strength level as just below Ultra Boy's ultra strength for explosive strength, but probably not continued exersion.
Posted by Chief Taylor on :
Hm. I'd guess that for Drake to "inhabit" some other contraption, it would have to either be designed especially for him or modified specifically for his energy signature. Even if the device was designed to be powered by anti-matter energy, I'd assume that's no guarantee it could handle his sentient variety. I'd suspect he'd "fry" 99% (or more) of devices, ships, etc. he'd attempt to power.
There could also be a danger of the device using him up. Most machines (pretty much all, really) consume energy to make them work, so he'd have to be protected somehow.
I guess you can argue that Drake's energy is somehow renewable. After, all he's always blasting away baddies without any ill effects. But it seems to me he just kinda distributes it and probably collects it afterward. I don't think he's ever been shown to actually 'lose' what he expends.
I also wonder why he's helpless (and powerless) outside his containment suit. Apparently, he has to direct himself through the suit to be a threat. Always seemed kinda odd to me.
[ July 10, 2010, 10:32 AM: Message edited by: Chief Taylor ]
Posted by future king on :
I also think that if he did inhabit a particular contraption and then use his energy, that energy would not be used up for good but rather be expelled and then gathered up from wherever it went (open space?) and re-assembled into that Erg energy mass allowing him to then re-enter his Wildfire suit.
Posted by Red Arrow on :
Well, in the DCU anti-matter doesn't automatically explode when in contact with matter. The science of the DCU is rooted in physics theories from '50s and '60s. That's how an entire Anti-Matter Universe can exist and it's citizens/energy can exist in our Universe.
Posted by DrakeB3004 on :
quote:Originally posted by Chief Taylor: I don't think he's ever been shown to actually 'lose' what he expends.
At the end of the story I mentioned above, Brainiac tells Wildfire that he actually did have a finite amount of energy to expend and that from that point on, the more energy he used, the more he was essentially killing himself. This was never a follow up to this though.
Posted by Set on :
quote:Originally posted by future king: Can you imagine how Wildfire could influence any man-made instrument by amping up its power level?
That would seem like something Lightning Lad / Lass would be able to do, not Drake. His anti-energy would destroy any man-made instrument it was shunted into, unless that instrument was made of anti-matter, or magnetically shielded from contact with the anti-energy (in which case it wouldn't be able to *use* that energy...).
It's kind of what makes Drake's personality work as established, that his power is purely destructive and annhilates / endangers anything he comes into contact with. The containment suit isn't to protect *him,* after all, it's to protect the rest of the universe from him.
Sun Boy, Lightning Lad, Cosmic Boy, etc. can all generate incredible amounts of energy, and use them to power things or construct buildings or provide life-giving warmth and light, etc.
Wildfire is 10,000 nuclear bombs, walking around in the shape of a man, and I think it would detract from the pathos of the character if he was just like Sun Boy or Lightning Lad.
Posted by cleome on :
[snip]
quote:Originally posted by future king:
...I mean if you think about it he could basically "possess" the circuitry of a interstellar battle cruiser, let's say, and turn it into a powerful mega monster battlecruiser capable of now quickly dispatching any invading unknown alien forces, etc....
I wonder why Drake was never utilized in this fashion in any past stories. Maybe no writer has thought to do so yet. Maybe someone should.
Makes you wonder what would happen if he were to team up with a character like, say, the second Computo?
Also, I forget who previously mentioned this, so forgive me. I also would like to see Drake become adjusted, or more at peace with, the fact that he doesn't have his original corporeal from anymore. It might open up a little more of his character and even be a jumping-off point for him to be able to use his powers in other ways than the traditional one.
Posted by Red Arrow on :
Wouldn't that ruin what makes the character unique? Wildfire to me screams of a character directly influenced by the Marvel-style of writing. He reminds me of The Thing or Rogue. His has an edge which differentiates him from the older members.
Posted by cleome on :
Frankly, I've always found those characters being eternal angst machines to be kind of tedious, too.
I'm not saying that it has to be a perfect transition and that the character has to be a beacon of peace and happiness all the time. Just... angst and alienation doesn't need to be the central focus of the character's life forever. Usually, when writers take a heroic character in a "new direction," what they really mean is, "turning the character into a doormat and/or a complete rat b*st*ard."
What would be wrong with a "new direction" in which the character actually became better rather than worse, for a change? Particularly in a futuristic environment where there might be species and/or cultures that didn't think of bodies and organic physical forms in the same way that humans traditionally do.
Posted by Red Arrow on :
How could he get over it? You say that people are different in 30th century, but no matter what you live in there are basic needs that must be met. His very form isolates himself from those around him, and he can be exploited as a power source.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
I actually kind of thought that Levitz might go in that direction with the Wildfire/Quislet friendship. Having another energy being to hang out with might radically change his perspective.
It would've been interesting to see more of him with Neon (Celeste McCauley) as well.
Posted by cleome on :
quote:Originally posted by Red Arrow: How could he get over it? You say that people are different in 30th century, but no matter what you live in there are basic needs that must be met. His very form isolates himself from those around him, and he can be exploited as a power source.
I disagree. Not everyone actually has the same "basic needs" all the time. Not even actual flesh-and-blood humans.
What if, as others have commented, he saw his present condition as not unique at all; say, if he met and formed friendships with other energy-based beings? People do change their priorities and associations over time, as they mature and encounter experiences they didn't previously.
As to the exploitation angle, I don't really get why Wildfire is somehow more vulnerable than any of his teammates to exploitation. The only way to avoid that would be for him to isolate himself from the dangerous environment he works in. Even then, it's not a given that other beings who wanted to exploit his powers would just leave him be. You could argue that being surrounded by other powerful people who care about him is safer for him than solitude would be.
Posted by Set on :
It's possible today to turn matter into anti-matter (in microscopic quantities, at CERN, for a short time...), so I'm sure that, 10 centuries from now, a green-skinned person who is a million times smarter than Einstein could probably find a way to, at least temporarily, reverse the charge in Drake's anti-energy and turn him into 'just energy,' at which point he could maybe power machines or whatever. (Since the team already has Lightning Lad, Sun Boy, etc. who can create ridonkulous amounts of non-anti-energy, without risking killing a fellow Legionnaire by using his body and soul to power a flashlight or just a catastrophic explosion, exactly why he would do this remains a mystery...)
Turning him into flesh and blood would be a more difficult trick, but just because I can't explain the science of how that would happen doesn't mean that the comic-book universe isn't chock full of characters like Lazon or Black Vulcan or Living Lightning or Photon who transform into energy and back again. Thanks to those precedents, we can wave at science and tell it to sit down and shut up, since it's clearly possible in the comic book universe.
Perhaps a bit of research into the captured (or willingly volunteering?) Lazon could help Drake to figure out how to 'spin' his energy form back into a material body with intense concentration, eventually getting easier and easier as he 'exercises' whatever process he needs to do so.
He'd still be made of antimatter, but he'd be able to interact with the material world, in some sort of magnetically-sealed transsuit dealie (a 'body condom' of sorts, making any sex 'safe' in more ways than one). Since such a suit has already been established to be all-but invisible and 'molecule-thin,' he wouldn't even have to look like some Human Bomb legacy, in a bulky (or even visible) containment suit.
I'd expect the only reason he hasn't developed the ability to turn into a human form in this (or some other) manner, and, albeit in a limited fashion, regain a sense of a human existence, is the same reason why Charles Xavier always ends up in the wheelchair, Spiderman is wearing blue and red again, Ben Grimm can be cured a dozen times and always turns back into the Thing, etc, etc.
Editorially-mandated pants-wetting terror at the concept of character growth.
Posted by MLLASH on :
In X-STATIX, Prof. X was able to whip up all kinds of suits for energy-chick Veenus Dee Milo to inhabit, including one for... well, just about anything.
I'd say it's long past time that Drake had a few different types of suit she could jump into, even a fleshy one that looks like his old human self.
Posted by stuorstew on :
quote:Originally posted by DrakeB3004:
quote:Originally posted by Chief Taylor: I don't think he's ever been shown to actually 'lose' what he expends.
At the end of the story I mentioned above, Brainiac tells Wildfire that he actually did have a finite amount of energy to expend and that from that point on, the more energy he used, the more he was essentially killing himself. This was never a follow up to this though.
For me this was a missed opportunity from Legion of Three Worlds. The scene where reboot Wildfire restores original flavour Wildfire would have been much cooler if he had at least mentioned that even though he only has a little energy left and htis coulr be the end of him he was wiling to use it up to save Classic Drake.
Not that I would have wanted him to die and certainly not to save Wildfire but if you have to kill off a Legionnaire heroic sacrifice is a far better way to go than having a lump of Kryptonite thrown through your chest or being blasted by heat vision.
Unfortunately this would not have made Prime look good so obviously Geoff Johns ignored it.
Posted by Set on :
quote:Originally posted by MLLASH: I'd say it's long past time that Drake had a few different types of suit she could jump into, even a fleshy one that looks like his old human self.
"It's a suit, made out of meat. It's a meat-suit!"
Posted by Chief Taylor on :
quote:Originally posted by MLLASH: I'd say it's long past time that Drake had a few different types of suit she could jump into, even a fleshy one that looks like his old human self.
Let's not forget the more antural-looking version Drake adopted in the late Baxter era. Remember the kiss that burned Dawnstar? So that was one notable experiment that still reinforced the character's pathos nonetheless.
Posted by cleome on :
[snip]
quote:Originally posted by Set:
...I'd expect the only reason he hasn't developed the ability to turn into a human form in this (or some other) manner, and, albeit in a limited fashion, regain a sense of a human existence, is the same reason why Charles Xavier always ends up in the wheelchair, Spiderman is wearing blue and red again, Ben Grimm can be cured a dozen times and always turns back into the Thing, etc, etc.
Editorially-mandated pants-wetting terror at the concept of character growth.
Too true.
Posted by Red Arrow on :
I just don't see what stories we could tell with this plot development that have not been explored with other Legionnaires. If Wildfire is happy/well-adjusted then how does one use him? What would make a Wildfire story different from a Sunboy story?
Posted by razsolo on :
All of the below is just me playing devil's advocate, I'm not really invested one way or the other; while I quite like Wildfire being a tragic energy being, I wouldn't object to him regaining human form if good stories came out of it. Anyway, to answer your question:
quote:Originally posted by Red Arrow: What would make a Wildfire story different from a Sunboy story?
The same thing that makes a Sun Boy story different to a Lightning Lad story...or for that matter, a Lightning Lad to a Lightning Lass story. Every character should bring different things to the table aside from just their dominating characteristic.
Have we ever seen or heard anything about Wildfire's family? How do his parents feel about the changes he's undergone? Did they turn away from him when he became energy? Do they even know their son isn't dead? Did Wildfire himself cut ties with them when he lost his human form because it was too painful a reminder of what he'd lost? How would he cope with having all of that suddenly back when he's been living for years with the expectation that it was gone forever?
Etc etc...that's just off the top of my head, but there are things you can do with him that you can't do with any other Legionnaire and they don't preclude him evolving as a character.
Posted by cleome on :
quote:Originally posted by Red Arrow: I just don't see what stories we could tell with this plot development that have not been explored with other Legionnaires. If Wildfire is happy/well-adjusted then how does one use him? What would make a Wildfire story different from a Sunboy story?
Well, for one thing: even as "average" dudes without powers, Drake and Dirk would not have had interchangeable personalities, backgrounds, histories, et al.
Posted by DrakeB3004 on :
Drake did have significant growth since his inception. I think he's less the hothead, he developed into a mentor to the Academy students, and has become more open with his softer side.
Either way, how much "growth" do the other characters exhibit? Most characterizations circle around one clearly defined trait and rarely deviate much from it. The other gimmicks that have been tried with Drake - the energy body, using Dirk's corpse, the merged people origin, introducing mortality etc... none of that really improved on the original blueprint anyway. I think most of us walk around with a set of issues whose severity varies depending on where we are during our lives, but from my experience people don't really change all that much.
Posted by future king on :
I agree with you. Classic Wildfire is one Legionnaire that has shown the most growth over the years (I can't say the same for reboot Wildfire who came in too late). I think his crush and later friendship with Dawnstar has had a lot to do with him evolving as a person.
Posted by Red Arrow on :
I just want to ask, what other energy beings are there in the 30th century? I listened to a podcast about an energy being in Adventure 308. Is there others?
Posted by lil'rhino on :
There was the Anti-Matter Force Thing that Brainy used to defeat Computo, but I'm not sure if I would call it a "being". In the reboot, there was a character named Lume, who was made of light. In the threeboot, there were those "inklings" on that information planet. That's all I can remember, offhand.
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
There's the Positive Man, who I always thought should've become Wildfire's arch-enemy.
The inhabitants of planet Huop.
Quislet and the Teallians of course.
I'm sure there's more.
Posted by Superboy-Supergirl on :
maybe its time to evolve drake into actually becoming wildfire in a human form.
Posted by Red Arrow on :
Thanks for the info!
Superboy-Supergirl: How would you tell that story?
Posted by Eryk Davis Ester on :
I always thought something like that might happen to Wildfire post-Legion-on-the-Run. Eventually he'd be able to repair Dirk's body but it would still be his mind in it. I've imagined him adopting a variation of Dirk's old costume, but with his color scheme and symbol.
Posted by Superboy-Supergirl on :
hmmm maybe a lingering effect of the miracle machine when he was in it. (which is funny in retrospect that he didnt think to do that (make himself human) while he was in it LOL)
Posted by cleome on :
[snip]
quote:Originally posted by DrakeB3004: ...I think most of us walk around with a set of issues whose severity varies depending on where we are during our lives, but from my experience people don't really change all that much.
Huh. Well, I don't agree with this at all. Some people change tremendously over time, even if the nature of those changes aren't readily noticeable to casual observers.
Maybe there's a built-in disadvantage to portraying that kind of change in superhero comics, though-- where life isn't known for its overall subtlety.
At any rate, Wildfire is one of those characters who I neither really like nor dislike.* I would like to see him evolve but not in the customary turn-'em-into-an-insane-hateful-psycho-or-cringing-doormat way that too often passes as "change" in superhero comics. If that's the only option then, yeah. Leave him as-is.
*Wait. I lied. When he called Dr. Gym'll a pest to his face, I kind of almost loved Wildfire.
[ July 17, 2010, 03:05 PM: Message edited by: cleome ]
Posted by DrakeB3004 on :
I think that in the "Charred Earth" imaginary future,(I think that's what those annuals were called) having WILDFIRE be the die-hard, flag waving, inspirational leader made sense in terms of the evolution of the character.
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