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

Yeah, I was really hoping Firestorm would be a book I would really like again. A big disappointment. Like Lardy, sticking anywhere near the core concept of the book would have kept me around, but they couldn't even do that.

Yeah DC, don't fix what ain't broke!

Oh wait...

Old habits die hard, sadly.

I've always loved the totally bizarre randomness that is the inclusion of a one-shot Superboy villain (Astral Mage) as a JLAer in that story.

Halo is looking fine! (And her costume synergizes nicely with Ronnies!)

Is Halo the only original Outsider to have been pretty much abandoned? I've seen Katana in the new 52, and Geo-Force, Metamorpho and (Black) Lightning got some use before the reboot, in the Justice League, no less!

Astral Mage, meh. From what I can read, he could do anything, including accidentally give people the power of Superboy! That's a little more power than I'm comfortable with.

Halo is looking especially curvy, and since the original Halo is dead this Halo could happen ... oh wait ... she's dead but active in Batman Incorporated as part of an undead squad .... "The Dead Heroes Club"

I swear, I didn't make that up!


I would like to reimagine Astral Mage as a super hero with astral powers ... and not all the rest. Maybe Native American or from the East.

I'm scared to ask but... Halo is dead? When did that happen?

I remember the original Violet Harper body dying in the 90s series but since Halo is an incorporeal alien entity, she then just inhabited Marissa Baron's body.

Has that body, or the alien entity, also died now?

I have no idea. at all. i didn't even know about Marissa. Maybe new 52 Halo is different.

oh I read up. Halo went back to Violet's body ... after marissa ... no explanation ... then after a long time and the blackest night battle ... violet went to heaven or something ... and halo went back to earth (in violet's body i presume?)


the current halo operating in the new 52 batman incorporated dead heroes club is not dead but was presumed dead after a (failed) trap explosion. now they perform covert ops for Bats.


ive not read any of these issues though and am relying on wikipedia.


(i couldve sworn she died in blackest night. my mistake.)

^ Oh who can even keep up with the DCU anymore.

They've all died at one point or another... and they're all dead to me now anyway.

I finally read the Firestorm TPB last week that Eryk and I alluded to a few pages ago. It collected the five issues of the first, short-lived (because of the DC Implosion) series, plus the Cancelled Comic Cavalcade of the unpublished sixth issue and several of the backups that appeared in Flash.

I thought it was utterly fantastic! These were teen superhero comics done right, even if some of the "hip" lingo seems terribly dated. But the stories were fun, the villains interesting, the subplots engaging and the core dynamic between Ronnie and the Prof still feels fresh.

I'd forgotten entirely, for example, that Prof Stein didn't remember anything about being part of Firestorm when they were separated. The Flash backup stories had Ronnie come clean to Stein and explain their double life to him. I wish the original series had somehow never been cancelled because I feel this fascinating twist got short shrift because of having to truncate everything due to the uncertainty of being a backup, not knowing that the much more successful second volume would eventually come. Interesting and brave, though, that Stein turned to alcoholism as the missing, unexplained time took its toll on him.

There are other intriguing plotlines from the original series that I wonder if they ever got picked up in "Fury", such as Doreen's sister and the intrigue surrounding Ronnie's principal. I'm going to dig out my Fury collection and read it sometime in the near future to see. I've never read every issue that I bought as back issues many years ago, and I'm unsure of how complete I managed to get it. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

It's disappointing, though, that the TPB didn't include the entirety of the run of backups on the Flash. There's still probably a good 6-10 stories from that run that they could have easily included. A lot of what IS reprinted from those backups is a bit repetitive as it (understandably) recaps Firestorm's origin and early adventures for those who missed the original series. So including the entirety of the backup run would have given us a lot more bang for the buck and helped me fill in the holes.

The art by Al Milgrom on the first series is surprisingly good. Al has always been a much better inker than a penciler. His work on the Kitty Pryde and Wolverine mini and on West Coast Avengers are some pencilling examples that don't stand up well. But working on a solo book on a character he co-created must have been more his thing. It's not the most beautiful work ever or anything, but the work is solid, even inspired.

None other than George Perez did the pencils on the backup stories. While solid work, though, it's hardly vintage Perez. It looks more like he did layouts and relied on the inkers more than anything.

So, once again, my '70s/Bronze Age frenzy pays off by revisiting a character I've always loved by reading a trade of his earliest adventures I'd never read before. Writer Gerry Conway seems to have as many misses as hits, but this collection reaffirms my feeling that Firestorm was most definitely one of his hits!

My introduction to Firestorm was not the comics, but the final two seasons of the Super Friends TV show. I was intrigued that this super-powerful, kinda weird and scary-looking character had the voice of an average adolescent. Around the same time, I had a similar reaction when I first watched reruns of the early 80s Spider-Man cartoon, having a passing familiarity with the character, but having been scared of him until I heard him speak. Many years later, having read lots of comics featuring both characters, I don't think that's a coincidence. Chronologically, Ronnie Raymond was the most convincing teenager since Peter Parker in the early years of Spider-Man. That Ronnie was more of a jock than a nerd was a refreshing twist, showing that neither stereotype is valid.

I have the first couple years of "Fury of Firestorm", but I won't say anything that might spoil Lardy's re-reading fun. I'll just say that Pat Broderick's art is gorgeous, and the stories are, for the most part, "Good Conway" rather than "Bad Conway".

Honestly, as a kid I was convinced that Firestorm was a villain....and then a reformed villain! I'm sure this has something to do with his unusual (for the time) appearance.

(Oddly enough, I thought that Condo Arlik must have been a reformed villain himself. After all, "Chemical King" sounds more in line with the LSV names than the LSH!)




Also refreshing is that jock Ronnie was actually being bullied by nerd Cliff Carmichael!



Fury is part of the reason I've always admired Pat Broderick's art. That and his run on Captain Atom were both exceptional artistically. (Oddly enough, iirc, on both titles his eventual replacement was Raphael Kayanan--not a bad artist but a letdown after Pat in both cases.)

And I fully expect to enjoy re-reading Fury! Even if it wasn't the best thing ever, I'm sure my nostalgia for it would take up some of the slack!

Cliff Carmichael was a great creation of Conway's for sure.



Agreed 100%. Broderick also did some nice work for Marvel on Captain Mar-Vell and Doom 2099. Part of me still wishes he had stayed on Legion of Super-Heroes for more than just a few issues.

Gerry Conway is returning to Firestorm in a new mini beginning in January. As co-creator of the character and it being, imo, one of his best writing stints, Gerry returning has me cautiously optimistic. I hope that: 1) he ditches the terrible new 52 version, and 2) actually revisits the classic version courtesy of Convergence making other realities still existent. Ronnie as a teenager/college student with Prof Stein as his other half would be ideal!

Thanks for the news, Lardy. Like you, I think Conway's Firestorm stories are some of his best work, and like you, I'm cautiously optimistic. That said, I really hope it doesn't turn out like the Retroboot Legion.

Coincidence that Conway is returning to this so soon after the criticisms of DC's royalty programmes?

I hope this captures the fun of the original, and not the bitterness of the JLD.

Yeah, you've got to wondered if his sudden change of attitude on that issue isn't somehow connected to their throwing work his way.

It's kind of weird, because Conway was the one comic book writer of his generation who was able to break away and make a niche for himself in the live-action adult-oriented prime-time TV arena. If he's been reduced to scrounging for comic book work like all the others, that's really sad.

Yeah, just checking on IMDB, it doesn't look like he's getting a lot of tv work post-Law and Order.

Wow. It's like almost any writer who got his or her start in comic books is somehow cursed to keep coming back long after they've said what they had to say.

^^Note that I'm not sure how much you can read into that, as I think he'd actually be pretty well off after serving as a co-producer on a Law and Order spinoff, and he's just a few years shy of retirement age anyway, so it may not be any sort of financial necessity or anything that's leading him back into comics.

I hope you're right, EDE.

Yeah, I'm seeing the same thing. And he's still relatively young at 62. However, he's also gotten some recent work from Marvel doing a Spider-Man arc, so it's not his first work in the field recently. I would hope that having had several successful stints as writer/producer on recognizable shows, he's probably made some good money that he hopefully didn't burn through.

I like to think that he's doing okay but has had the itch for comics again recently. And, hell, if DC wants to give him some work AND address some of their creator rights fallacies, I say more power to him!

^^And....basically Edie beats me to the punch by making all the same points!!!

BTW, I wouldn't mind at all if this revival were accompanied by Pat Broderick on art....

That's a long shot, though. No artist announced yet nor length of the mini.