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In the late 1970s, there was a marketing push at DC Comics
that went under the heading, the "DC Explosion". DC tried
out several new series at this time, new characters not
based on older, Golden Age counterparts, as were many of
DC's Silver Age characters. The one which concerns me, this
month, is the young hero Firestorm, one of the last
"nuclear" heroes. Created just as anti-nuclear hysteria
swept the United States, Firestorm was an unusual character,
in that he was a fusion of two men.
Professor Martin Stein was completing work on a nuclear
power plant when an anti-nuclear terrorist group, using
impressionable high school students to plant explosives (and
catch all the heat, incidentally), set off an explosion that
broke open the reactor vessel, exposing both Stein and
Ronnie Raymond (impressionable high school student) to the
unfiltered radiation of the reactor core. In DC terms, both
Raymond and Stein must have possessed the "metagene" and so,
rather than suffering lethal radiation poisoning, their
bodies fused into a superhuman body with unusual senses and
powers. Oh, and flame, for hair.
When they were bombarded by the radiation, Ronnie Raymond
was dragging the unconscious Professor Stein to safety, so
when their bodies merged Ronnie's personality was dominant
while Professor Stein became a sort of disembodied presence
in Firestorm's mind. They soon learned that either one of
them could initiate the transformation into Firestorm,
somehow drawing the other to the location of the one who
needed Firestorm. This led to some humorous and somewhat
difficult situations, such as the time Prof. Stein dragged
Ronnie out of the shower, to form Firestorm. The pressures
of leading double lives also caused many problems for both
men.
Of course, what I'm concerned with in this column is the
costume, more than anything, and the original Firestorm
costume wasn't bad, except that I would never expect a high
school kid with no interest in such things to create such an
outfit. Especially the loose sleeves. In red and yellow, it
was flashy and tasteless as anything from the Golden Age and
incorporates one of the best derivatives of the "atom"
symbol that I have seen.
For my version, I saved the headpiece, just because I like
it and the "atom" emblem. For the rest, I decided to
eliminate the traditional costume elements and go for a body
stocking type garment. A man who can transmute matter could
wear anything, after all. The idea is to make him something
like Dr. Manhattan from Alan Moore's WATCHMEN, with a bit
more of a flamboyant nature. I decided to alter the color
scheme, allowing the colors to fade at the hands and feet,
from red-orange to yellow.
Fire for hair. Wonder who thought that was a good idea?
That's it, for this month. Next month, I have another
character who came out of the DC Explosion in mind. Both
these guys made good starts, but were caught in the DC
Implosion, four or five months later. Who? Be back next
month, and see for yourself. See you then.
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