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Firestorm's series would become a victim of the DC Implosion, however, and get the axe after only five issues but that wasn't the end of the character. Conway would bring Firestorm over to Justice League of America as well as a series of backups in Flash before getting a new ongoing that would run for 100 issues. Through the '90s Ronnie/Firestorm would pop up here and there seeing his most extensive use in Extreme Justice and the later part of Joe Kelly's JLA run before being killed off in Identity Crisis with a new character, Jason Rusch, becoming Firestorm. Jason's series would last for 35 issues.

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My intent is to try and see if I can do all of the original series, the '80s series and the 2000s series. Outside of a few other stories like the Flash backups, though, I intend to stick to the solos.

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First appearances as well of Doreen Day, Ronnie's love interest during Conway's time with the character, and Clifford Carmichael. Part of the intent also seems to be invert the Spider-Man thing, almost like what would have happened if a nicer version of high school Flash Thompson became a superhero while Peter Parker was the asshole bully.

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When John Ostrander takes over in the latter half of the '80s series he seems to have no use at all for the characters from Conway's time wit the character as most of the supporting cast will disappear while the villains get shunted off to act as fodder in Suicide Squad.

Doreen will get it the worst as she straight up disappears after the story that really sets direction Ostrander wants and I don't think has ever appeared again outside of it.

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I'll take short breaks inbetween issues.

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Issue 2

Yes

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Issue 3

>>152671859
>Ronnie Raymond
Why did they kill him off?

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>>152672446
Seeing as he died and Jason was immediately introduced and became Firestorm and it was the 2000s...

When in doubt, assume that DiDio hated the character and thought he was lame or something.

>>152671882
He looks powerful.

>>152671944
So you were allowed to say "retarded" in comics at the time?

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>>152672674
It wasn't really until the 2010s where it became verboeten.

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One more issue. This collection also includes the unpublished black and white version of issue 6 from Cancelled Comics Cavalcade. But since it's non-canon as the story itself did eventually see print, in reworked form, as part of the backup feature in Flash and as I don't really have the time, I'm not bothering with it.

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Issue 5

Alex Ross does not like Firestorm

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>>152672999
Alex Ross does not like anything created after like 1966 and I've never cared for his art.

>>152672443
-1000C
Jesus Christ, that is much less than absolute zero. Is that like anti-movement for molecules?
>>152672481
So this is the difference between DC and Marvel. Women named Frost actually have icy powers.

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>>152673019
Okay I was wrong, Ross's cutoff is the late '70s because he got mad over the deaths of Aquaman's son and Iris West. I guess I get it but I think my DC cutoff point of Flashpoint is more reasonable.

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>>152673075
This was when it was expected or common to have a villain whose name was kind of punny. Only about a year or two after this is the introduction of Roy G. Bivolo.

>>152672999
Which one?

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>>152673095
Any of them. He makes it a point to never include Firestorm when doing pictures of the Justice League just like how he refused to draw/paint Kyle Rayner for Kingdom Come.

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And that does it for the first Firestorm series as, despite promises, this wound up being the last issue. It would thus take a few years before this hanging plot thread with Hyena was resolved.

Anyway as long as there's interest to keep going, then next time will cover a few "inbetween" appearances with DC Comics Presents #17 and Justice League of America #179-180. Typically I'll stay away from the non-solo stuff but since it's the issues that revolve around him joining I'll include them.

>>152673125
Oh, I checked, it is because of Iris' death.

>Make Firestorm half-drunk to make Multiplex more of a threat
Well that is an interesting approach. Did the writer talk about his decision-making for this series? There are a lot of things that feel strange. Prof Stein's blackout aspects are probably thee worst, but also introducing conventional gangsters who probably can't do shit when Hyena seemed to reply on Firestorm not fighting effectively to begin with.

>>152673521
He seems to be playing with the Spider-Man formula, instead of a nerd, the hero is the jock, the professor is a drunkard, etc...

>>152673585
Yeah, instead of a nerd with athletic powers it's a jock with science powers. Firestorm is powerful but requires someone who knows science and shit to use those powers to their full capabilities and a high school athlete isn't really going to be that.

Thanks. I've been interested in reading some Firestorm since the new book got announced. The only comic I own with him is a trade of his section from the Legends of Tomorrow anthology book.

>>152673585
>>152671986
>Wolf-Man
>Nova also has a played with Spider-Man formula
I wonder if this is intentional.

>>152673673
Gerry Conwayhad a lot of experience writing him.

>>152671955
I've always thought Multiplex should be a bigger villain to Firestorm, maybe even their arch considering how involved he is since the very beginning.
Nowadays, like most other Firestorm villains, he's just kinda villain fodder, his most memorable recent role was fighting Hal and Barry at some point, working (and dying) for Black Adam, and being in the Dark Crisis.

>>152671999
>ot enough to make a single man
Oh, foreshadowing

>>152672025
They look like they are dancing

>>152672006
HE EVEN GETS HIS POWERS AT THE SAME TIME!
Come on! It's like poetry, it rhymes, he should be way more involved in Firestorm stories instead of just being other villains' lackey.

>>152671955
>>152672006
It's honestly kind of amazing how little DC cares about Firestorm that they allowed Johns to completely retcon his whole mythos and have the Professor secretly groom and manipulate Ronnie into becoming Firestorm with him.
They would never allow such a massive change on a bigger character, but Firestorm? Sure I guess, since apparently no one fucking cares about them.

>>152672140
Oh, superdickery

>>152673905
They also do it with major characters, see what happened to Jor-el.

>>152673893
This is my first time reading Firestorm, so I'm surprised if that is the case. Outside of maybe some hero vs villain balance issues, seems like he's supposed to be the main bad guy.

>>152673843
My problem is that Multiplex is just sort of lame. I get the fusion vs. fission aspect but he's basically just a dull Multiple Man and even in these stories doesn't come off as THAT much of a threat. Hyena and Tokamak are really the better options I think. Mindboggler should have been the sympathetic Catwoman style villain for Ronnie instead of being Squad fodder. Killer Frost is obviously the most notable though.

Cliff would have been fine if he'd stayed in Firestorm instead of getting moved to Suicide Squad. The Hyena curse should have gotten passed onto Doreen too.

>>152673958
Since /co/ doesn't seem to read comics, I must always bring up that the Mr. Oz bullshit was originally meant to specifically not be in-character for Jor-El, and something that was being done to him against his will by Dr. Manhattan through Kryptonite poisoning in his brain, something Superman discovered, but couldn't do anything about before Manhattan took him away. It was Bendis who completely ignored that detail and played him completely straight as an amoral mad scientist who was the reason Krypton was destroyed in the first place.
After Bendis left, DC started course correcting his character hard any chance they got, Waid in particular when he got to write his Phantoms storyline and acknowledged how the Phantom Zone was a cruel and unusual punishment, having it so Jor-El didn't even want his invention to be used like that.
Hell, he's even getting an Elseworld story where he lands on Earth and becomes Superman, so DC definitely still sees the character as good and pushes that any chance he gets.
And yes, I'm specifically talking about the books, don't care about the movies since that's a whole separate thing and everyone is aware that it's a big departure from the classic characterization of the character.
It's not comparable to saying that the Professor actually planned to become Firestorm all along and sticking with it.

>>152672381
Oh, it is surprising that she was introduced so soon

>>152673958
I forgot to mention that it's also not just the Professor being painted in a negative and manipulative light, but also a handful of their enemies being retconned as intentional metahumans made by the government.
It's just such a cynical reframing of Firestorm's lore that they wouldn't dare do with a character people actually cared about.

>>152672453
Woman moment.

>>152672667
The hyena

>>152674207
>It was Bendis who completely ignored that detail
Bendis ignoring shit you say? Surely not.

>>152672789
I wonder what happened

>>152674366
Crystal is the less well known compared to Louise Lincoln who was Killer Frost from the '80s up until the reboot (and is thus presumably the DCAU one).

The character is actually part of a whole song and dance of DC/WB trying to screw people out of royalties. The Arrowverse version was Caitlin Snow, the current comics version created by Dan Jurgens but IIRC used a version of the Crystal Frost moniker. So WB tried to argue that Jurgens wasn't entitled to royalties because it was actually based on the Conway/Milgrom version but because it wasn't explicitly Crystal then it was a derivative versiom and thus essentially a show OC so Conway and Milgrom weren't entitled to royalties either.

>>152672939
>>152672886
Ok, thanks for the story time

Nuclear bump

Time to read the last issue.

>>152675000
It is surprising how petty they can be

>>152674069
>Outside of maybe some hero vs villain balance issues
Yes, Firestorm is really overpowered compared to his foes.
Even with the hyena being such a strong bruiser, it feels unfair from his part.

>>152675000
Jeez. No wonder owning your own IP is so attractive.

>>152671859
Thanks anon, I loved him in blackes night.

>>152673223
Oh, thanks, just finished it

>>152671859
Why does this cover feel like a swipe of an old Doctor Solar cover?

>>152678257
Does it?

Reminder that the whole accident was intentionally trying to create a us superhero and stein was in on it

>>152678604
That seems impossible with how it was written here. Far too many moving parts with dependencies.

>>152671999
That KRAK! looks like it could do some real damage

>>152671867
>wowee

gay

>>152672140
>Superman trolling people in their own comic covers
His fuckery knew no bounds back then

>>152678828
Yes, we can even see his thoughts.
Only Killer Frost could be said to be intentional

>>152678604
I hate Johns.

>>152680248
It was just for shock value

>>152673076
I like the way folds and creases are drawn on the characters' shirts

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Since this is still up, here's DC Comics Presents #17.

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I do appreciate that the in-universe reason for the cancellation was that Ronnie just decided "Yeah, screw it I can't do this" and retired for a while.

Anyway, next up: Firestorm joins the Justice League.

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Justice League #179

>>152681532
Huh, wonder what Superman thought Wonder Woman would be better suited for if he didn't know her brain problems yet.

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>>152681845
I have no idea what was going on with Wonder Woman circa 1980 because I'm not really into the character. Was she still in the kung fu secret agent phase?

>>152681721
>The actual defeating her is only two panels long
Not surprising since they already know her weakness, but a bit funny.

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>>152682016
That seems to be how a lot of older Superman stories are. It's not so much Superman vs. the villain as it is Superman vs. the gimmick and once he's overcome the gimmick then the villain is dispatched almost as n afterthought.

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Justice League #180

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In spite of the implication that Satin Satan was actually evil the whole time, she's never shown up again.

Next time, Firestorm's stories will spend the next year or so as backups in the Flash and we'll get the first half of that run with Flash #289-296 which incudes encounters with the Hyena and a reworked version of the cancelled Firestorm #6 with the introduction of Typhoon.

>>152682405
Thanks.

>>152682055
Because of this, Doomsday was a big deal, he was designed to trade blows with superman.

>>152682405
What are the main differences between the typhoons's versions?

>>152682838
Typhoon in the cancelled version was a mobster while the Typhoon in the canon version is a scientist whose life repeatedly gets fucked over.

>>152683038
Oh, thanks for the answer.

>>152671969
>Coalition to Resist Atomic Power
lol

>>152683038
Oh, was he connected to the others from the previous issues?

>>152672140
I miss when Superman would cameo at the start of a run to boost sales rather than Batman.

>>152681588
>>152681603
Nice callback

>>152681628
>World trade center
Lel.

>>152684018
If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't have noticed it.

>>152681740
>Anyway, next up: Firestorm joins the Justice League
If it could have been a year earlier

Firestorm always seems like one of those characters that just kind of exists, wonder if there are any big Firestorm fans out there.

>>152681899
>>152681913
>Firestorm joining.
I wonder how he will explain the professor

>>152671859
Bruce Timm refused to use Firestorm in Justice League Unlimited because he thought Firestorm "looked like a fuckin fag" although you won't hear him say that (in public) today

>>152684859
The fire hair would be really hard to animate.

>>152684495
He has fans; he's getting a new series entirely because Lemire likes him. He's just always been kind of a C-lister. I've always been vaguely interested in the character because he showed up on Super Friends back when CN showed it and I thought he looked cool but I mostly have experience with the 2000s series more than Ronnie's stuff.

I like the 2000s series and Jason but it's mostly ho hum until Stuart Moore takes over after the first year. It and the John Rogers run on Blue Beetle from around the same time are both really good and definitely made those characters a lot better than they otherwise would have been.

>>152684859
Bruce Timm is a self inserting fag desu

>>152684859
No, it happened both because the script they had had too many parts and wound up being unwieldy so it got reworked into something else even and even ignoring that Timm admitted he had problems making the look work in animation. The episode that was supposed to be about Firestorm eventually became "The Greatest Story Never Told."

Also, McDuffie wanted Ronnie and Stein to be voiced by H. Jon Benjamin and Jonathan Katz.

>>152684975
>Also, McDuffie wanted Ronnie and Stein to be voiced by H. Jon Benjamin and Jonathan Katz
For a minute I thought it was weird, than I remembered that Jason is younger than the animated series.

>Too many moving parts.
I think it is the reason for why he isn't that popular.

>>152684495
I saw him in Justice League Action and I immediately thought he was such a cool idea for a character and had a really unique dynamic.
Then I looked at what they were doing with him in the comics and got sad.

>>152682030
I wonder how long until the doctor puts 2 + 2 together

>>152684495
I feel like this thread has filled in the holes as to why that is, at least in part. The way it gets cut short and Conway just keeping it going through other books gives the impressions that the character is novel enough to persist but since the initial run is short and stilted it's not really definitive, so not many people are going to bitch if another writer comes along and does whatever with it. That kind of thing must cut both ways for writers since it allows for plenty of creative freedom to potentially create something great but there's no riding on the coattails of what was done before to help you get it off the ground.

>>152682089
He looks really good in the top right panel

>>152685051
They did a good job with him there. I remember liking how they handled Firestorm in Batman the Brave and the Bold as well, though it was more of an inversion with nerdy kid Jason Rusch as the primary knowing all the science stuff while coach/teacher Ronnie Raymond is the secondary and offers physical/tactical advice.

>>152685180
He went into JLA in 1980 and his second series was from 1982-1990. I think a big problem is that Ostrander's run changed things a lot AND basically gave the character an ending. I'm sure there are people more familiar but AFAIK Ostrander's run is more about Firestorm as an entity mixed with Cold War politics (specifically nuclear proliferation) so it turns it from a superhero book about a jock and scientist into what amounts to the environmental stuff from Moore's Swamp Thing combined with the politics of Suicide Squad so it's now about this all powerful avatar of whatever rather than a character whose power is limited by how creative and smart the person in charge is. Kind of why Spectre has been a non-entity after Ostrander's run or Captain Atom in general. When the character has become a virtual god it's hard to do much with them.

IIRC in the '90s Ronnie's repowered but without the merging aspect so it's trading one problem for another so you can say just rebooting it with a new character was kind of necessary to make the concept work by taking it back to basics. Also I think there's a split between people who think the Conway stuff was an enjoyable superhero vs. those who think Ostrander's run is better/more mature.

>>152685379
>When the character has become a virtual god it's hard to do much with them.
They had this problem since early, his early enemies are "Firestorm vampires" or they get to jump on him.

>>152671920
I love this hairstyle on women. If anyone can tell me what it is, I'd appreciate it.

>>152685435
It'd just feathered hair ala Farrah Fawcett.

>>152685435
"Feathered" or perhaps more specifically "The Farrah Fawcett"