Obscure Comics Character Pitch: Firestorm

Wherein the Serial Wordsmith takes an obscure comic book character, puts a new twist on it, and well, pitches it

Today's Character: Firestorm, the Nuclear Man

The Character: Firestorm is a C-list DC superhero and on-again, off-again member of the Justice League. His powers include flight, radioactive blasts and the ability to transmute the molecular structure of matter. So he can turn lead into gold, water into air, and the hardest steel into liquid mush. He's basically a living Philosopher's Stone. He's also got a doozy of a secret identity. See Firestorm isn't just one guy, he's two.

Let me explain. Firestorm's secret identities are Ronnie Raymond, a dumb white jock, and Jason Rusch, a black science nerd. While on a school trip to a local nuclear plant, they were caught in a nuclear blast which miraculously didn't kill them but activated their latent superpowers. Now they can join together to form the Firestorm Matrix, becoming one person. The guy above. One of them will be the "driver" of Firestorm's body while the other is a sort of psychic spirit, advising the other. Ronnie and Jason will usually trade off which is which. Together, they use their mighty nuclear powers to battle Evil.*

The Pitch: The first problem with any Firestorm story is that he's too powerful for his own good. The excellent blogger MightyGodking spells out most of the problems here, but basically Firestorm is too powerful and his place on this earth is redundant. So how do you solve this problem? Well since this is the DC Universe, the answer's simple. Put him on another earth. This is where DC's habit of keeping about 50 or so alternate universes around at any given time comes in handy.

So, we put Firestorm on another Earth. We'll call it Earth-33 since that isn't occupied right now. But just because it's an Earth doesn't mean it's like our Earth. Every Earth in the DC Multiverse is different. For instance, there's an Earth where the JLA are evil, an Earth where the Nazis won WW2, an Earth where Baby Superman landed in Soviet Russia, etc. So what's Earth-33 like? Well, if you heard me say Philosopher's Stone up there you may have an idea...

Yep, Earth-33 is a world of alchemists. Besides just being a way to get fun stuff like homunculi, demon summonings, weird potions and all sorts of crazy Hermetic magic into the story, it makes a certain amount of thematic sense. Like I said, one of Firestorm's main powers is transmutation, which is basically the main goal of alchemy, so now Firestorm is in a place more in line with his powers. And the fusion of different elements to make a new whole is also big in Alchemy, much like Ronnie and Jason coming together to make Firestorm. Okay, picture the setting. Taking a cue from Neal Stephenson's great Baroque Cycle novels, Earth-33 is a lot like Europe at the beginning of the Enlightenment. Gone through a reformation that eased the control of a stifling theocracy, but still under the yoke of monarchies. Now freed from Church control, the alchemists begin the first rumblings of a scientific revolution and once rogue philosophers start forming fringe political groups.  Into this drops Firestorm, a living Philosopher's Stone. A flesh and blood embodiment of everything these guys have been searching their whole lives for. You can bet any alchemist worth his salt is going to want to get their hands on him. And they'll throw whatever weird thing they've cooked up in their labs at him to do it.

In addition, Firestorm is a NUCLEAR Man. Meaning he's bringing some some heavy destructive force with him into a world that hasn't even developed electricity yet. It's not like Prometheus bringing fire from the gods (a comparison a secret mason-esque alchemical brotherhood will surely make) it's more like giving a monkey a handgun. And as soon as some of those monarchies I mentioned see the damage Firestorm is sure to dish out in his battles, they're going to want it. They'll be getting their own alchemists to figure out how the hell it works. Soon we're going to have 17th century science trying to develop nuclear weapons.

But what about Firestorm himself, you may be asking by now. Well, Ronnie and Jason are confused firstly. They have no idea how they ended up on Earth-33 and finding out why and how to get home will be their main motivation throughout the story. Otherwise, they're completely at odds. Ronnie, being the oblivious type, is taking the whole thing in stride. He's sort of digging being in this crazy fantasy word where he gets to swing swords around at monsters. He's tuning into a kind of Jack Sparrow figure, bumbling into adventures and getting out with only his wits and some well-placed nuclear blasts. Jason, on the other hand, hates it. He's suffering from massive culture shock and trouble adjusting the less-technologically advanced world. Plus, being of African descent in a word modeled on 17th century Europe probably isn't going to help. This will of course lead to that great Odd Couple banter between the two.

As for his supporting cast, well that's the other great thing about parallel worlds. They are already there, just alternate versions of them. So Ronnie's ex-girlfriend and Firestorm arch-enemy Killer Frost? Now she's an ice-controlling minor noble.** Fellow nuclear-powered hero Firehawk? A Molotov cocktail throwing political radical, yet to get her fire powers. And the pair's physicist mentor Prof. Stein? An Isaac Newton-esque eccentric scientist (who may or may not be a member of a secret mason-esque alchemical brotherhood).

So, that's my pitch. The Nuclear Man dropped into a world of feuding alchemists, monarchic control, political turmoil, and burgeoning scientific revolution. His two secret identities have to come together to find out how they got there and keep this powder keg they've dropped into from blowing itself up. They have to become the Superman of this world.

Oh, and one more thing. In addition to being a living Philosopher's Stone and a man made of nuclear energy, Firestorm is also one of Earth's Fire Elementals.*** And the thing about Elementals is that they need to keep each other balanced to keep themselves from destroying everything. And Earth-33's Elementals are far more powerful and plentiful than on our regular Earth. Plus, they hate each other. So when this rogue Fire Elemental shows up out of nowhere, the Earth, Air and Water Elementals are going to start asking questions. And no matter how good the Fire Elementals story is, they're probably not going to buy it. They may decide they need to even up the score and make a few new Elementals of their own...

*Yeah pedantic comics nerds, I know that isn't Firestorm's original origin and other people have formed the Matrix before. But this series is aimed at non-comics fans so I'm trying to keep things simple.

**Plus, It'll give a justification for Killer Frost's kind of silly Pre-Crisis outfit.

***And we have another tie back to Alchemy, the four Elements. Earth-33 Alchemy is actually derived from the powers of the Elementals.