Flaming hair, puffy sleeves, pointed shoulders and an asymmetrical symbol - Firestorm's look is crazy but for some reason it always worked for me. He definitely stood out among the other DC heroes back in the 80's. The Original Human Torch and Toro, on the other hand, have incredibly simple looks that are equally as effective. The flamed human appearance is so cool that they don't even need facial features! Toro does look a little goofy when flamed off, though - I'm not sure why Jim Hammond gets to wear a full red suit but he is stuck with boots and a pair of shorts.
Firestorm is another character some consider to be Marvel hero accidently winding up in the DC Universe (like Batman and Lobo)!
ReplyDeleteWasn't it Len Wein or somebody that said something to the affect that Firestorm was DC's version of Spider-Man? I'm not sure the exact quote, but DC was looking to do a teen hero, like Spider-Man, but with a twist, and the '70's twist was Firestorm...
ReplyDeleteI missed the pre-DC-implosion Firestorm. I got started with the character in the early '80's. I stuck with the character for the first 25 issues. Good read. He was a unique addition to the Justice League around 1979...
So, Jim Hammond was an artificial life form, with a human kid sidekick? Was Toro a human kid or a mutant?
@AirDave: Yeah, he was a mutant, thus why he attracted the attention of The Human Torch. I belief he wound up being killed in a battle with the Mad Thinker.
ReplyDeleteFirestorm as Marvel character in the DCU? I guess I can see that.
@AirDave: In the early 1970's Marvel and DC had almost zero competition in super-heroes (besides each other), so the new titles and features were mostly monsters, barbarians and apocalyptic futures. In the second half of the decade they had to compete with video games and science fiction/fantasy movies for kids' quarters and eyeballs. That's why they suddenly tried to repeat their past super-hero successes; it was something still unique to them. Spider-man was an obvious model for a character that younger, new readers could identify with. They tried Firestorm at DC and Nova at Marvel then went even younger with Air Wave II and Kitty Pryde.
ReplyDeleteFor me, Firestorm's costume was something that had to grow on me. I didn't care for the puffy sleeves and asymmetrical chest design at first, but eventually they became an iconic part of the character that just shouldn't be done without (rather like Power Girl's cleavage window).
ReplyDeleteAnd on the topic of costume redesigns, it's just recently occurred to me that two redesigned superheroines who eventually went back to their old looks would work well together: Wonder Woman and Storm. Both wore leather jackets with their costumes for a while (Storm during her "mohawk" days), and a team-up between the two would be sweet.
And, for my own part, I would have rather kept the newer costumes (though I'm glad Storm went back to her old hairstyle).