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How Ronnie Beat Cancer and Got His Powers Back – 1995

Ronnie Raymond lived the life of a normal guy after leaving the Firestorm Elemental matrix in 1990 (Firestorm vol II #100).  Then in 1995 Ronnie was diagnosed with an advanced case of Leukemia.  The future was looking pretty bleak for Ronnie, but within a few short months his cancer was cured and he got his powers back!  How did that happen?  To find out, we need to look at the series Extreme Justice.

Extreme Justice #5 featuring Firestorm

Extreme Justice was a series that lasted only 19 issues and ran from 1995-1996.  The team was intended to be a more proactive version of the Justice League.  The initial members of the team were: Captain Atom, Blue Beetle, Booster Gold, Maxima, and Amazing Man.  The issues highlighted below were written by Dan Vado, penciled by Marc Campos, inked by Ken Branch, and colored by Lee Loughridge.

The Extreme Justice comic was definitely a product of its time.  Just look at the name, “Extreme”.  Nothing says 1990s comic books more than the word “Extreme”.  The art and coloring are also classic examples of the 1990s: busy panels, “gritty” art, screaming facial expressions, muscles everywhere, crackling energy, and exaggerated everything.  Love it or hate it, this is what many comics were during that era.

Below are two pages from Extreme Justice #0.  In these pages Ronnie was diagnosed with an advanced case of Leukemia.   Geez, Professor Stein had an inoperable brain tumor, and then Ronnie got Leukemia.  Maybe being Firestorm isn’t so great…

Extreme Justice #0 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #0 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Next up are two pages from Extreme Justice #1…

Extreme Justice #1 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #1 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Below are two pages from Extreme Justice #2.  In these pages Ronnie has his first chemotherapy treatment.  Skeets, Booster Gold’s sidekick, was kind enough to keep him company.  I gotta say that’s very generous of Skeets considering he never really knew Firestorm.

Extreme Justice #2 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #2 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Below are two pages from Extreme Justice #3.  As you’ll see below, Ronnie’s therapy hadn’t been going too well…

Extreme Justice #3 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #3 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #4 featured quite a bit of Ronnie Raymond and his out-of-control powers.  Below I’ve scanned the three pages I felt were most relevant to this discussion.  At this point the Extreme Justice team had arrived and were attempting to assist Ronnie.

Extreme Justice #4 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #4 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #4 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Thanks to Blue Beetle’s quick thinking and Amazing Man’s powers, they were successful in draining off Firestorm’s excess energy.  Once things calmed down, we found Ronnie had once again become Firestorm, this time without anyone else in the matrix.  Though his powers had returned, Ronnie was still suffering from Leukemia.  To make matters more complicated, Professor Martin Stein in the guise of the Firestorm Elemental chose this moment to return to Earth.

Extreme Justice #5 focused almost exclusively on Ronnie Raymond as Firestorm and Professor Stein as the Firestorm Elemental.  When the Firestorm Elemental arrived on Earth, he was several stories tall and his elemental powers were causing numerous fires to break out.  The Firestorm Elemental had been exploring deep space for the past five years and had lost touch with Professor Stein’s humanity.  The Elemental had returned to Earth with the intention of absorbing Ronnie into the Elemental being, joining their consciousness into one.

Below are six pages from Extreme Justice #5 that cover the highlights of the issue…

Extreme Justice #5 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #5 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #5 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Next, the Firestorm Elemental showed Ronnie some of the wonders of the universe in an attempt to change his mind about  merging together.  Ronnie still chose to decline the offer.  We pick up the story as the Firestorm Elemental returned them to the real world…

Extreme Justice #5 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #5 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

Extreme Justice #5 - Firestorm - How Ronnie Raymond beat cancer and got his powers back

So there you have it.  Ronnie’s Firestorm powers were reactivated by chemotherapy and/or gene therapy, and his Leukemia was cured by the Firestorm Elemental.  Seems to me Ronnie owes a huge debt of gratitude to the following folks: Skeets, Blue Beetle, Amazing Man, and the Elemental Firestorm.

Firestorm stayed with the Extreme Justice team for about a year until his alcoholism began interfering with his superheroics.  After Extreme Justice, Firestorm languished in obscurity for nearly 10 years.  During this period he joined the JLA and the Power Company, but his appearances were few and far between.  Ronnie remained active as Firestorm until his death in the 2004 mini-series Identity Crisis.

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13 Comments

  1. Brandon DP says:

    I haven’t been able to find these in back issue bins, so thanks a lot for posting these Shag, I always wondered what Ronnie’s role was in this.

  2. Frank says:

    I’m trying to figure out whether I need radiation treatments against the memory Marc Campos’ art on my eyes or my brain more. Here’s better.

  3. I’m always glad when someone sets the record straight. The official DC line shortly after this event was that Elemental (Stein) Firestorm gave Ronnie back his powers, but that’s clearly not the chain of events that actually happens here. People won’t listen to me when I point this out. Maybe they’ll listen to you. :)

  4. David H. says:

    that was a great read! it’s a shame they never had Firestorm in the Justice League Unlimited series. in fact they had at one time or another pretty everybody in these panels but Amazing Man, Firestorm and Blue Beetle.

  5. Outburst says:

    I never read this, so thanks for sharing it. Even though it had a lot of bad 90s things to it (what’s with all the long hair and Booster’s horrible costume??), it looks like a decent read. If anything, the writers were fairly knowledgeable and faithful to the Firestorm mythos. I always found the FS/Capatain Atom clashes slightly interesting, even if they didn’t play out very long. Two atomically powered guys with high energy levels seemed like a fairly epic bout to me.

  6. dan says:

    This brings back memories. I used to make bookmarks outta scans of great vertical panels in comics, for the books I was reading back then. The one of Firestorm pleading with the Professor about turning the city into a heap was killer.

  7. […] kind of surprising that Ron picked on Booster so much, especially after Booster’s sidekick Skeets helped Ron through his cancer treatments.  However, was anything Firestorm did REALLY that out-of-line?  Think of all the pranks Booster […]

  8. (what’s with all the long hair and Booster’s horrible costume??)

    To be fair, all the characters in the comic itself thought that costume was horrible, too. Booster was restored to his classic look by the end of the series.

  9. […] How Ronnie Joined Extreme Justice – 1995 a.k.a. “How Ronnie Beat Cancer and Got His Powers Back – 1995″ […]

  10. Man, forget leukemia, Ronnie’s biggest illness was clearly his hair! (and it spread to Cap Atom too!)

    Ah the 90s… i’m nostalgic for you to never return in some ways.

  11. […] How Ronnie Beat Cancer and Got His Powers Back […]

  12. John Nelson says:

    I’m still holding onto my theory (only cause I have yet to see anything to disprove it), that the matrix has nothing to do with the Firestorm power. It was established that Ronnie has a metagene that was activated giving him the Firestorm power. The matrix wasn’t even thought of until after the Fire elemental stories happened. My theory is that the Firestorm powers belong to Ronnie alone, the matrix copied those powers (and with Martin being involved in the mix it is entirely plausible for this to happen). So now the matrix has to potential to grant anyone that becomes a part of it Firestorm powers, but only those powers copied from Ronnie at that particular time. Another item that had been forgotten (for a while at least), Ronnie has a near genius level intellect after it was shown that he was absorbing knowledge from Martin, yet most of the time after these events occurred, most writers still portrayed him as an incompetent who could barely use his powers (I know they have overall say in how they portray a character, but if this was followed, it could’ve made for some really good stories). It’s kind of odd, but Firestorm seems to suffer from a problem shared by Captain Atom and certain other characters, writers are given a character to use that is extremely powerful (and I’m talking Supes power and above) and then all of a sudden they don’t know what to do with them. Firestorm should literally be one of the most dangerous heroes to fight against, but only in the hands of a writer who has a clear idea of what he wants to do with the character (I was really looking forward to Mike Carey writing Firestorm, but was not to be).

    Enjoy all and apologies for the $.02 worth of ranting. :)

    1. Shag says:

      Hi John – Thanks for sharing your thoughts. If you are interested in the Mike Carey series, this post might interest you.
      http://firestormfan.com/2010/04/28/the-firestorm-series-that-almost-was-2003/

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