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Who is controlling Fury?

After reading The Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Men #2, I can’t help but wonder who is controlling Fury. I’ve been operating under the assumption that Fury’s independent persona comes from one of two places:

  1. Fury’s persona is an amalgamation of Ronnie and Jason’s subconscious minds; or
  2. Fury’s persona comes from the nuclear power itself.

However, after reading the panel below, I’m left wondering if there is another possible answer…

Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #2 page 7

Seeing Ronnie and Jason operate consciously inside Fury reminded me of the “Blank Slate” incarnation of Firestorm.  In that incarnation, Ronnie and Mikhail Arkadin were trapped inside the Firestorm persona, much like Ronnie and Jason in this issue.  In the “Blank Slate” version, the Firestorm persona was being controlled by Professor Stein’s subconscious mind.

The panel above has me wondering if there could be a third person in the Fury matrix with Ronnie and Jason? Could Ronnie’s murdered friend Trev have something to do with Fury’s persona? Could Fury’s persona be derived from Professor Stein in some way?

What do you think?

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5 Comments

  1. Patrick says:

    Dear Shag:

    Note: There may be spoilers for those that read this.

    I was wondering the same thing — not at the level that you are at, but the “who is in charge of Fury” because it seems fairly obvious that Ronnie/Jason are not. I initially thought it might be Martin Stein related, but I’m not sure how to reconcile that with the fury of…well…Fury! Unless, in the subconscious state, Stein just sees what these murderers have done to colleagues, families, students, etc and acts accordingly? The Trev component is interesting as he could have substantial rage at being killed — yet still “lives” within Firestorm somehow. Maybe the clue is in the strange language Ronnie used in the first one — was it sweet-cheeks or sweet-cakes…maybe whoever caused Ronnie to say that is the one in “charge” within Fury?

    I am also curious as to how they form Fury. At first I thought it was their anger that led to it, but it was also their anger at one another that got them to emerge into separate entities again.

    How was Jason hurt? Is this inexperience, or is this group just trained to fight walking nuclear reactors and had weapons at their disposal (when not reduced to roses)

    Finally, complaint on Issue # 1. In the Ronnie’s football practice panels, with the shot of the whole team, has that artist ever watched a football game? I am a huge football fan, and I don’t know that I’ve ever seen (limited my experience with it is though) a well-drawn football game. There is what appears to be a linebacker several yards from the line of scrimmage in a three-point stance, and the offense looks similarly confused. That is the extent of my complaints…and it’s not like we will have a chance to revisit him as HS QB anytime soon.

    Thanks for your site and podcast! It really helped spurn me to start off fresh with Firestorm in the relaunch.

  2. outburst says:

    There are a lot of very interesting things happening in this book but at the same time, I have felt somewhat frustrated at the end of each issue. It’s a good thing because my curiosity is piqued and I need to know what’s happening next and am frustrated that I have to wait another month to find out more.

    But at the same time, did they decrease the number of pages in each issue or something? There doesn’t seem to be much real estate between the covers to tell a story. I can remember in the old days (and I think Conway hinted at this in your interview with him) that you’d get a full story in each issue (at most they would span two issues back then) with a beginning, climax and resolution. Sure, there would be little sub-plots that would carry over from issue to issue but ever since Geoff Johns got control of DC he seems interested in these long-winded story arcs that will traverse a dozen issues before we get any answers.

    That’s a big investment, and some may not follow the dangling carrot forever, although for now, I can say I’m interested. I really like what I see happening with the Justice League, as well as Firestorm. It has been a more ‘current’ take on Flamehead which is great in a lot of ways, but I guess I’m just frustrated because it feels like we’re getting about a dozen pages of content and then boom, end panel with a cliffhanger and a month to wait for more.

    I think I’m going to have to go count pages because I could swear that 25 years ago there were more pages of content in each issue. Gail, Ethan and Yildiray are doing a great job, but it’s too bad they’ve got so little space to tell this tale.

  3. Spinks says:

    Shag, et. al.

    Your question: “Who is controlling Fury?”

    Has a really easy answer:

    The writers.

    But maybe that’s a bit too literal of an approach.

  4. Robert Gross says:

    I’m going to go out on a limb with an early guess and say the absentee Ed Raymond, Ron’s father. It’s the Chekov’s gun principle. In issue #1, Ed (assuming he is still named Ed in this continuity) is mentioned as a loathesome deadbeat dad who split on his family in passing, and then is never referenced again. The Chekov’s gun principle for playwrights is that if you show early on in your play that there is a seemingly innocuous rifle placed over the fireplace mantle, you better plan to use the rifle later on. So in this case, there better be consequences to mentioning that Ronnie has an absentee deadbeat dad. Fury’s personality— calling a girl “Sweetcheeks”— seems to fit with the stereotype of the unfit father.

  5. Robert Gross says:

    The comments Shag has posted from the creative team all but seem to be spelling out “It’s Martin Stein.” But if it is, it’s either a very out of character Martin Stein, Martin Stein’s pure id (the dark side in all of us), or, Martin Stein is a very different kind of guy who would talk like the Grey Hulk and call women “Sweet Cheeks.”

    Of course, to be fair, the old Martin Stein might’ve called women “Sweet Cheeks” and acted like the Grey Hulk… when he was drunk.

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