Ready for a blast from the past? Anyone remember the team of Russian super-powered teenagers called Soyuz? Check out Firebird’s entry from DK’s DC Comics Encyclopedia, Updated and Expanded Edition (September 2008). Firebird was secretly Serafina Arkadina, the niece of Mikhail Arkadin (a.k.a. Pozhar, and one-half of the “Blank Slate”-era Firestorm).
At one point, John Ostrander was interested in producing a Soyuz mini-series with artist Joe Brozowski. Makes you wonder what that would have been like!
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I certainly remember Soyuz. I really enjoyed the blank slate Firestorm, almost every bit as much as the original. I was/am ambivalent about the elemental Firestorm, but that’s another discussion.
One of the aspects of the blank slate Firestorm that was intriguing was that Firestorm could simultaneously maintain two entirely different theaters with supporting casts on both side of the world and maintain a presence in both of them. In Pittsburgh he had Ed and Felicity, Lorraine, and, to a certain extent, Martin Stein. In Russia he had Mikhail’s family, the Arkadin’s formidable KGB enemies, and Soyuz as allies. Firestorm himself could speak both English and Russian fluently. I thought this degree of intrigue was… intriguing.
It’s too bad the Cold War, inconveniently for the book, ended, perhaps forcing Ostrander’s hand to change the theme of the book quite radically. I remember that environmental consciousness was becoming quite trendy around 1989-90; 1990’s Earth Day was quite a big deal. So I understand it. But I still don’t happen to think “Firestorm the Fire Elemental” has quite the same ring to it as “Firestorm the Nuclear Man.”
I second the love for the Blank Slate/Russian era, Soyuz were only ever meant to be bit-part players and that’s fine, so were the Rocket Reds! I think there was enough there to keep those characters around the DCU as like the Rocket Reds it shows other countries do have their own heroes and metahuman community. I’d have loved to have seen the further adventures of a group of powered russian teens living and operating in that rather different culture. I know it wouldn’t be a very commercial book but with someone like Ostrander penning it would certainly be readable…
In 2017 I would LOVE a developed story featuring the forced interaction and action smashing team up featuring Firebird, Celsius, Cascade, Owlwoman, Godiva, Fleur De Lis, ….in defence of Earth… or something incredible…with other appearances from Amethyst, Phobia, Pravda, Sickle, Icemaiden, Fire, Belphagor, Jet, Betty Clawman, Gloss, Tundra, Lodestone, Silver Deer, Jinx, Glimmer from Australia….