Firestorm Fan

I’m still in total shock! After 37 years in comic books and a handful of appearances in animation, we finally got a proper Firestorm in live action!

This week’s episode of The Flash was more than I could of hoped for! I’m not going to spend time recapping the story. You either saw it, or can find a zillion recaps on the web. We’re going to look at the Firestorm-centric elements of the episode. Not surprisingly this article will feature SPOILERS for episode 14 of The Flash!

The creators of this television series continue to impress me. Every time I convince myself they will stray from the comic book version of Firestorm, they come right back and give us faithful Firestorm!!! I was floored when Ronnie & the Professor merged to form Firestorm and they were in the classic configuration (Ronnie controlling the body with the Professor as a disembodied voice).

I really enjoyed the emotional scenes with Ronnie & Caitlin, and later with Professor Stein & Clarissa. It was interesting to explore how these characters have changed over the past year and where that may take them going forward. These writers always know exactly which strings to pull to hit you in the feels.

The highlight of the episode for me was seeing a fully-realized and properly-merged Firestorm! Ronnie and the Professor working together as a team was fantastic! When we first heard the disembodied voice of Professor Stein, and then him quickly shouting a warning to “Ronald” about an imminent attack, I got happy-chills. Seriously. I felt the familiar echoes of the old Super Friends cartoon when the Professor would interact with Ronnie (that’s a good thing if you are unfamiliar with the classic cartoon). And the special effects… wow! The FX team on The Flash are astonishingly talented!

Some die-hard fans have expressed concern over Firestorm’s costume (or lack of a costume). Personally, I’m okay with the televised look. While I love the classic Firestorm costume, I’m not sure puffy sleeves and bright yellow would work on television. Robbie Amell said in an interview, “It would be really hard to pull off. Even the Flash costume is a much darker red than it is in the comics. The worry of the Firestorm costume is if it goes the Ronald McDonald route, especially with the puffy sleeves.” Ouch, but I see his point. Additionally, having Firestorm in black makes the fire special effect really pop off the screen. If his costume was lighter in color, it would detract from the impressive fire effect. With the dark colors and “splicer”, I’m good.

Some additional random thoughts:

• Mental Connection – I loved the mental connection between Ronnie & the Professor. There was always a minor psychic link in the classic comics so this was an exaggeration, but it worked well for the episode.
• Jason Rusch – We got another mention of Jason Rusch from the F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. project. Hopefully we’ll see more of him interacting with Firestorm in future episodes.
• Alcohol – Harrison Wells drugged Professor Stein through an alcoholic drink.  In the comics, Stein is a reformed alcoholic. His battle with alcoholism began because Stein struggled with the after-effects of unknowingly being part of Firestorm (gaps in memory, waking up in strange places, etc). I’m not sure if the alcoholic drink was intended as an nod to Stein’s comic book troubles, but it made this old fan happy.
• White eyes – Even though the white eyes (lack of pupil or iris) is faithful to the comics, I found it a bit unsettling on-screen. Not sure if it was the special effect, or simply the weirdness of white eyes. Maybe they just need to darken the area around the eyeball and enhance the glowing eyes to stand out more (like in the comics).
• “Ronald” – Having Professor Stein refer to Ronnie as “Ronald” is very faithful to the comics. Love this!
• Victor Garber IS Professor Martin Stein – We already knew Garber was an excellent actor, but he really nailed the character of Martin Stein! There were minor personality differences, but the spirit and essence was spot-on. That’s quite impressive considering Garber admitted to not reading any of the comic book source material. He wanted to gleam the character solely from the script. My compliments to the script writers and Mr. Garber! Stein is my favorite character in the Firestorm mythos so getting him just right was very important to me.
• Pittsburgh – So Ronnie and the Professor are heading to Pittsburgh? Nice touch because in the comics they lived in Pittsburgh while Ronnie was going to college. I wonder if that’s a reference to a Pittsburgh-based character or just a throw away nod to the comics. Since they are heading to Pittsburgh, anyone think we might see The Weasel or Moonbow? LOL!
• Merging – How about that gorgeous special effect of them fusing into Firestorm?!?! Great job by the special effects team!!!

What’s in store for the future of Firestorm? We know Robbie Amell & Victor Garber are scheduled to appear again in the season finale. Can’t wait to see how Firestorm fits into that episode. Beyond that, Firestorm’s future on television is unknown.

In many ways, this week’s episode felt like a back door pilot for a potential Firestorm series. Tons of folks on the interwebs are speculating whether Firestorm will get his own spin-off series. We know there is a spin-off from the Arrow/The Flash universe being discussed, but no other details (lots of murmurs about a possible Atom spin-off from Arrow). It seems unlikely to me that Firestorm will receive his own series, but the show’s creators continue to surprise me. Here’s hoping I’m wrong!

Support Firestorm (and The Flash)! Fan the flame!