Firestorm vs Captain Atom: Quantum CHAOS, New 52 Drama, and Mount Rushmore Madness!

Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man Vol 1 15 (February, 2013)

What happens when a rogue scientist hijacks a nuclear superhero, rewrites Mount Rushmore to feature himself, and triggers a quantum explosion so powerful it sends shards of a man across time? Welcome to Firestorm #15, where Firestorm and Captain Atom collide in a high-stakes battle above the Atlantic, Dan Jurgens pulls triple duty behind the scenes, and the fallout of DC’s New 52 experiment is on full display. With exclusive quotes from creators and untold history—this issue is way more than just another superhero slugfest. Let’s dig in.

Picking up immediately where issue 14 left off, Doctor Megala of The Continuum, the organization that created and monitors Captain Atom, has taken over the Firestorm entity from Jason and Ronnie. They awaken inside the Firestorm Matrix, a mental waiting room where the passive Firestorm personality can view and communicate with the dominant personality. However this room is dark and they are both in the Matrix together, confused as to who is currently in charge.

Meanwhile a newly returned Captain Atom discovers Megala’s treachery and seeks out this new Firestorm to confront him. Megala, far from being subtle about his newfound powers, engages with a foreign adversary by turning their bombs in Rubix Cubes and changes the heads of Mount Rushmore to include genius scientists, including himself.

Captain Atom confronts Firestorm and the two begin to fight, discharging massive amounts of power and energy. This allows Jason and Ronnie to regain control of the entity. However the damage has been done and Captain Atom cannot contain the buildup of energy within his body, he explodes with a massive blast wave of quantum energy that splinters his body and sends a shard of himself into the 31st century. Meanwhile Ronnie has lost consciousness in the blast and is falling into the Atlantic ocean.

The story continues in issue 16

Dan Jurgens spent 2012 working on Green Arrow, Justice League International & Superman, he joined Firestorm only a few issues prior. For this issue he pulled triple duty as Writer, Penciler and Co-Cover Artist. Jurgens is primarily known for his work on “The Death of Superman” and the creation of Doomsday, Hank Henshaw, and Booster Gold. After Firestorm was cancelled Jurgens worked on titles like The New 52: Futures End, Batman Beyond, Superman: Lois and Clark. As part of the DC Rebirth relaunch of 2016, Jurgens wrote Action Comics and contributed to Action Comics #1000.

Speaking exclusively to ‘Read the Freaking Comics’ Jurgens discusses his time on Firestorm:

“I had just taken over Firestorm with #13 and was still getting used to the book, which I really enjoyed doing. I like the character and his history... he’s a great deal of fun and also has a tremendous power level. It would have been fun to continue. Unfortunately, the sales had plummeted before I even got there as they kind of missed the mark with the New 52 launch.”

The other Co-cover artist, who was also the inker for this issue was Ray McCarthy. McCarthy has worked on titles like Batman, Superman & Wonder Woman. His art style, often characterized by detailed line work and expressive character designs, has helped define the visual narrative of these characters for many readers. On the Marvel side, McCarthy worked on titles like Iron Man & Spider-Man.

Letterer Taylor Esposito worked on this issue, Esposito is owner of Ghost Glyph Studios and teacher at the legendary Kubert School. He has lettered for a vast array of publishers like DC, Vault, Images, Aftershock & Dark Horse. Speaking exclusively to ‘Read the Freaking Comics’ Esposito discusses Firestorm:

“One of my earliest memories as a kid were my Super Powers figures, and one I have fond memories of…Firestorm, so getting to work on an issue of his book, even as a fill in letterer, was great so early in my career.”

This issue was edited by Rachel Gluckstern & Rickey Purdin. Gluckstern is an award-winning, bestselling editor in the publishing and entertainment media industry. During her time at DC she worked with high-profile licenses including Looney Tunes, Scooby-Doo, Batman. She played a key role in The New 52 relaunch and introduced the surprise hit character Joker’s Daughter.

Rickey Purdin is a veteran comic book editor and talent scout known for his sharp eye for rising creators. Around 2013, he worked at DC Comics as an editor, contributing to titles including Justice League Dark, Constantine, and The Movement. During his time there, he played a key role in helping spotlight new voices during DC’s New 52 era. After leaving DC, Purdin joined Marvel, where he became the Director of Talent Relations, shaping the publisher’s recruitment of artists and writers across major titles.

So who are ‘The Continuum?’ within DC’s New 52 storyline the Continuum is a government funded scientific research facility tasked with producing new scientific discoveries. One of their projects was the creation of Captain Atom.

Unlike the Charlton Comics version of Captain Atom, who was named Allen Adam, and gained his powers when an experimental rocket exploded, or even the post-crisis version named Nathaniel Adam, a US Air Force officer who is framed for a crime and experimented on to avoid execution. This new Captain Atom was a volunteer in an experiment by the Continuum to tap into quantum energy, which caused his body to disintegrate and reform as a being of pure quantum energy held in a human form.

In this issue, when Captain Atom explodes, shards of his body are scattered across space and time, a piece is shot into the 31st Century, where a seemingly human looking young man calling himself ‘Adym’ appears. How and where he fits into the Legionnaires storyline from ‘Legion Lost’ is never followed up on. Given the retconning of the whole New 52 line, it is unlikely to ever be fully explained.

So, just who is Firestorm? The original Firestorm came into creation when high school student Ronnie Raymond and Nobel Prize-winning physicist Martin Stein were caught in an accident that allowed their bodies to fuse into a third entity. As Firestorm they have the ability to reconstruct matter at the molecular level, absorb and project energy, and fly. Created by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom in 1978 the character has had multiple personalities mixed into the Firestorm Matrix and in fact by the time we reach the New 52 version of Firestorm, there are multiple entities across the globe. Firestorm is ranked 31st out of the top 178 DC Superheroes on Ranker.com

Lots of discussion about The New 52 in this episode, so what exactly was The New 52? In 2011 DC announced a complete revamp of their entire catalog and the DC Universe as a whole, this was to occur immediately after the wildly successful ‘Flashpoint’ crossover storyline. Dubbed ‘The New 52’, this revamp began in earnest in September 2011 when they cancelled all their existing titles and renumbered a ton of their series like Action Comics and Detective Comics, which had retained their original numbering since the 1930s.

The relaunch included changes to the publishing format; for example, print and digital comics began to be released on the same day. New titles were released to bring the number of ongoing monthly series to 52. Various changes were also made to DC’s fictional universe to entice new readers, including changes to DC’s internal continuity to make characters more modern and accessible. In addition, characters from the Wildstorm and Vertigo imprints were absorbed into the DC Universe.

In a series of rollout phases over the rest of 2011 and 2012, DC introduced new series with revamped characters and backstories. New titles were launched with varying degrees of success, and many included what were perceived as gimmicky themes like Mad Magazine, Swimsuit or Selfie themed covers. While some themes like Villain Month, actually boosted sales for a short period of time.

By early 2016, DC announced its Rebirth initiative, a line-wide relaunch of its titles, to begin in June. Beginning with an 80-page one-shot which was released in May. Rebirth also saw Action Comics and Detective Comics return to their previous numbering. The Rebirth initiative reintroduced concepts from pre-Flashpoint continuity.

New 52 was a victim of its own ambition, not that there weren’t some excellent runs during that period of time like Batgirl, Aquaman & Wonder Woman. But the ambition at DC to set a clear line in the sand saying ‘this is the start of new continuity and forget almost everything else’, in that light, issues people had with specific plots or characters were compounded because DC was insistent on the fact that the new narrative was the be-all-end-all of the DC universe. A tactic they obviously changed only a few years later.

This issue features two characters I really like from DC, but have not had much experience with. Both Firestorm and Captain Atom are extremely powerful Metahumans with similar nuclear-based abilities, however on the grand scale of things Captain Atom is far more powerful in terms of overall energy output and skills. I thoroughly enjoyed this issue with its high octane battle high above the Atlantic ocean. I find Jurgens’ writing to flow well between all the action and the pacing to be fast. Overall as a first time reader of either a Firestorm or Captain Atom comic this issue intrigued me and kept me interested.

Being a relatively new issue I am not seeing much increase in value, mycomicshop.com has this book listed for $2.65 while comicbookrealm.com is selling it for $3. Amazon is selling an issue for $57 dollars.

In 2013 DC was in the middle of their New 52 phase, they released a Villains’ Month series with special decimal issues featuring various villains in the DC Universe, this lead up to Forever Evil, an event featuring the Crime Syndicate and the Secret Society of Super-Villains.

2013 also saw the return of Superman to the big screen with Zack Snyder’s Man of Steel. This film was the start of the DC Extended Universe, intended as a competitor of the widely popular Marvel Cinematic Universe which had been steadily growing since 2008.

In June of that year DC unveiled two new digital comic innovations to enhance interactivity: DC2 and DC2 Multiverse. DC2 layers dynamic artwork onto digital comic panels, adding a new level of dimension to digital storytelling, while DC2 Multiverse allows readers to determine a specific story outcome by selecting individual characters, storylines and plot developments while reading the comic, meaning one digital comic has multiple outcomes.

DC sold the second highest number of titles in 2013 at almost 22 Million units, representing 40% of the entire market. The top 5 selling DC titles were: Batman, Justice League, Justice League of America, Detective Comics & Superman Unchained with Justice League of America #1 from April the top seller with 326,000 copies.

There are no Firestorm titles among the top selling DC comics from 2013 according to comichron.com. The best estimate for sales Issue #15 is around 12,000 copies. Considering typical returns of 10–20% from retailers, the actual sale‑through likely falls to 9 to 11 thousand units.

There aren’t many adverts in this comic that don’t come from DC themselves. There is an ad for The Gameological Society & Geek Exchange, both online properties are now defunct. CW was promoting Arrow, the popular Green Arrow themed series and precursor to the ‘Arrowverse’ collection of television shows based on various DC titles.

There was a Mad Magazine/DC crossover promotion to introduce a new generation of fans to Alfred E. Newman. TNT was promoting the NBA on Thursday nights with a Lebron James back cover. And as mentioned DC was promoting their titles like ‘Batman Night of the Owls’, ‘Batman: The Dark Knight’, ‘Justice League’ and a ‘Justice League - Throne of Atlantis’ crossover event.

Since Firestorm decided to rearrange Mount Rushmore I decided to find a comic shop as close to the national monument as possible. If you’re ever in the area I recommend you check out ‘Heroes & Villains’ located on 601 Kansas City St. in Rapid City, South Dakota or check them out on Facebook at facebook.com/heroesandvillainsrc

Thanks for reading! If you enjoyed this deep dive into Firestorm #15 and the chaos of the New 52, hit that Like button to show some nuclear love, Subscribe so you never miss an explosive comic moment, and ring that Bell to get notified when new videos drop. Got thoughts on Firestorm, Captain Atom, or Dan Jurgens’ triple-threat talents? Drop a comment—we read them all!

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