Police investigate another in a series of grisly murders at Vandermeer University. Firestorm is forced to confront Killer Frost without the wise advice of Professor Stein. Lorraine Reilly sees a news broadcast about Killer Frost and Plastique heading towards Niagara Falls and transforms into Firehawk. Firestorm and Firehawk battle Killer Frost and Plastique at Niagara Falls. Ronnie and Professor Stein discuss their future.
Firestorm826's Panel-by-Panel Story Summary (Spoiler Alert)
Prologue. Vandemeer University, Pittsburgh: At dawn, twenty minutes after a grisly discovery by the Administration Building janitorial staff…Police and paramedics mill about at the front of the building. A crowd of curious onlookers watches quietly. A body wrapped in a body bag is carried out of the building to a waiting ambulance by morgue technicians.
“No doubt about it, your watchman’s dead, all right,” the police sergeant says. “How was he killed?” a woman asks him. “Well, that’s the weird part, Dr. Rice,” the supervisor answers, “Looked to me like an animal got him.” Dr. Rice frowns a little. “On campus? If this is an example of police graveyard humor, I don’t find it amusing,” she replies. They watch as the body is loaded into the ambulance. “Hey…When it comes to murder, I don’t joke,” the sergeant answers somberly, “That guy was torn apart. Whatever did it to him…it wasn’t human.” End of Prologue.
Firestorm lays stunned in the crumbled rubble of the reactor core at the Hudson Nuclear facility. While fighting Killer Frost, he was ambushed and knocked unconscious by a devastating surprise explosion from Plastique. Slowly, consciousness returns to him. Ronnie opens his eyes, looking around at the heavily damaged core chamber. Debris and damaged equipment is strewn about all over, and smoke drifts up from several spots in lazy wafts. “Professor…?” Ronnie calls out, “…Professor Stein…?” Ronnie sits up quickly. He scans around the room and sees no one. “Martin!” he yells out, growing nervous, “Professor Stein!”
The silence in his mind is stunning. For the first time since he and Martin Stein joined to form the Nuclear Man, Ronnie Raymond finds himself alone with his thoughts. As he surveys the wreckage of Hudson Nuclear, he calls again and again to the man who shares the Firestorm persona…and for the first time…he receives no answer.
“Oh my God…I’m all alone,” Ronnie says fearfully. He walks along the room, pausing for a moment to lean on a collapsed section of wall. Shock. A thread of panic. And slowly…recollection. Ronnie can see the reactor core looming in the smoky mists just ahead. “The reactor core. Killer Frost was going to drain it for energy. She must have done it while I was unconscious!” Ronnie figures, “The core’s exposed…spilling radiation into the containment structure. Before I do anything else, I’ve got to seal the core. Then I can worry about Professor Stein…and try to figure out what’s happened to us!”
Ronnie reaches both of his arms out and nuclear rings dance around his palms. FZAAM! Atomic restructuring powers reshape the surrounding rubble, altering molecular structure, changing matter from one form to another…In a few seconds, Ronnie has sealed the core in a giant, locked safe made of lead to isolate and contain the harmful radiation. “That should keep things safe until a clean-up crew arrives,” Ronnie observes. He looks up at the core structure’s exposed girders and beams, warped and bent from the power of Plastique’s explosives. “Let’s see. Last I remember, I had the drop on Frost. I was just about to put her on ice when the floor blew up. After that, everything’s a blank. The explosion must’ve knocked me out…and who knows what it did to Professor Stein.”
Ronnie walks out of the devastated core. Ice lines the surfaces of the damaged building, leftover residue from Killer Frost. He emerges back to the parking area through a large hole in a wall. “I just hope nobody else was hurt by…Oh…no,” he gasps. Looking around, he sees people frozen in ice like time had simply stopped them in their tracks. Police cars and fire trucks sit crushed under giant boulders of ice. “This is nuts,” Ronnie says dejectedly as he surveys the scene. A faint sound nearby catches his ear. Slumped next to his smashed car, a police officer softly groans in the near-death throes of hypothermia. Ronnie quickly rushes to his side.
“One of the State Troopers who answered the alarm when Killer Frost broke into this place. He’s half-frozen…but still alive,” Ronnie thinks, laying his hand softly onto the officer’s back, “If I can melt the ice on him, he’ll have a chance…!” Ronnie’s hand glows as he focuses heat gently on the shivering officer. Slowly, the ice melts away as the officer’s body temperature begins to rise. “Two of them….There were two of them…” the officer stutters through chattering teeth.” Ronnie tries to comfort the man, continuing the infusion of heat from his hand. “Take it easy, pal…I’ll get you to a hospital,” he says. The officer reaches up, wide-eyed, still shocked from what he has seen. He grabs at Firestorm’s chest, his hand wrapping tightly around the yellow and red fabric.
“Frost…and someone else. A woman. The one who broke out of prison,” the officer stammers out, continuing, “The bomber. Plastique. She calls herself…Plastique. They came out of the plant like a pair of cyclones…The woman Plastique just reached, and explosions ripped out of her hands…Slaughterhouse…It was a slaughterhouse.” Ronnie scoops the shivering man up into his arms, cradling him next to his chest. “I’m getting you to a doctor now,” he tells the officer. “Never had a chance…” the officer mumbles. Ronnie leaps skyward carrying the officer. “Can you tell me which way they went?” he asks. Relieved to have survived, the officer sighs, “North…They went north…”
Across the river in Manhattan, at the midtown townhouse of Walter Reilly, ex-Senator from New York… “…reports from upstate New York confirm the movement of Killer Frost and the bomber, Plastique, toward the U.S. – Canadian border…on a direct line with Niagara Falls,” crackles the voice of a reporter over the television. Walter Reilly sips his coffee, still in his robe and slippers, watching closely. Lorraine walks into the room and leans on a stereo cabinet next to her father. “Dad, anything you want from the store while I’m out?” she asks. “Lorraine…on the news just now,” Walter tells her, “Something about Killer Frost and another woman heading toward Canada. There’s no word about Firestorm, but do you think?” She walks behind her Dad to look at the TV screen, placing her hands on his chair. “If Frost’s involved, Storm can’t be far away,” she answers, “He may need my help. Thanks, Dad.” Walter stands and watches as his daughter walks quickly down the hallway. “I owe that young man my life, Lorraine,” he tells her, adding, “Be careful.” She calls back, “You’ve got to be kidding. Since when have I ever been careful?”
Months ago, an illegal nuclear experiment changed Lorraine Reilly’s life…giving her the power to control nuclear fusion, turning the air around her into wings of atomic fire…Now, at will, she is Firehawk, Mistress of Flame. And the great love of her life is Firestorm. Lorraine runs from the townhouse door into the night air. With each step, her image changes, until within seconds, she leaps into the air on the sweeping, radiant wings of Firehawk!
Niagara Falls: On the border between the United States and Canada, it is one of the world’s great wonders…a source of both beauty and power. The mean annual flow of water over the Falls has been measured at over 200,000 cusecs (cubic feet per second)…providing electricity to the citizens of both bordering countries. If that power were to stop…what chaos would result? One wonders…
“Think of it, mon ami…The terrorist coup of a lifetime! With one blow, two nations crippled. Aid me in this, and my comrades in Quebec will welcome you as the greatest of heroines!” Plastique tells Killer Frost. They stand at the railing of an overlook alongside the roaring cascade of the Falls. “I don’t doubt it…but what is their welcome worth?” Killer Frost answers, adding dismissively, “You admitted to me yourself the separatist movement in Quebec is as good as dead. You and a handful of fanatics like Le Flambeau are all that remain.” Plastique grows irritated, pointing angrily at Killer Frost. “Woman, do you forget how I aided you against the pig, Firestorm? Where is your gratitude?” she questions.
“You have my gratitude, Plastique. If you want my help as well…you should ask as my friend,” Killer Frost says, stepping close to Plastique. She holds her hand just inches from Plastique’s chin, asking, “Won’t you ask as my friend, my lovely friend?” Plastique frowns a bit, answering, “As your friend then…Will you help me?” A slight smile crosses Killer Frost’s lips. “Of course, cheri,” she replies, “What are friends for, after all? Let’s get started.”
Killer Frost waves her arms, and a bridge-like ice projection grows upwards from the overlook towards the Falls. “You have a plan?” Killer Frost asks as she and Plastique walk up the ice path. “The obvious. You freeze the falls…while I deal with the electrical generating plant,” Plastique replies. “And if anyone tries to stop us?” Killer Frost asks. Plastique walks to the edge of the ice path. She leaps from it toward to the nearby observation platform of the electrical plant just below. “What do you think, mon ami?” she calls back to Killer Frost in mid-air, “Kill them!” Two stunned plant technicians stand on the platform, watching Plastique as she descends from the ice bridge. TRABOOOOM! They are blown back like ragdolls as Plastique lands, touching her hand to the deck to unleash an explosion!
Once this was a woman named Louise Lincoln, a scientist whose friend was the original Killer Frost. Obsessed with Frost’s death, feeling an unwarranted guilt, Louise Lincoln duplicated the experiment that created the first Ice Maiden…and now she is Killer Frost. But is she? Despite the insanity that grips her, her motives are not the same as those which drove her predecessor…she has no innate hatred of mankind, no fury against men. What has driven her to this point is a need to wipe out the guilt she feels for the death of her one-time friend Crystal Frost. Why should Louise Lincoln live, she wondered, and Crystal Frost die? Better to let Louise die, that Frost might live again. And so like an actress absorbed in a part, she has become Killer Frost…but with each action she takes, each death she causes, the role becomes more painful…more difficult to maintain…though still not impossible…
Killer Frost guides her icy bridge out over the Niagara River, bringing it within close range of the thundering Falls. Mist and spray envelop her. She stands with arms raised skyward, and a bluish-purple light radiates from around her. From a nearby observation platform, a curious woman asks her husband, “Honey…Isn’t that a woman out there?” He aims a camera at her, answering, “Sweetheart, if you move, I can’t take your - - picture…” He clicks the shutter just as a streak of bright yellow light flashes right in front of him and his startled wife. “What the heck was that?” he yells in shock, then and in recognition adds, “Firestorm? Why couldn’t we have gone to Bermuda for our honeymoon like I wanted?”
Firestorm banks down to approach Killer Frost. She aims her icy energy into the cascading waterfall. “Professor…? C’mon, Professor, please answer me!” Ronnie calls out as he flies. There is no answer from Stein’s familiar yet strangely silent subconscious voice. “No use. Must still be ‘unconscious…’ And I just hope it’s nothing more serious! Guess I’m on my own. Which scare me silly,” Ronnie thinks as he sneaks into position undetected behind Killer Frost. “I’ve always had control of our nuclear powers, but I could count on Martin to kibbitz with advice,” he thinks, “I never really thought I could handle being Firestorm without him. Looks like I’m about to find out if I can…the hard way.” He aims his hands towards Killer Frost and…
FZAAAM! A sudden nuclear burst smashes into the rock face near Killer Frost. “Eh?” she yells in shock. FZAAAAM! Nuclear energies disrupt atomic bonds, reforming molecules, changing shape and form…What was ice and stone becomes something else. “A catapult?” Killer Frost says, bewildered by Firestorm’s unexpected creation, “No!” SPRONG! The catapult fires! A huge boulder speeds from the catapult through the misty air. KRASH! It blasts into the ice bridge, knocking Killer Frost off her feet. “Score one for the Hot-Head,” Ronnie says as he flies alongside her. “Idiot! You may unseat me…but you cannot beat me!” she yells at him, “I am the Mistress of Cold!” She points her finger at him and unleashes a powerful ray of intense cold energy. It blasts into Firestorm’s chest, pushing him backwards in the air. “Yowwww! Freezing…” Ronnie yells as it strikes. Ice starts to sweep across his body in a wave. The frost climbs quickly onto Ronnie’s face as he struggles to maintain control. “I can lower my atomic density, turn insubstantial to avoid her ice wave…But then I can’t use my nuclear bursts!” Ronnie thinks quickly, anxiously asking, “Professor, where are you when I need you? How do I get out of this?”
HSSSSSSS! A wave of warmth sweeps over him, and the ice coating his body starts to melt away. “Huh? Where’d that heat come from?” he asks in surprise. He turns to look around, and is relieved to see an ally join the battle. “Firehawk! Talk about good timing!” he yells to his flame-winged rescuer, suggesting, “You’re much more of a match for Frost than I am, Hawk…Want to take over?” Firehawk flies up next to him in the falling mist. “My pleasure. Let’s save the passionate hellos for later, okay?” she answers. “You bet. Did I mention I’ve missed you?” Ronnie asks as they fly together. “No more than I’ve missed you,” Firehawk replies, “Be careful, lover.” Ronnie banks away from her, answering, “Yeah. You too.”
Ronnie flies quickly along the Niagara River towards the massive electrical generating plant. Its tall power transmission towers and extensive wires stretch above the generating plant’s main building. “She loves me…Can you believe it? She’s a woman, in college, and I’m a high school senior…but she loves me,” Ronnie thinks as he assesses the plant. “I know what the Professor would say now. He’d remind me I’ve already got a girl who loves me - - Doreen Day - - and he’d be right,” Ronnie ponders, “Thing is - - they’re both terrific…I just don’t know what to do. I always thought life was supposed to get easier the older you get.” He finds his way to the building housing the plant’s main generators and lowers his atomic density to phase through the wall to the inside. “But it doesn’t…It just gets more complicated,” he figures as he searches for his target, “Okay, so I can’t straighten out my love life. At least I can do something about Plastique…”
TRABOOOM! Plastique touches the floor in the generator room, setting off an explosion that blasts down a helpless technician. “Hey Plastique…Blast your way out of this!” Ronnie yells to her. FZAAAM! He aims a restructuring burst at the floor at her feet, reforming it into the petals of a giant black flower. “C’est fantastique!” Plastique cries in surprise. FAAAM! A second burst animates the flower, and the petals fold up tightly around her to ensnare Plastique inside! “Yeah, ain’t it though?” Ronnie asks as he lands alongside, “Guess that settles your - - hash…?” KBOOOOM! The flower petals implode outwards, knocking Ronnie back in their concussive shock wave. “Yeeeoww!” he yells as he lands against a corner of a wall. Ronnie sits up in the smoky haze, sleeves and pant legs of his costume ripped by the blast. Plastique emerges standing over him. “Ah, Firestorm…I thought I finished you, but it seems I was wrong, non? So. I shall correct that mistake…now,” she says coldly, methodically coiling her left hand into a fist.
Sixty seconds earlier, outside, at the base of the thundering Falls…Firehawk sweeps down, following the path of the ice bridge. Killer Frost stands at the tip of the frosty projection facing Firehawk, arms raised high as she summons her icy power. “She’s just standing there, waiting for me. What’s she up to?” Firehawk asks as she dives toward Killer Frost, “Does it matter? With the heat I control, she doesn’t stand a chance…” Killer Frost then reaches her hands behind her, extending them into the massive water flow. She guides the powerfully roaring water into a monstrous river of ice, projecting it right at Firehawk!
“Uh-oh! She’s freezing the Falls, pulling the ice toward me!” Firehawk realizes, “I’ve got a half second…to split!” She makes a hasty jerking turn in the air. The river of ice just misses her, crashing into the Niagara River below in a massive crash of splash and spray! “Don’t think even my heat would’ve melted that much ice in time,” Firehawk exhales in relief, thinking, “Maybe this won’t be as easy as I thought!” She makes a quick turn in the sky overhead, banking to dive back down toward the Falls. “So let’s try the indirect approach,” she strategizes, “Firestorm told me once that Frost needs to absorb heat to thrive, and that she’s vulnerable to cold. That gives me an idea.” She dives into the water at the base of the roaring waterfall. “First, I’ll provide a tempting target…underwater,” she thinks, “My heat should protect me a couple of seconds, at least. Now, if Frost just does what I think she’ll do…!”
Killer Frost stands on her icy bridge, scanning the sky for Firehawk. Suddenly, she sees a bright wave of flame speeding towards her in the tumultuous river waters below. “You think you can attack me from below? I’ll just freeze the water above you!” she yells angrily, casting a wave of cold energy down to the water’s surface. Ice spreads rapidly above Firehawk as she watches. “That’s just what I hoped you’d do!” she thinks, “If cold is your enemy, Killer Frost, let’s see how you like a nice arctic-temperature - - ice bath!” Firehawk thrusts through the frozen river surface and slams powerfully into the rocky base supporting Killer Frost’s ice bridge! “IIIEEEE!” Killer Frost yells in shock as the bridge breaks apart, sending her tumbling into the frozen Niagara River! Killer Frost lands partially suspended, head and torso extending above the surface. Firehawk flies close to her. “Hey! It worked!” she yells happily, “The water’s freezing around her - - sucking the energy right out of Killer Frost. Another few seconds and she’ll be trapped…in her very own ice floe. Not bad for an amateur, Firehawk. Not bad at all.”
And, speaking of amateurs: Let’s look in on Firestorm, back inside the power plant… “When we first met, you humiliated me,” Plastique glowers over him, “But that was before I became La Femme Bombe, with the power to explode matter, a living part of me! Shame is a terrible thing to live with, mon ami.” She reaches both arms behind her, and strange yellow energy flows maliciously between her hands. “You should be grateful that I spare you a life of humiliation. Your death will give me small satisfaction,” she continues, “But I am a humanist, n’est c’pa?” Ronnie watches her closely, a small smile on his lips. Plastique starts to bring her hands down to the floor just in front of him. “Boy, is she in for a surprise,” Ronnie thinks. Plastique’s hands reach the floor, and a massive explosion erupts. “No! The burst passed through you - - and the floor - - it’s - - YIIIIIII!” Plastique yells in horrified shock.
Three minutes later, outside… “Storm! Are you okay? I heard some kind of terrible explosion in there!” Firehawk yells out as she flies up alongside Firestorm. “Hey, no sweat,” Ronnie answers, explaining, “Plastique hit me with all she had…but the kid here had it covered. I dropped my atomic density to zilch, and when her blast hit, it went clear through me. All she did was blast a king-size golf hole in the floor. Oh yeah…and knocked herself out with the recoil.” The two reach each other and hug happily in the sky. “Ain’t I something?” Ronnie smiles at her. “That’s not exactly the word I would’ve used…but it’ll do,” Firehawk answers. The two kiss passionately as they soar upwards together. A discreet fade out.
That night, at Mercy Midtown Hospital in Manhattan… “…so, after that, we delivered Plastique and Frost to the proper authorities…then I came back here, switched us back to Ronnie Raymond and Professor Stein…and handed you over to the doctors. According to them, you’ve got a mild concussion…” Ronnie explains. He sits in a chair in the hospital room of Martin Stein. The Professor lies in his bed, bandages wrapped around his head. He listens carefully as Ronnie fills in the details that occurred after his injury. “I figure it must’ve happened when Plastique blasted us at Hudson Nuclear,” Stein suggests, “Somehow, we’re more tightly connected when we’re Firestorm than we thought.
Stein looks down at his sheets. “So it would appear…You handled Frost and Plastique on your own then,” he continues, “without my doubtful advice to guide you.” Ronnie reassures his worried friend. “Hey, not totally on my own Professor,” he replies, “I had help from Firehawk. Which reminds me…I told her I’d let her know how you are. She likes you, Professor. She likes both of us…but the guy she’s really interested in is Firestorm…and I guess he’s not gonna be around much anymore, right?” Stein perceives the apprehension in Ronnie’s thoughts. “Because of the position I’ve been offered at Vandemeer University in Pittsburgh?” he asks Ronnie, “You think, if I take that job, it will mean the end of our career as Firestorm?”
Ronnie sighs sadly, asking, “Won’t it? We’ll be miles apart, Professor…with two different lives. It’s been hard enough keeping this thing alive without all that distance…” He gets up and looks aimlessly out the window, hand brushing along the curtain. “But look…it’s okay,” Ronnie continues, “When you first told me about the job, I panicked. All I could think was ‘I’ll be on my own…I’ll be all alone.’ Before I met you Professor…before we became Firestorm…I didn’t have many friends. Heck, I didn’t have any friends. Moving from city to city with my Dad, on that witness protection program, I never stayed put anywhere long enough to put down roots. You were my first real friend. Someone I could talk to. Someone I could trust.”
Ronnie turns back from the window and walks alongside Stein’s bed. “I needed your friendship…and I guess I got so I thought I couldn’t survive without it,” Ronnie explains, “See, to me, Ronnie Raymond was just a nobody without you…without Firestorm. But after today, I know I was wrong. Professor, I beat Plastique - - on my own. Without your advice. Using my smarts. Me, Ronnie Raymond, with Firestorm’s power, I did it. I’m not the dumb jock I thought I was.” Stein nods and smiles at him. “I’ve always know that, Ronnie. I’m glad you do, too, at last. I’ll miss you, my boy. I’ll even miss Firestorm,” Stein answers thoughtfully, “But, no matter how great the distance between us may become…I hope we always remain friends.” The two shake hands warmly. “Deal, Professor,” Ronnie replies, “Yeah, well…See you around, Professor. Take care of your head.” He waves to Stein and walks towards the door. “You too, Ronald,” Stein answers, “Take care of yourself.”
Ronnie steps into the hospital hallway, feeling a foreboding sense of the unknown that comes from an uncertain future creeping into his thoughts. A familiar voice calls out to him. “Ronnie? I got here as quickly as I could after Dad told me you called,” Doreen Day says, asking, “How’s your friend?” Ronnie leans against the hallway wall. “He’s gonna be okay, Doreen,” he explains. The two turn to walk together down the hall, and Doreen wraps her arm around Ronnie’s. “What about you, Ronnie?” she asks with concern, “Are you going to be okay? You look like somebody sat on your lunch.” Ronnie answers somewhat unconvincingly, “Sure, I’ll be swell.”
They walk into the busy lobby. “Listen, Doreen, I feel rotten about the way I’ve treated you lately,” Ronnie says apologetically. Doreen pokes him in the chest with her finger. “Good. You should feel rotten. But I forgive you,” she answers, “Everybody says your high school senior year is the weirdest…so maybe things’ll get better for us when we start college in September.” Ronnie looks at her with sudden surprise. “College…Doreen…you said college!” he says with a spark of happiness, asking, “We can go to college anywhere, right? Even Pittsburgh!” Doreen looks back, a little confused, asking, “Pittsburgh? Ronnie, what are you talking about? Why would we want to go to school in Pittsburgh?” Ronnie waves his arms excitedly, barely able to contain his words. “Don’t worry - - you’ll love it, Doreen - - this is great - - this is terrific!” he blurts, “I’ll be right back! I’ve gotta tell the Professor! Wheeeoooo, Pittsburgh!” Ronnie abruptly turns and starts to sprint back down the hallway. Doreen stands shocked as he sails past, dumbfoundedly asking, “Pittsburgh…?”
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