Firestorm (Jason Rusch)
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- This article is about the Jason Rusch version of Firestorm. For the 70's/80's incarnation of the Firestorm, see Firestorm (comics).
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Jason Rusch is a fictional hero from the DC Comics Universe and is the third person to take the mantle of Firestorm.
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[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Beginning of the new Nuclear Man
In 2004, DC revived the Firestorm comic for a third time, with writer Dan Jolley and artist Chris Cross, but instead of the original Firestorm, Ronnie Raymond, there was a new protagonist; Jason Rusch, an African-American teenager.
Subsequently, Raymond was killed off during the Identity Crisis mini-series. It was revealed in Identity Crisis #5 and Firestorm #6 that during a battle with a villain called the Shadow-Thief, Raymond was impaled by the Shining Knight's sword, which the Shadow Thief had stolen. The magical sword ruptured the nuclear man's containment field, resulting in Firestorm's body exploding, and his residual essence funneling into Jason Rusch's body, perhaps activating a dormant meta-gene.
Jason was a seventeen year old teenager living in Detroit, who wanted nothing more than to escape his home city. He lived with his father, who had turned abusive after he lost his hand in an industrial accident. His mother left his father sometime after the accident, leaving the young Jason with his father. Jason later recalled that his father had hit him on four occasions.
With the loss of a job he needed to fund college, Jason turned to a local tough for money, accepting a job as a courier. It was on that job that he encountered the Firestorm matrix, searching for a new host after Ronnie's death.
In the aftermath, Jason struggled to cope with his new identity and powers - a struggle that led to the death of the man who'd hired him.
Eventually, Jason managed to develop a degree of control over his powers. Unfortunately, being Firestorm drew a lot of attention, some of it unpleasant, and Jason found himself up against a number of supervillains - some interested in Firestorm's power, others seeking revenge for the actions of Ronnie's Firestorm.
Death tends not to be permanent within comic book universes, however, and Ronnie Raymond eventually returned within the Firestorm matrix in Firestorm #9, remaining with Jason as part of Firestorm until he appeared to dissipate in Firestorm #13. Stuart Moore took over as writer at Firestorm #14.
Shortly after Jason's eighteenth birthday, a few weeks after Ronnie's dissipation, Jason was kidnapped by the new Secret Society of Super-Villains for use as a power source in a hidden complex. Freed when the new Secret Six launched a raid on the complex, Jason discovered two important things: he had a fellow prisoner (a mysterious girl named Gehenna), and his imprisonment by the Society had significantly depowered him (Firestorm #17).
Together, Jason and Gehenna escaped the complex, destroying it in the process. Gehenna disappeared in the aftermath but telepathically promised Firestorm that she'd see him again.
In Firestorm #19, Donna Troy recruited Firestorm - this time comprised of Jason and his best friend Mick Wong - for her outer space team to fight the oncoming instability from Infinite Crisis. During his time on the team, he formed a friendship with Animal Man and perhaps a romantic interest in both Starfire and Supergirl.
[edit] Infinite Crisis
As Donna's team headed further into the instability of Infinite Crisis, it was revealed that Martin Stein, alive in space as the "Elemental Firestorm", had sensed the presence of Jason within the Firestorm Matrix, but was unaware of the final demise of his friend Ronnie. When Jason, as Firestorm, was fatally wounded in the line of duty, Stein linked with him in a variation of the merge, promising Jason a new Firestorm body to let him return into battle (although Martin had been unable to save Mick) and asking him about the fate of Ronnie Raymond.
Accepting Martin's proposal, Jason asked Stein to become the permanent second member of the Firestorm matrix. Sensing his "errors", including Mick's death, were the result of his youth and lack of experience, he sought the experience and maturity of the elder Professor Stein. Martin refused at first, but Jason managed to find a spark of humanity in the distanced and apparently cold Stein - his sorrow for both Ronnie's death, and the deaths of a planet of aliens he had watched over. Martin finally accepted Jason's request, thus ensuring both a new Firestorm body and the reconstruction of human bodies for both Jason and Martin.
It was revealed in Infinite Crisis that if the Multiverse had survived up to the present, Jason would have been a native of Earth-Eight.
[edit] 52
In 52, it is revealed that Firestorm was fused with Cyborg due to malfunctioning Zeta Beam technology. Unmerged after several weeks, Jason, as Firestorm, tried to reform and lead a new Justice League, along with Firehawk, Ambush Bug, Super-Chief and the Bulleteer. After a failure in handling a time-displacement crisis staged by Skeets, the new League was disbanded in disgrace, adding strain to the already shaky friendship with Lorraine, as Jason still holds her and the rest of Donna's Space Team as responsible for Mick's demise.
[edit] One Year Later
As the storyline jumped ahead by a year, Professor Stein has mysteriously vanished, and Jason has been merging with Firehawk to become Firestorm, allowing him able to use her powers as well. The two decided to look for Stein together. Stein had been kidnapped and tortured by the Pupil, a former teaching assistant of Martin's. Flanked by the D.O.L.L.I.'s, a group of cyborg soilders of limited cognative ability, the Pupil (formerly known as Adrian Burroughs) questioned the nearly-dead Stein about the secrets of the universe. Jason and Lorraine, along with the mysterious teleporter Gehenna, freed the captured Stein and restored him to full health. Jason is a college freshman at New York City's Columbus University and seems to have ties with Dani Sharpe, a member of the senior staff at LexCorp. Dani was the person who previously hired him at S.T.A.R. Labs Detroit to handle their final research filings.
The Firestorm team of Jason and Firehawk made several appearances across the DCU before the search for Martin Stein ended. This included dealing with the latest O.M.A.C. and teaming up with Superman in the "Back in Action" arc in Action Comics.
Firehawk introduced Jason to Pozhar a Russian superhero who was once a part of the Firestorm matrix.
[edit] Powers and abilities
Jason's powers have fluctuated during the course of his series. At the outset, he possessed similar abilities to the original Firestorm, including high-speed flight; superhuman strength and durability; the ability to see molecular structures (also known as "Quark Vision"); the ability to project energy bolts; and the signature Firestorm power, the ability to transmute both energy and matter.
He also had certain abilities the original did not: the ability to transmute organic matter; a more stable version of the original's intangibility; and a limited form of timesight, which let him catch glimpses of the matrix's past and/or future in dreams. However, the intangibility power was lost in a run-in with a metahuman capable of stealing other metas' powers.
Jason also possessed an enhanced version of the original "merge"; he could become Firestorm by merging with anyone he made eye contact with. However, there were two problems with the merge. The first problem was that the other person's body chemistry affected Jason for the duration of the merge; if the other person had been taking drugs, Jason would find himself affected by the drugs to a lesser extent. The second problem was even more dangerous; if either Jason or the other person in the merge overstretched themselves, the other person in the merge could burn out and die.
The return and subsequent dissipation of Ronnie Raymond left Jason with sufficient power to turn into Firestorm without having to merge with others, though he was still capable of the merge if the need arose. Unfortunately, his imprisonment by the Society depowered him to the point that he once again required the merge to become Firestorm.
Jason has a telepathic link to Gehenna, a link which apparently enables Gehenna to communicate with Jason, communicate with the other person in the Firestorm merge (apparently visualising the other person as a floating head), and see Firestorm's immediate surroundings.
Jason also retained Ronnie's psychic connection to Martin Stein's "Elemental Firestorm"; Martin, however, appeared unaware the Firestorm matrix had been transferred to Jason up until the two actually met.
More recently, Martin Stein, using his knowledge of the Firestorm Matrix, managed to reconfigure Firestorm's present characteristics. Theoretically speaking, the new Firestorm can now absorb sufficient amounts of solar energy to keep him fully functional without using someone as an "emergency battery". Although the 'preferred' form of Firestorm would now be composed of Jason and Martin, both of them retain the ability to merge temporarily with another person; while the need for a battery has gone, a person could substitute for the other main member, sharing all his or her knowledge with an improved mind-link through the Firestorm Matrix. The focus of Firestorm's costume was also made more practical, including control devices able to contain and direct the hero's nuclear energies. Firestorm's newer powers, such as his ability to control organic matter or become intangible, were left out of the new design out of a fear that they might be too difficult to control without making the Firestorm hosts less human over time.
The ability to see the future is presently beyond either Jason or Martin's conscious control. They do, however, have the ability to play back the memories of the Firestorm matrix - or the memories of its hosts - in the Firestorm mindscape.
[edit] Television appearances
Firestorm was among the myriad planned guest stars in Cartoon Network's Justice League Unlimited animated series, but never appeared.
