X-Men Annual 1: A tale of fire and whirlwinds…

It has been six whole months now since the announcement of the new X-Men roster, and we finally get to see an issue that gives us a deeper look into the winner of the public poll, Firestar. It’s a real trial by fire, so to speak, that Firestar goes through here, where she can finally prove to Krakoa, and herself if she actually belongs on this team, or not. So let’s get to the meat and potatoes of the issue, shall we? 

One of the hallmarks of Gerry Duggan’s run of this volume of the X-Men has been he gives us a deeper psychological perspective for each of the members of the team, and while some have benefited better (see: Polaris), others have not (see: Sunfire), with this new team, Forge has been the character that has seen the most attention from Duggan thus far, so getting inside Angelica’s head has been a long time coming. Firestar’s got a bit of a checkered past in regards to her relationship with the X-Men, and mutant kind in general. 

Firestar has a pretty unique origin, where she got her start as a mashup in the early 80’s, Spider-Man & his Amazing Friends, basically, she was a fusion of Mary Jane and the Human Torch. Due to the success of the show, Marvel decided to bring her over into the 616. Her first official comic appearance is in Uncanny X-Men #193, where she was a member of Emma Frost’s group of mutants in training the Hellions, where she was a pawn of the duplicitous Empath and Roulette, used as a tool against the X-Men as they broke into the NORAD base in the Cheyenne Mountain in Colorado. After the X-Men defeated the Hellions and freed Angelica from their hold, she would get a mini-series that would better explore who she is as a character. After the mini, she was shunted off to comic limbo until then editor-in-chief, Tom DeFalco, decided to get a bunch of underused and forgotten teen heroes and put them together to form the New Warriors. 

The New Warriors (originally going to be titled the Young Avengers—that’s a little nugget of comics trivia for my devoted fans), was dubbed as the “Heroes for the 90s”, and that they were. Think of the as a proto Waid’s Champions, who dealt with some very real problems that are affecting our world, like pollution, gang violence, and child abuse, wrapped up in the confines of standard cape comics. Nicieza gave us some gravitas in an era that was more focused on style than substance and has become a cult favorite. (There’s a second omnibus on sale now. Do yourself a favor, and go out and pick it up). Fabian made these characters feel real, they really lived in a world right outside your window. He developed them so much that Kurt Busiek would use them as he returned the Avengers to the place where they belonged in the Marvel Universe. 

Unfortunately, after Busiek left, Angelica would flounder through the Marvel Universe, making random appearances here and there, before joining the X-Men in Jason Aaron’s Amazing X-Men, where she, and a group of X-Men to save Nightcrawler’s soul from his father’s dimension, but her tenure would never last long. Let’s fast forward to this year’s Twitter poll that Marvel put out, where Firestar won this year’s poll, and thus far, her time on the team has been pretty unremarkable, despite being under an umbrella of…distrust. (Angelica was asked to spy on the X-Men by Iron Man at this year’s Hellfire Gala), until this issue. 

As shown in the preview pages, she’s being attacked by her resurrected Hellions teammates, and being judged rather harshly, despite her lack of concern over the fate of mutant-kind, she feels emboldened to prove her worth by volunteering to head to a hospital and retrieve the life-preserving drugs from the chemo ward.   deep in a tropical storm, she and Cyclops are investigating the crime, when they find out that the Avengers villain Whirlwind is using his mutant powers over manipulating wind to fight Firestar. While the fight here is rather unremarkable, it’s Firestar’s attitude and willingness to save others, despite the threat to her own safety, that she tests her mettle, and shows her commitment in front of Cyclops.

Now, was this a successful exercise showing her changed attitude towards the apathy she’s shown towards her fellow mutants? No. Absolutely not, and that’s the issue I’m having with Firestar serving as a mole for the greater superhero community, and that’s something that’s been ongoing since the announcement of her slot on the roster. Is it something that Duggan will explore as time moves on? Hopefully. Thus far it’s been rather boring and hasn’t endeared me to this team one way or another.