Polite Dissent

Firestorm #55 and #56 occur during the “Legends” cross-over event. These are the only Legend books I’ve read, and it doen’t appear that I’ve missed much. When even the talented John Ostrander can’t make the comics exciting, the crossover couldn’t have been that good.

As the story starts, Firestorm is battling the atomic monster Brimstone, and doing a very bad job of it. The monster drops a building on the Justice League (the Vibe and Gypsy League, so no great loss), shrugs off everything Firestorm throws at it and flies off into space, but not before flattening a city block, killing thousands of people. Flying home, Firestorm discovers that Pittsburgh is full of protestors and the President has ordered all superheroes to stand down. Professor Stein is happy to oblige, but Ronnie isn’t going to give up being Firestorm that easily.

The next day, a group of fanatics are burning super-hero books outside the Vandemeer library. Ronnie wants to change into Firestorm and stop them, but the Professor refuses. Ronnie changes into Firestorm anyway and finds that while he may be Firestorm, he doesn’t have access to most of his powers. He falls into the bonfire and becomes an easy target of the rioters.

Luckily , Hank Hall just happens to be inside the library. According to the story, he’s at Vandemeer University with the Eldon University football team to play a football game. Sure, Eldon University is in Oregon and Vandemeer is in Pennsylvania, but that doesn’t matter when you’re a member of the FCAC*. Still, Hank in a library, voluntarily…the mind boggles**.

Hank changes into Hawk and rushes out, dispersing the fanatics and giving Firestorm the chance to save himself. Professor Stein is incensed and vows never to become Firestorm again.

That evening, Hawk breaks into the ROTC building and helps himself to a bunch of guns and live ammunition. A group of pro-hero fanatics is there with the same idea, so they join up with Hawk and head out to the library.

The anti-hero fanatics are attacking the library, but Hawk and his fanatics are defending it. Both groups are well armed. The police move in as well and a deadly gun battle is just minutes away. Across campus, Ronnie apologizes to the Professor and they agree to become Firestorm once again, but only for passive activities. Firestorm uses his powers to change the guns into water pistols and the bullets into flowers. Next he uses his powers to turn the standoff into one giant slapstick pie fight. No, really; I’m not making this up. The police arrest the anti-hero fanatics and Hawk stalks off, furious at being embarrassed. Firestorm retires for the evening, a job well-done.

A good use of Hawk, showing his fanatacism without beating the reader over the head with it. The pie fight was pure genius, but I keep coming back to the scene of Hawk in a library — that part just seems out of character for Hank.

*FCAC…The Fictional College Athletic Conferece, featuring such athletic powerhouses as Empire State, Metropolis University, Faber, Vandemeer, Eldon University and Knox State College (UC Sunnydale was dropped from the conference due to a precipitous decline in enrollment).

**Hank makes up for it in the Hawk & Dove mini-series (1988) when he blows up the Georgetown University library and no one bats an eye.