Furious Firestorms Fighting Fabled Foes

Professor Martin Stein and Professor Martin Styne were each two scientists who spawned the twin energy emitters known as Firestorm and the Ray. Although these two heroes were not counterparts of each other, they each had notable careers on their respective worlds of Earths One and Two. For the Ray, his counterpart on Earth-One was the New Genesis occupant known as Lightray, each possessing the ability to transform into forms of energy, comparable to Stein's alter ego, Firestorm.

Firestorm was two heroes merged into one. Stein's partner, in the driver seat of the Firestorm persona, was athlete Ronnie Raymond. They had encountered one another during a failed protest at a nuclear power plant during a meltdown, when an atomic blast melded these men into a superhuman. After a few adventures in his costumed persona, Firestorm joined the Justice League*, who were his idols.

The Earth-Two counterpart to Ronnie was Christopher Pike, a young man who idolized the Justice Society, and aspiring to live up to their example, he sought to sail the stars as an astronaut. Achieving the rank of a Commander at NASA, Pike was assigned to the Vulcan Probe One, with a mission parameter whereby he and two colleagues would journey around the Sun for a hundred days. Going mad onboard, Pike slayed the other two astronauts, yet was preserved alive when his vessel plunged into the Sun thanks to the intervention of a benevolent alien. Granted the ability to irradiate tremendous heat, which he used to fly and to project blasts of heat, Pike also gained transmutational abilities. He used this latter power, as the supervillain Vulcan Son of Fire, to both transform his molten metal armor into a hard metallic substance... and to generate a flaming axe as a weapon. He then attacked the Justice Society, seeking misguided vengeance upon them for his condition, and later joined their foes the Secret Society of Super-Villains.

The after-effects of the merger between Ronnie and Martin had adverse effects on the latter. As Raymond was awake during the incident at the Hudson Nuclear Power Plant which spawned his flame-haired alter ego, it was the unconscious side of Stein that was aware of this fact. As such, each time Ronnie called upon the two to merge, Martin was unaware as to what was going on, and figured he may be having a mental or emotion breakdown. This led to alcoholism, until Ronnie finally admitted to Martin that their frequent disappearances were the result of Firestorm. They formed a friendship, as each could now initate the merger, and on occasion Martin controlled Firestorm when Ronnie was unconscious.

As for Professor Styne, it was while testing his experimental "Strato-Balloon" that reporter Happy Terrill was exposed to a strange electrical storm surge which mutated him into the Ray. Later, the Ray would join us members of the All-Star Squadron in migrating to Earth-X where there were no heroes, leaving his native Earth-Two behind. 

After decades on Earth-X battling the Axis Powers alongside his fellow heroes, Ray and the Freedom Fighters finally triumphed. Following this, they sought out a third Earth to start their costumed careers anew, and traveled to Earth-One. However, there stay there proved shortlived, as they were hounded as criminals instead of crimefighters. Just prior to returning to Earth-Two and then Earth-X, the Ray encountered a villian known as the Dark. This man followed him from Earth-Two, the former assistance to Styne named Cliff who had opposite powers to the Ray and sought to destroy his foe. Apparently, Ray defeated the Dark, who disappeared. This Cliff was as much an annoyance as was his Earth-One doppelgänger, Cliff Carmichael, who tormented Ronnie since their days together in school.

* Ronnie Raymond and Martin Stein’s Firestorm adventures on Earth-One mirrored the adventures of Johnny Thunder and Archibald the Thunderbolt’s adventures on Earth-Two, both solo and as members of the Justice League and Justice Society respectively. Their counterparts on each others’ Earths were recurring foes of the League and Society during their few apprarances.