Sons of Fire Meet Teams of Justice

Many costumed crusaders aspire to be among the few invited to join their Worlds’ Greatest Superhero Teams. For two young men, Ronald Raymond and Christopher Pike, they too different paths to arrive at the same destination. And with different results.

Ronnie Raymond was a student athlete who fell in with the wrong crowd, a group of criminals masquerading as activists protesting a nuclear power plant designed by Professor Martin Stein. When their sabotage caused the plant’s reactor to explode, Raymond and Stein were merged together, transformed into Firestorm the Nuclear Man. His brief heroic career, with Martin becoming a mentor to Ronnie, led to a team-up with Superman of Earth-One and his recommendation of Firestorm for membership in the Justice League of America.

Chris Pike excelled in academics and scholarly pursuits, inspired by the heroic examples of his childhood heroes, the Justice Society of America. He first joined his mentor Rex “Hourman” Tyler’s Minute-Men of America, where he worked alongside that team of Earth-Two’ teen titans on several cases. When this team dissolved, Chris joined the Junior Justice Society of Earth-Two in their adventures combatting the Injustice Society and the Crimson Claw Gang. Then, tragedy transformed him into Vulcan, Son of Fire!

The experience of joining the Justice League helped mature Ronald, as he developed a self-sacrificing attitude towards his fellow man and became the true hero Firestorm. The experience of joining the Junior Justice Society sadly did not have a lasting effect on Christopher, as he developed a self-loathing for himself and a deep-seated resentment towards his heroes, whom he attacked as the villain Vulcan.

While Firestorm's tenure with the League only lasted for a couple years, before the team was disbanded and then reassembled with a smaller roster in Detroit by charter member Aquaman, the effect his former teammates had on the Nuclear Man was profound. Both Ronald and Martin formed a lasting friendship, developed from their physical bonding spawned by the reactor incident. Firestorm would face and defeat scores of supervillains with powers as great and some greater than his own, relying on the adaptability and instinctive nature of Raymond and the analytical and reasoning nature of Stein.

Since his own mentor Hourman distanced himself from Pike and his former Minute-Men allies, Christopher began relying too much on his own analytical abilities without humbly acknowledging his psychological limitations. When madness gripped him while aboard an experimental spacecraft orbiting the sun, Pike's mind snapped and he slayed his fellow astronauts, while disabling the vessel carrying them across the solar system. Due to the timely intervention of an alien observer saving Chris’ life, Pike was transformed into Vulcan. Instead of appreciating this act of kindness, Pike adopted the alias of Vulcan and became a foe of the Justice Society, later joining the Secret Society of Super-Villains!