Fire (comics)
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| Fire | |
 Fire, artist Lee Bermejo |
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| Publication information | |
|---|---|
| Publisher | DC Comics |
| First appearance | Historical: Super Friends #25, (October 1979) Current: Infinity, Inc. #32 (November 1986) |
| Created by | E. Nelson Bridwell (writer) Ramona Fradon (artist) |
| In story information | |
| Alter ego | Beatriz Bonilla da Costa (nee Corvalho) |
| Team affiliations | Checkmate Global Guardians Justice League Super Buddies |
| Notable aliases | Green Fury, Green Flame, Black King's Knight |
| Abilities | Pyrokinesis, Ability to become a being composed of living green fire |
Fire is a fictional character, a comic book superheroine from the DC Comics universe. She first appeared in Super Friends #25, (October 1979), and was created by E. Nelson Bridwell and Ramona Fradon. Her first appearance in the DC Universe canon was Infinity, Inc. #32 (November 1986).
Contents |
[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Super Friends
Beatriz da Costa had originally been bequeathed with her powers due to Brazilian mysticism and was the President of Wayne Enterprises' Brazilian Branch. She possessed an array of abilities which included the power to exhale vast quantities of mystical green fire. She could also fly, alter her clothing at will, and displayed a limited capacity to project hallucinations. In her first appearance, she confronted and battled Superman, who was controlled by the 'puppet master' Overlord AKA Sandor Fine. In her next appearance, Green Fury called The Super Friends to help defeat the villain Green Thumb (Fargo Keyes), and months later revealed her secret origin to them to thwart the demons from a green hell.
[edit] Global Guardians
Green Fury became a member of the Global Guardians when Superman, recruited by Doctor Mist, asks for assistance in locating one of many ancient artifacts being pursued by a powerful group of evil mystics. They battle a wizard called 'El Dorado' in an ancient, overgrown city deep in the jungle. The two face off against 'spirit jaguars' and seemingly lose the artifact, a crown, to the wizard. Da Costa then assists Superman and other Guardians in battling the wizards El Dorado included, on Easter Island. The heroes catch a break when it's learned Superman had faked the artifacts with super-speed. This prevents the rise to power of the entity the wizards followed, Thaumar Dhai. Though not as powerful as planned, Dhai was still a threat. Green Fury's mystical based powers were essential in destroying him.
After the Crisis on Infinite Earths, her history was altered so that she had followed an unusual career path. Renamed Beatriz Bonilla da Costa(two surnames not commom in Brazilian country), she started as an amateur model on the beaches of Rio, then becoming a showgirl and stage performer before finding herself serving as a top secret agent for Brazilian government's Espiões Nacionais. In the course of one of her missions, Beatriz was trapped in a pyroplasmic explosion that endowed her with the unusual power of being able to exhale an eight-inch burst of fire. She assumed the identity of the Green Fury then soon changed it again to Green Flame. She joined the international superhero team the Global Guardians, of which she was a long-standing, loyal member. (Secret Origins #33)
She first met the American heroes Infinity, Inc. while on a mission to Canada. (Infinity, Inc. #32)
[edit] Justice League
Shortly after changing her name to Green Flame, the Guardians' UN funding was withdrawn in the wake of the formation the Justice League International. Beatriz convinced her teammate and best friend Icemaiden into joining her to apply for JLI membership. Remarkably, in the wake of Black Canary's resignation and the abduction of several members, the short-handed JLI took them on. (Justice League International #14) Eventually, she once again changed her heroic name, this time to Fire in affinity with Icemaiden's shortening of her name to simply Ice. (Ibid #19) As a result of the "gene bomb" detonated by the alien Dominators, Fire's powers were dramatically increased, but were less reliable for a time. (Invasion! #3, Justice League America #28)
Fire always assumed a big sister role with Ice, watching out for her and her interactions with the "real" world. For example, Fire stepped in when Ice did not realize she was being stalked by a delusional fan. However, Fire herself makes mistakes, such as torching the cash she'd just saved while foiling a bank robbery.
Beatriz remained with the JLI for the rest of its existence — in fact she served the longest tenure of any JLI member. She also took up modeling and agreed to do a swimsuit calendar. (Ibid #67) She soon learned that Booster Gold had bankrolled the calendar, and she burned all the copies. (Ibid #71) During this time, she was also trained in the arts of battle by Big Barda and enjoyed flirting with the diminutive Oberon.
In the battle against Doomsday, Bea was severely injured and lost her powers - she was punched so hard by Doomsday that "her fire went out". (Superman vol. 2 #74) She remained with the team but by the time she returned in Justice League America #88, it was too late to help prevent her best friend's death. Ice was tragically killed by the Overmaster. (Justice League Task Force #14) As Beatriz tried to cope with this loss, she briefly had a romantic relationship with Ice's former beau, Guy Gardner and a longer one with Nuklon. When the first Icemaiden, Sigrid Nansen, joined the League in place of Tora, Fire befriended her. However, their friendship was tainted by Bea's irrational grief-driven behavior, and Sigrid's romantic attraction to Bea.
When this League collapsed, Beatriz returned to Brazil, and tried to reestablish herself as the country's main protector. This met with varied success, which she blamed partly on the Martian Manhunter's prominence in the Southern hemisphere. (Martian Manhunter #10)
[edit] The Super Buddies
Fire eventually tried to retire from being a superheroine and establish a career as an internet glamor girl when Maxwell Lord talks her and several other former JLI members into reforming as a group of "heroes for the common man" called the "Super Buddies". She found herself sharing an apartment with Mary Marvel and, in a characterization reminiscent of her relationship with Tora, became a reluctant "babysitter" for the naive teenager. During her time with the group, Booster mocks Bea's internet venture of selling salacious pictures of herself.
In one adventure with the Super Buddies, Fire and the others were given the opportunity to rescue Ice's spirit from Hell (or a similar dimension). Yet like in the Homeric tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, Fire could not resist looking behind her at Tora, which caused Ice's spirit to vanish. During the Super Buddies' time in Hell, Etrigan the Demon suggested that it was Fire who was fated to die instead of Ice.
Later, during her time in the group, she encounters an alternate universe version of Ice.
NOTE: Subsequent publications have partly called into question whether or not the "Super Buddies" still count as official continuity, though Fire and Mary Marvel have been shown to continue to interact.
[edit] Infinite Crisis
The Super Buddies did not realize that Maxwell Lord was also secretly the Black King of Checkmate. After the Buddies' dissolution, Bea became an agent of Checkmate as well. It has not been revealed whether Lord recruited her. Regardless, she helps Booster Gold and Guy Gardner find the connection between Lord and the death of the Blue Beetle. She joins her former JLI teammates against a group of OMACs. She is badly wounded, but is saved by the sacrifice of Dimitri Pushkin, the Rocket Red. (The OMAC Project #4)
During the great "Infinite Crisis," created by Alexander Luthor, Beatriz returns to her espionage roots by joining Amanda Waller, who took over Checkmate after Lord's death. One of Fire's first missions was to retrieve the notorious A.I., Brother Eye, which had crashed down in Southern Saudi Arabia. This plan was thwarted by Sasha Bordeaux, also formerly of Checkmate. (OMAC Project Special)
After the great "Infinite Crisis," she is seen at the memorial/counting of survivors in 52 #1, where she enjoys a long hug with her old friend Martian Manhunter.
She appears later, criticizing Booster for his shameless self-promotion while the search continues for the missing superheroes. (52 #4) She is also on hand at a memorial for Ralph Dibny's wife, Sue. (52 #42)
[edit] Checkmate
Nearly one year later, after the Crisis, Checkmate was reformed under the supervision of the United Nations and Beatriz became the Black King's Knight. (Checkmate #1) Though she no longer reported to Waller (who was made White Queen), Waller blackmailed Bea with evidence against her father and forced Bea to serve on secret covert mission. (Ibid #11) Fire's demeanor was greatly changed in the transition back to a Black Ops Intelligence Agent. Waller had previously implied that Beatriz actually enjoyed the violence and depravity that was a part of her job. (OMAC Project Special) In fact, Bea had been trained how to kill by her father as a girl. (Ibid #11-12)
Despite her past as a dutiful soldier and daughter, Bea clearly expressed her remorse over taking part in a Checkmate mission that resulted in the deaths of as many as 50 Kobra agents, many of whom were immolated by Fire herself. (Ibid #2) Waller once again blackmailed Fire into covering up a coup in Santa Prisca (home of the villain, Bane). There, Fire killed Colonel Computron for Waller in order to protect her father, Ramon da Costa. Bea's father had once been named Col. Ramon Corvalho(Probably another error from the creators,the surname that is common in Brazil is in fact Carvalho). In the mid 1970s, under a right wing military dictatorship, Corvalho ordered thousands of innocent deaths in Operation Condor, a South American counter-terrorism program. He was never caught and Beatriz had always kept his secret.
When the murder of Computron was exposed by fellow Knight Tommy Jagger, Fire was jailed. After a visit from her superior, the Black King, Col. Taleb Beni Khalid-Isr, Beatriz agreed to turn over her father to international authorities for war crimes. Khalid had convinced her to act as the superhero that he'd chosen for his Knight.
[edit] Reunited with Ice
In Checkmate #16, after years of anguish and grief over the loss of her friend and ally Ice, Fire is at last reunited with her after the long-deceased hero is miraculously resurrected in the pages of Birds of Prey.
[edit] Powers and abilities
- The original Green Fury had magical flame breath powers due to Brazilian mysticism. She could control her flame breath to allow her to fly and land like a rocket. Green Fury was able to mystically alter her clothing when needed and change the color of her eyes from green to black, and vice-versa. Green Fury was able to create and cast illusions with her 'dazzle power' and fire blasts with her white-hot flame or super-cold freezing flame. Her green flame had the magical ability to heal and repair her costume after a battle. Beatriz was also trained by Batman in hand-to-hand combat. Due to the events of the Crisis on Infinite Earths, Green Fury never had any of these magical powers and had a new revised origin.
- Originally Beatriz's only power, gained from a saturation by an organic energy source called Pyroplasm, was the ability to breathe a jet of green flame from her mouth (this accident also permanently dyed her hair green as well).
- During the Invasion crossover event, the alien Dominators set off a "metagene bomb" in the upper atmosphere which affected almost all DC characters with superpowers and, after a period of illness, Fire found her powers greatly magnified as an after-effect. The "new" Fire was now able to completely turn into a being of green flame, in which form she could fly and throw devastating blasts, similar to the Human Torch. Solid objects could pass completely through her form without causing injury. Unfortunately, it took her some time to come to terms with her increased powers, and she often "flamed on" involuntarily when stressed or angry (and sometimes still does), a distressingly common event for a character depicted as having a tendency towards passionate outbursts. The Super Buddies continuity established (and made light of) the fact that flaming on destroyed Bea's clothing, rendering her naked when she stopped using her powers. Checkmate and other appearances have ignored this, suggesting she wears flame-retardant clothing.
- Beatriz is also a skilled investigator and espionage agent.
- She has some resistance to mind control because, as a native speaker of Portuguese, her mind is resistant to instructions given in English.
- She is shown to have a marketable fashion sense having at times worked as a fashion designer.
[edit] Other media and versions
- Fire appeared in the Justice League of America television pilot movie. She was played by Michelle Hurd.
- Fire and Ice both made several appearances in the Justice League Unlimited animated series, although only Fire had any dialogue. Fire's costume in "normal" mode was a vaguely armored tank top and pants, while she sported light-green hair and a distinct Latina appearance. In "Fire" mode, however, her facial features change drastically along with the rest of her appearance: green luminous hair and skin, with flame-like entities covering her private parts (according to producer Bruce Timm, her first appearance while powered up in JLU had to be reshot several times to satisfy the censors). Fire seemed to be a distinct novice within the League, given her nervousness about contradicting senior members. Although both she and her friend Ice were used primarily in group shots, Fire had several action sequences; her first battle was during "The Return", where she temporarily got the better of the android Amazo until he 'learned' her powers and casually swatted her away. She was rescued by the Red Tornado.
- In "I Am Legion", Fire and Flash engaged in a relationship of mutual flirting (although Flash was unusually shy about her). Although she was uncredited for the role, the distinctive voice made it clear that actress Maria Canals (Hawkgirl) provided Fire's voice for all her appearances.
- In the Justice League Unlimited episode "Grudge Match", Fire appeared as a member of a female-only fight club. Black Canary and Fire, both under mind control, were pitted against one another in one of Roulette's organized cage matches. Black Canary won the fight and Fire was seriously injured. She was seen again at the end of the episode being helped out of the building by other League members after Roulette was defeated. Fire has one speaking line in the episode.
- In the final episode of Justice League Unlimited, Fire appeared in Ice's swimming pool, and they both fly away together to aid in the battle against Darkseid's invasion of Earth.
[edit] Some appearances
- DC Comics Presents #46
- Formerly Known as the Justice League, 6-issue limited series (2003)
- Justice League America/International #14-113
- Martian Manhunter vol. 2 #10
- Secret Origins vol. 2 #33
- Showcase '93 #8
