Firestar



Trained to be an assassin with her microwave manipulating mutant powers, Firestar grew to be a popular hero. She spent years as a New Warrior and Avenger, retired during Marvel's Civil War, then joined the Young Allies. Recently she has become a teacher at the Jean Grey School for Higher Learning.

Origin
Bart Jones was a hard working employee of the nuclear industry, a job that kept him and his family moving around the country. Although he was widowed, he had help from his elderly mother to raise his thirteen-year-old daughter Angelica. The two would often disagree over how to treat Angelica, with her "Nana" trying to raise her spirits and convince her that she was special, and her "Daddy" trying to be more realistic. Moving around the country had been difficult on Nana's health and Angelica's ability to make friends.

After their last move, Angel found it more difficult than ever to make new friends. The local girls were initially spiteful, and became exceptionally jealous when the most popular boy in school began to show a romantic interest in Angel. Their taunting in the school cafeteria caused her to subconsciously over-heat her carton of chocolate milk, which subsequently exploded over a teacher and landed her in detention. They later destroyed her entry for the school's ice-sculpting competition, the anger and pain of which caused Angel's powers to melt all the other entries. Terrified, she ran to a public telephone to try and speak to her Nana. However, Angel panicked when Nana didn't answer the phone, causing the telephone to melt in her hands. Scared, hurt, and confused, Angelica ran home to discover an ambulance there. It transpired that on the day that Angelica's mutant powers manifested, her Nana had passed away from a heart attack.

Angelica kept her powers a secret, for fear of being further outcast in a society that lived in fear of dangerous mutants. She chose to reveal her secret to her father after her Nana's funeral. In the snow covered cemetery Bart Jones refused to listen to his daughter's claims that she was "special" until she began to glow and the snow around her began to melt. Her father was just a working class man who had nothing to do with the political implications of mutants in society, but he was scared of what his little girl was growing into.

Power and Abilities
Firestar's powers includes the ability to generate, re-direct and absorb ambient radiation and manipulate it into microwave radiation, fire/plasma blasts, light generation, disruption of electronics and psionic powers and flight. Her surrounding environment provides differing amounts of radiation for her body to absorb, and therefore she can use her powers to greater effect. Such instances have been shown during her adventures in space, where her powers are enhanced the most, she was able to soak up cosmic rays and redirect them with impressive effect, such as hurting Garth Saal, who held almost all the power of the Nova Corps, and also opening up a space gate with ease, which has only been done by few powerful characters. Even when back on Earth, she is not limited to the amount of radiation she can absorb, however she chooses to use her microwave blasts less offensively for fear of harming the local population and environment.

Her blasts look fiery in nature, but they are in fact intensely burning microwave blasts. She can focus the blasts, and the spectrum range of the radiation she emits. Usually she manipulates the radiation causing a target to burst into flame, explode, or melt. She has the capability to melt thick red-brick walls, as was demonstrated when she first encountered Night Thrasher, Nova and Marvel Boy.

Ultimately by creating enough of a downwards thrust, she can force her body upwards into the air and therefore create the power of flight much in the same way as the Human Torch or Sunfire. Although she can not match the speed of Nova, she is more agile in flight than Cannonball, and is adept at firing off blasts of fiery radiation with impressive accuracy in mid-flight.

Although she had been manipulated by the White Queen, it was that training to be an assassin which has enabled Firestar to use her powers so expertly.