FIRESTAR

 

FIRESTAR

Real Name: Angelica Jones

First Appearance: The Uncanny X-Men (Vol. 1) #193, May 1985

Powers: Firestar is a mutant whose power continuously absorbs electromagnetic energy from her environment (as well as from the sun and other stars) into her body and converts them into microwaves, comparatively short waves of electromagnetic energy. She can then manipulate these microwaves for various effects.

When she is actively manipulating microwaves, a glowing fiery aura of energy surrounds her body and emits heat. Unless she consciously controls it, the active microwaves radiate outward from her body in all directions, usually as heat beams or downward as thermal updrafts for flight. She most often uses her power to generate heat. There is no known upper limit to the temperatures her heat beams can reach, though she has enough control of her power to produce low-intensity heat for smaller, less destructive purposes (such as reheating food or warming coffee in a cup). Her power can melt most metals within seconds, she has reduced multiple steel girders to slag almost instantly and melted bullets in mid-air before they could even strike her. To date, Adamantium is the sole metal that is sufficiently durable to withstand Firestar’s power. She can use her power to release heat, light, and radiation into her environment at various intensities. She can project microwave blasts which have a thermo-concussive effect, heating objects so that they melt, while the super-heated and pressurized air created by the microwaves' passing may knock the target back or down. She can reduce solid rock to a molten state, burn through brick or concrete barriers, and sear through thick stone walls fast enough to fly through them without pausing. By firing visible microwave bursts into the sky, she can create intensely bright flares.

By generating short, tightly-focused microwave bursts, she can scramble electronic systems without visibly damaging the hardware in question. Similarly, she can generate low-level microwave fields which disrupt communication wavelengths or impede surveillance equipment. Her large-scale microwave pulse once scrambled or melted all the electronics in and around a city square. Her microwave frequencies sometimes disrupted certain forms of telepathy by screening out neural control signals, making her resistant to some forms of mind control and allowing to free others’ minds from similar influence if they’re within her range.

Her microwaves can also disrupt other-dimensional energies, such as the Darkforce. Her flight capacity operates by channeling microwaves and super-heated air into a downward and/or backward thrust, enabling her to fly at high speeds with great maneuverability. Her power generates enough propulsive thrust to carry her body weight and an additional 500 pounds. She requires a spacesuit or similar protective gear to function in outer space, but is far more powerful in that environment as space grants her more direct access to greater amounts of electromagnetic energy; also, while in space, she can wield larger amounts of microwave energy without damaging her surrounding environment. She has proven capable of hurting cosmic beings such as Supernova or opening space warps through which travelers can cover vast distances instantly.

Firestar's mutation was apparently incompletely formed, resulting in her still being vulnerable to microwave radiation and its potential side effects like cancer or sterility. Hank Pym designed a full body sheathe of micro-circuitry to be worn under her costume. It absorbed the excess microwave energy that was affecting her cells and diverted it in a way that would catalyze her natural immunity to her own powers. She is now functionally immune to microwave radiation.

Angelica Jones has had combat training under Emma Frost, the Night Thrasher, Andrew Chord, Tai, and Captain America, with a particular emphasis on aerial combat given her flight powers. She has taken ballet classes and has some equestrian training.

MAJOR VICTORY

 

MAJOR VICTORY

Real Name: Vance Astro (legally changed from Vance Astrovik)

First Appearance: Marvel Super-Heroes (Vol. 1) #18, January 1969

Powers: Vance Astro is the alternate timeline self (from Earth-691) of Vance Astrovik (Marvel Boy, Justice) of Earth-616. Believing faster-than-light travel technology to be impossible, America in the late 20th century devised a two thousand year round-trip mission whereby a single astronaut would be specially-preserved and transported to the Beta Centauri system. Astro's blood was replaced by a special preservative fluid while his skin was totally encased in an air-tight containment suit. He spent the majority of the next thousand years in suspended animation on board his ship, only awakened by the ship every few decades to check his navigation systems. Vance eventually arrived on Centauri IV only to discover to his dismay that a colony of Earth humans were already there to greet him. Harkovian physics had replaced Einstein's rules of the universe some 200 years after he left, and not only had Earth heavily colonized its own solar system with genetically-engineered branches of humanity, they had also established the first extra-solar colony on Centauri more than a century previously.

Becoming active in the 31st century with the Guardians of the Galaxy, Vance Astro lived under the constant threat that any tear of his containment suit would oxygenate his skin, causing it to age 1,000 years within seconds. Early in his career, he supplemented the suit with an outer costume of Kevlar, and Martinex later redesigned his costume out of a flexible Adamantium derivative which was virtually incapable of being pierced. In addition, Vance's mind had developed over his long journey, and he began manifesting his latent psychokinetic powers. As such, he found himself capable only of administering pressure to objects, and not levitating or manipulating them like a true telekinetic. Instead, he projected concussive force from his forehead either as a uni-directional beam or a full-circle radial discharge. He eventually recovered Captain America's shield and began using it as his personal weapon, including adding a psychokinetic blast to his throws so that the shield flew with tremendous force. After a bullet made of Dargonite penetrated his Adamantium casing, Vance was saved by the intervention of Krugarr, the future Sorcerer Supreme, and Hollywood, the future incarnation of Wonder Man. Hollywood gave Vance a transfusion of his ionically-enriched blood, while Krugarr cast an enchantment which enabled him to remove his containment suit and survive with his skin exposed to open air.

Adopting the new alias of Major Victory, Astro adopted a new patriotic costume to go with his shield. However, he soon gave up the shield so that it could be used as a rallying symbol for a new Earth government. Around this time, the Beyonder encountered Vance and, seemingly on a whim, altered his costume to possess a black undergarment. The meaning of this became clear when Mephisto undid Krugarr's enchantment months later, forcing Vance's body to age rapidly. The undergarment came to life, quickly covering Major Victory's entire body and duplicating the properties of his containment suit to keep him alive. Questions arose as to whether this "Black suit from the Beyonder" was another symbiote similar to Venom, and to the nature of "The Power of That Which Lies Within Yet Beyond", a mysterious force which was increasing Vance's psychokinetic powers. It was eventually determined that the suit was just an unliving sympathetic exo-armor, and the elaborately named Within Yet Beyond was merely the effects of his ionically-enhanced blood acting upon his mental powers. The sheer force of his psychokinetic blasts was dramatically amplified, and he became capable of more varied telekinetic feats. He could cast a protective bubble or shields, create hard energy columns to raise him off the ground or floating disks to ferry him and others around, move objects about in a controlled manner, encase targets in psychokinetic bonds or stasis fields, etc.