Biography
Hellions
Angelica Jones, a lonely girl raised by her single father, Bartholomew, and paternal grandmother, discovered that she possessed mutant powers. After her grandmother's death by heart failure and her revelation that she was a mutant, her father sent Angelica to the Massachusetts Academy. Emma Frost, the original White Queen of the Hellfire Club, began training Angelica in the use of her powers for the Club's team of young mutants, the Hellions. She was never sent on field missions with the other Hellions, however, because of her lack of control over her lethal powers and because the White Queen wished to instill cruelty and callousness in Firestar's personality, and befriending other young mutants would work against that goal. The White Queen manipulated Angelica into perceiving Frost as a loving mother figure, unaware that Frost was secretly grooming her to be a potential assassin and bodyguard. Angelica met the New Mutants at an Academy dance and, with the White Queen's telepathic prompting, formed a crush on Cannonball. Firestar was later emotionally manipulated by Empath, and accompanied the Hellions Thunderbird, Empath, and Roulette on a mission against the X-Men, in which Thunderbird sought revenge on Xavier for thinking him responsible for his brother's death. While a student of the Massachusetts Academy, Angelica had a Hellfire mercenary named Randall Chase assigned to her as a bodyguard. Growing close to Angelica, Randall eventually began to suspect the White Queen's true motives and was to be terminated. He escaped, mortally wounded, and managed to warn Angelica of Frost's duplicity just before he died. In retaliation, Jones attacked and defeated the White Queen, and decimated the hidden training complex beneath Frost's Massachusetts Academy. Afterwards, she returned to living with her father (as she was still a minor at the time), but kept the unique costume and identity of Firestar given to her by Frost. Firestar was later to become one of the few surviving original Hellions, after most members were murdered by Trevor Fitzroy. Firestar and Warpath (accompanied by Warpath's X-Force teammate—and Firestar's former love interest--Cannonball), went on a mission to inform Empath and former New Mutant Magma of their teammates' deaths. The trio then went to the Massachusetts Academy, where they removed the few remaining files on record of the Hellions' existence. Currently, only Firestar, Warpath, Empath, and a resurrected Tarot remain of the White Queen's original team of Hellions; however, Emma Frost, now allied with Xavier's School due to guilt over her original students' deaths, would later train a new team of young mutants, Generation X, on the Massachusetts Academy grounds, and establish a training squad at Xavier's School called the Hellions.
New Warriors
Shortly after her resignation from the Massachusetts Academy, Firestar became a founding member of the New Warriors, when she was invited - or rather, blackmailed - by Night Thrasher into joining. She helped them battle Terrax. She also aided Night Thrasher against Midnight's Fire. She also helped Thor defeat the Juggernaut alongside the New Warriors. With the New Warriors, she battled the Mad Thinker and Primus, and then battled Psionex. With the New Warriors, she battled the second Star Thief and Stane International's Mandroids. With teammates Marvel Boy and Namorita, and the Star Thief, she launched into space aboard a Stane rocket. They encountered the Inhumans and the Watcher on the Moon. With the help of Black Bolt and the Star Thief, she destroyed the Stane rocket containing hazardous waste. Back on Earth, the New Warriors battled the Force of Nature in a Brazilian jungle, and rescued teammate Speedball's mother. The New Warriors also battled the White Queen and her Hellions. Eventually, she became engaged to fellow teammate Vance Astrovik. She later discovered that her microwave powers were damaging her ability to have children, and further use might render her completely infertile. During a revenge scheme by a gang of thugs called the Poison Memories, Firestar's father was shot in the chest. He nearly died but recovered. Firestar also faced a time without Vance, as he had to serve a prison term for the involuntary slaying of his own abusive father. Firestar also provided vital assistance in helping Spider-Man tackle Carnage during "Maximum Carnage", when he was also forced to ally himself with Venom, Black Cat, and Morbius to stop Carnage's reign of slaughter. Her microwave powers proved the only weapon truly effective against Carnage following his 'upgrade'- his vulnerability to sonics having been weakened - but she still refused to kill Carnage, even to stop his murders.
Avengers
Firestar and Justice later joined the Avengers, after an alternate-universe adventure and a struggle against Morgan LeFay. Firestar helped demonstrate her fitness for the position when she and Vance took down Whirlwind, a villain that had literally foiled most of the other Avengers at once. Firestar demonstrated a more restrained fashion sense, refusing to wear a cleavage-baring costume designed by the Wasp. Though she is seen wearing exactly that costume in an Avengers promo poster and in some early Avengers appearances, she quickly altered the costume to be more modest, which was consistent with her personality. During this period, Henry Pym determined that the cause of her potential infertility was her natural immunity to the effects of her own powers (which all mutants possess) had never fully developed. He designed a costume for her that would siphon off the excess radiation, give her natural immunity the opportunity to manifest fully and heal the damage already done.[19] After a distinguished tenure with the Avengers, including going undercover in a bizarre cult, facing a horde of Ultron robots, and struggling against Kang the Conqueror's takeover of modern-day Earth, she and Justice left the Avengers, and later resurfaced alongside the New Warriors. She also made a tentative peace with Emma Frost during this time. Angelica started college and enjoyed a "normal life", but she abandoned wedding preparations, leaving Vance with all of the responsibility. When Vance confronted her about this, she confessed that she needed more life experience before settling into married life. Vance left in anger and presumably ended their engagement.
Retirement
Firestar is one of the few mutants left on the planet with her powers intact, after the Scarlet Witch altered reality and decimated the mutant population. Firestar was not among the New Warriors who died in the catastrophe that sparked the events of Civil War. She was presumed to be among the Warriors who confronted the operator of an anti-Warriors hate site created in the wake of the catastrophe, revealed to be former Warriors member Carlton LaFroyge (Hindsight Lad). She is seen flying in the background, above the confrontation. Firestar has responded to the Superhuman Registration Act by effectively retiring from her career as a costumed hero. She was recently seen as part of a New Warriors reunion of sorts with Nova and Justice. She is currently attending college.
Marvel Divas
In the limited series, Marvel Divas, it is revealed Angelica's closest friends are Black Cat, Hellcat and Photon. At the very end of the first issue, Firestar announces she has been diagnosed with cancer. She's later diagnosed by Doctor Strange and the Night Nurse as being in the earlier stages of the illness, provoked seemingly by the same inability to shield herself from her microwave emission powers that's making her infertile. Despite her brave dealing with the illness (she asks Patsy to write a book and a blog to relay her experience to other cancer survivors, strongly believing in her ability to heal), and Henry Pym offering her a second opinion (despite Pym actually being a biochemist, and not a physician), she's still in visible distress, enough for Daimon Hellstrom to approach his ex-wife Patsy, ensuring her fast healing in exchange for Patsy giving him her soul, and marrying him again. Learning about Patsy's brave move to help in her recovery; Angelica and her supportive friends travelled to Hellstrom's dimension to rescue her, by rejecting his 'healing' help for Hellcat's freedom, thus taking her chances against the cancer. After her follow-up exam, Angelica's condition regarding the cancer was in remission.
Powers and Abilities
Powers
Firestar is an Alpha-level mutant.
- Microwave Energy Generation: ability to tap into Earth's electromagnetic field and convert it into microwave radiation emissions, which she can utilize in different ways. Microwaves are comparatively short waves of electromagnetic energy. Firestar continually absorbs microwave energy from her environment, including microwave energy from the stars, and continually broadcasts it at low levels.
- Microwave Energy Manipulation: In order to use her microwave energy for specific purposes, Firestar must mentally concentrate, thus causing the microwaves to swirl about her body, creating a visible aura around her. In order to project the microwave energy towards a specific target, she must mentally "push" some of the energy swirling around her towards that target. She can focus microwaves on a specific target, and cause it to burst into flame, or explode, or melt. She can also sense microwave signals (such as cell-phone signals or even remote-control devices) and disrupt electronics with her own microwave emissions.
- Microwave Emission Heat: Firestar can use her microwave energy to generate intense heat. At this point, she can already melt a metal object the size of a cannon almost instantly. She has flown towards a thick wall of solid rock and melted through it so quickly that she could continue flying right through the hole she had melted without pausing.
- Microwave Emission Flight: By super-heating the air around her, she can surround her self with an aura of flaming plasma, and if she projects her plasma aura downwards in a tightly focused stream, she can generate enough upward thrust to fly at high speeds. Firestar's powers appear to become more powerful when in space, and she was once able to power a massive stargate with virtually no effort. Her maximum speed has yet to be established, but she can already fly quite swiftly and maneuver in flight quite well. She can generate enough propulsive force to carry considerable weights to great heights at high speed. For example, she has carried Colossus, in his metal-like form, which weighs 500 pounds, high into the air.
Microwave Emission Immunity: Firestar is apparently immune to the microwaves she emits, although she did undergo tests with Henry Pym to make sure.
At present, Firestar is still in the process of learning how to use her powers. Moreover, she is still quite young, and the strength of her powers will surely increase as she reaches adulthood. Hence, the full extent of Firestar's powers has yet to be determined.
Strength level
Firestar possesses the normal human strength of a woman of her age, height, and build who engages in moderate regular exercise.
Trivia
- Only Avenger to have debuted outside Marvel canon, in the "Spider-Man & His Amazing Friends" cartoon.
- Original costume design based on Spitfire, of the Invaders