Poor Firebug. Out of all the characters to get boned by Crisis On Infinite Earths, he may have gotten it the worst.
Now, sure, he didn’t die or anything. But so what? Supergirl came back. Barry Allen came back. The Anti-Monitor came back. Pretty much the only person who died in Crisis now is Prince Ra-Man, and he’ll probably come back next month. No, what happened to Firebug is worse: he became redundant.
See, pre-Crisis, Firebug was Batman’s official Arsonist Villain. If you needed to do a story that needed an arsonist, Firebug was your guy. It wasn’t a big thing, but it was a niche. Firebug had his little place in Gotham lore, back in the days when Batman had a lot of villains who wore costumes and who were not crazy. (Nowadays, all Batman villains are crazy. Even Ra’s Al Ghul is a megalomaniac with psychotic tendencies.) A comics writer would go, “I need a fire here. Hey, Firebug!” and he’d get called up. It was reliable.
Post-Crisis, though, Firefly became the fire-oriented Batman villain of choice. Which is interesting, because pre-Crisis, Firefly was a Golden Age dorkus who fought Batman with coloured lights. Post-Crisis, though, somebody realized that “Firefly” is a more poetic name for an arsonist villain than “Firebug” is, so Firefly became an arsonist – and, because Batman now officially Fought The Crazy Types, a pyromaniac as well.
And that left Firebug out in the cold, so to speak. There was only one potential career path for him now: that of the loser semi-retired ex-villain who gets made to look like a schmuck, preferably by a C-lister or below looking for a bit of a boost rather than a major heroic type. And of course, that’s exactly what happened in the very first storyline for Gotham Central.
But even then, he did his best, and was a quality schmuck.
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This guy sounds delightfully insane, in a way most Bat-villains aren’t anymore.
I mean, taking revenge on BUILDINGS? That’s some awesome type crazy there.
His costume sounds pretty complex. Hidden caches of napalm that he shoot out of his fingertips?
Awesome.
Firebug’s origin story makes me wonder what would have become of Bruce if his parents had met their demise at the hands of something other than street crime.
Like drunk driving. Or a safety railing than wasn’t up to code. Or high cholesterol.
Actually, the guy in Gotham Central is another firebug. Rigger died a pathetic death in TEC 690 after setting fuel tank on fire which exploded. He was in fact trying to mount a comeback at the time and out burniate Firefly.
Poor old Prince Ra-Man was last seen half-stuck in a wall during Morrison’s ANIMAL MAN run, if memory serves.
@q: “Yes, father. I shall become Tofu.”
Wait, didn’t Dan Slott introduce a similar character in his Arkham Asylum miniseries? A black graffiti artist who defaced buildings with demonic sigils? Doodlebug….not quite the same I grant you.
Arkham Asylum was a good display of what Batman more villains needs to be, I think. Doodlebug, Humpty Dumpty, and Jane Doe were awesome in that.
Prince Ra-Man (or a giant-headed version of him in some sort of M-Theory Dimention) showed up briefly in Zatana’s Seven Solder mini. I guess Morrison just loves that guy.
I give him points for being a working-man’s villain. I mean, here’s a guy who paid his debt to society, doing the dusk to dawn “lighting shit on fire for the mob / personal vendetta” shift, earning his street cred after countless beatings, working his way up through various villainous societies, and earning his place as the punching bag of the JLA’s arguably most formidable member.
Truly a villain of the people.
Wait… there was a time when Ra’s Al Ghul wasn’t a nutter? Cause I missed that one.
Firebug (or one version of him) shows up in the excellent Deadshot mini.
He also shows up in Hero Hotline, where he is defeated by Zeep the Living Sponge. (Who was about ten years too early, and probably spends a lot of time watching “that OTHER sponge guy” and muttering to himself “I coulda been a contenda…”)
“Rigger became determined those buildings could not be allowed to kill again.”
Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.
Well, he was the penultimate boss in that really awesome Batman game on the NES, so he has that going for him.
I remember thinking that Robin needed a more distinct rogue’s gallery, separate from Batman’s, and Firebug was one of the first ones I thought of. A castoff from Batman, sure, but not high profile and it’s not like anyone’s using him anyway.
Quakemaster and the Terrible Trio, them too.
So this guy died after he set himself on fire, fell off a building, and some exploded napalm tanks?
Yeah, he’s a quality schmuck alright.
Drake we are leaving!
“Rigger became determined those buildings could not be allowed to kill again.”
This gives the impression that the building are ruthless cattle rustlers. Riding across the plain robbing banks, shooting bystanders and out foxing the law.
As soon as I read that each of his family members had died over the course of three weeks in three separate buildings, I hoped to find out who had arranged that, and why. Because what are the odds of something like that just being a coincidence?
Did it ever turn out that the “accidents” that killed his whole family in a week weren’t really accidents? Because a people-vengeful arsonist is a better niche than a buidling-vengeful one…
He was a bad guy. If you consider someone contemplating genocide for the betterment of humanity “sane” then he was pretty stable. At the beginning, he was a far cry from Two-Face or Joker.
But the Ra’s Al Ghul that wanted to pick up a protege and level Gotham was a far cry from the guy with the broken Lazarus Pit looking to sacrifice his own daughter to give himself one last stab at Bruce Wayne’s face. He definitely went crazier as the comic progressed.
Firefly makes more sense as a name of a pyro, though. Firefly just makes me think of more of an animal theme.
And killer buildings? Sure, why not? It’s Gotham City.
@Sofa King
Gotham City, where you can’t even trust the buildings.
Sofa King: Firebug is actually a term used colloquially for arsonists.
Was that what you were trying to say? you typed Firefly twice.
Firebug was the second-to-last boss in the *awesome* NES Batman movie tie-in game (supplementary bosses were taken from the comics – KGBeast and Killer Moth both made appearances as well). His in-game role was to force you to use up all your batarangs trying to beat him before the Joker would make you his bitch with his extendo-pistol and lightning summoning abilities. Good times…
@DistantFred
Yeah I meant to say Firebug the first time. Firefly was my favorite bad guy on GI Joe, to give a cross-geek hijack.
Now I’m imagining that if Batman mainly fights De CraZies, he should have a villian for every type of whacko. Think of the possiblities!
A building-vengeful arsonist is something that I’m sure had never been done before, so I have to tip my hat to whoever came up with the idea. Even if it were revealed that something had caused those specific people to die, perhaps in an attempt to destroy Rigger emotionally for one reason or another, Rigger’d probably want to kill them, yes. But by that point he might be so far gone that he’d want to burn every building in the world just so other buildings wouldn’t kill other people. So he could keep on being building-vengeful, because he’s batshit crazy.
You know, if every Batman villain has a unique psychosis, at some point you’re going to get a bit weak on the whole impressive insanities bit.
I mean, the Tourette’s syndrome guy is going to be a bit hard to consider a serious threat.
so…
how bout them wednesday comics?
Bret, the Tourette’s guy could be plenty scary if you combined that with Zatanna-styled magic. You’d never know what the hell you were getting…
Trashcan Man
that is all
“Fuck you Batman! I’ve seen that building send kids to their death in Vietnam!”