FIRESTORM


Firestorm along with four other heroes and six villains comprised Kenner's 1985 2nd series figure wave. Kenner sculptors exquisitely rendered the character in three-dimensional action figure form and designed the toy to include a "Atomic Punch" power action. A similar mechanism was also employed for Martian Manhunter in addition to several other 1st series figures. Although Firestorm debuted in the 2nd series line-up, he along with six other 2nd series characters were reissued on 33-back offerless cards and shipped as part of the final 3rd series wave. Firestorm ranks as second rarest rarest among the eleven 3rd series re-release characters. Firestorm's release is documented on the following five domestic (US) Kenner card types:

A 4th series wave was in development during the Super Powers line's cancellation. Plans for the 4th series line-up included exciting new characters in addition to a handful of re-imagined previously released characters. Kenner devised a new Firestorm incarnation, dubbed "Fireflash Firestorm", as part of this re-imagined "Power Plus" sub-series. The Power Plus Firestorm moved through the initial sculpting stage and progressed to the unpainted hardcopy development stage. Two unpainted hardcopy examples have surfaced as evidence of the developmental progress. The first example consists of a torso and arm pair, while the second example consists solely of an arm pair. To cut production costs, it appears Kenner intended to re-use existing production tooling, also referred to as steel molds, for production of Fireflash Firestorm's head and possibly legs.

Kenner Canada released 31 of the 33 carded Super Powers figures in bilingual packaging featuring both English and French text to comply with bilingual packaging laws in the country. As such, Red Tornado saw release on the lone 2nd series Kenner Canada card style:

Children residing outside the US and Canada collected Super Powers action figures distributed by additional international companies. Unfortunately Firestorm did not enjoy release in any non-US country except Canada and possibly Australia.

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