invisiblefloatinghead | Application for Wonderful Worlds

Player

Name: Airdra
Personal Journal:

Airdra, airdra400@yahoo.com
Timezone: Central
Characters Played: Takeshi Asakura

Character

Name: Martin Stein
Source: DC Comics, Post-Crisis, pre DCnU, OU. ~~The joys of superhero comics, right?~~
Type: Player
Canon Point: He'll be arriving after events in Brightest Day led to his getting turned into salt by Deathstorm.
History: This wiki covers the Professor's earliest history. It fails to take into account anything that happened after he became Firestorm, and I'll have to summarize that myself.

At first, Professor Stein had no memory of his exploits as Firestorm. While his memory of Firestorm's adventures would return when he and Ronnie merged, when not merged he only remembered them as a series of inexplicable blackouts. He had no idea what he might be doing during these blackouts, and he even hired a private investigator to follow him to get some idea of what was happening to him during these times. His work and social life started to fall apart as a result, but Ronnie was able to help him gain a better control of the situation, which also allowed him to initiate the fusion into Firestorm.

For a while, Stein worked as a researcher at Concordance Research Industries, and he and Ronnie kept up their duel identity as Firestorm. The partnership was sometimes rocky thanks to Ronnie's impulsiveness and youthful lack of decision-making skills butting heads with Stein's world-weary experience. Stein also experienced a relapse into alcoholism, which Ronnie was able to help him conquer. Although hiding his activities as Firestorm made his personal life a problem at times and although his activities as Firestorm sometimes got him targeted by various criminal activities, he couldn't regret it, not when he and Ronnie were doing so much good.

Eventually, Ronnie graduated high school and Stein took on a teaching position at Vandermeer University. The arrangement still allowed for the two of them to form Firestorm, and for a little while, all seemed well. This lasted for a few months until Stein started experiencing excruciating headaches and more blackouts. As fate would have it, the intense amounts of radiation that had led to the formation of Firestorm in the first place had also given Stein a cancerous brain tumor. His prognosis wasn't good; the tumor was inoperable, and he did not have long to live. Before he died, he wanted to do a great deal of good in the world, and Ronnie agreed to help his friend carry out his final wish--the complete disarmament of Earth's nuclear arsenal.

Firestorm came close to accomplishing his goal, which earned him the enmity of various organizations of metahumans, such as the Suicide Squad and the Justice League. Russia sent a nuclear powered hero of its own, Mikhail Arkhadin, a man known as Pozhar, to take care of the threat presented by Firestorm. As the two fought out in the desert, a decision was made to nuke the two metahumans. The nuclear bomb was dropped, and instead of killing Firestorm and Pozhar, something else happened.

Professor Stein seemingly died in that explosion, but Firestorm lived on. He was now a merger of Ronnie and Mikhail, but controlled by a mind and consciousness of his own. That consciousness was actually the amnesiac mind of Martin Stein. Stein survived the explosion, which somehow cured his cancer, and wandered the desert until he was found and admitted to a mental hospital as a John Doe. He would black out each time Firestorm was formed, although his body would no longer vanish.

Ronnie eventually found Professor Stein at the mental hospital, and he took the amnesiac Professor home with him, claiming that he was a "friend" and working hard to care for the other man. Eventually, Firestorm's merge configuration changed again, with a Russian experiment known as Svarozhich absorbing Firestorm's power. In the process of getting the power back, Svarozhich, Ronnie, and Mikhail all merged into one independent being, the elemental incarnation of Firestorm. He was the Fire Elemental of Earth, and he no longer separated into Firestorm's component parts or controlled by Stein's consciousness. Stein soon got his memories back.

Through the Elemental's exploits, it was revealed that Professor Stein was originally intended to become Earth's Fire Elemental when Hudson blew. He was supposed to have died in the explosion. Ronnie's presence there was an anomaly, and Firestorm was not supposed to have been formed. At the time, the technoseed that powered the Apokalyptian villain known as Brimstone had been hurled into the sun,, and the Elemental Firestorm was the only one who could stop the chain reaction from destroying the sun. The problem was, being an Elemental tied him to the Earth. A plan was hatched to cause Stein to become the Elemental he was supposed to be--but born in space so he would not be tied to the planet. Firestorm assisted Stein in flying a jet into low orbit, where Stein detonated the jet, leading to Firestorm being destroyed and reborn. Ronnie and Mikhail were returned to normal, and Stein the Elemental was now exiled into space. He spent the next few years wandering the cosmos.

Years later, Stein returned to Earth in his Elemental persona to visit Ronnie, who had developed leukemia thanks to his own exposure to radiation. Stein was able to use his powers and Ronnie's ties to the Firestorm Matrix both to re-kindle Ronnie's own powers and to cure Ronnie's leukemia. He then offered Ronnie the chance to come with him to explore the stars, as he was starting to feel a bit jaded and wanted the enthusiasm Ronnie's youthful outlook would bring. Ronnie refused, saying that he had responsibilities on Earth, and the two parted as friends. (I am going with the retconned version of events from Extreme Justice here, as the original version was remarkably out of character for most everyone involved.) He returned to space, and after a combination of isolation and the his elemental power took its toll on his mind, had a rather shameful run as a vengeful fire god on an alien planet. Ronnie showed up and snapped him out of it, and he worked to help the aliens rebuild the planet he'd been terrorizing.

Stein stayed in space for a while after that, with the power of his elemental self and the isolation taking a toll on his emotional capacity. He was also unaware that Ronnie had been killed by the Shadow Thief and that Firestorm's power had made its way to a new person. It wasn't until a young man named Jason Rusch, who had inherited Firestorm's power, showed up in space with a bunch of other superheroes fighting a cosmically powered Alexander Luthor from Earth-3 of the original Crisis that Stein was forced into action once again.

Jason was badly injured during that battle, and Stein was able to use his powers and the power of the Firestorm Matrix to save the boy. This took some convincing thanks to his emotional state, and Jason worked rather hard to convince Stein both to do this and to team up with him as Firestorm's conscience once again. Stein eventually agreed, and he burned off his elemental powers in reconstructing human bodies for Jason and himself. He returned to Earth with Jason, where he once more took on the role of the invisible observer in Firestorm's mind. This lasted for a while until Stein was kidnapped and tortured by the Pupil, an old associate of his. Jason, who had been merging with the superheroine known as Firehawk in the meantime, was able to rescue him.

The Professor was targeted by kidnappers yet again, but this time, they were from Apokalips, and they wished to take him for their master, Darkseid. Darkseid wished to conquer the universe through the use of his Anti-Life Equation, which would strip the universe of its free will. Thanks to the Fire Elemental's association with the Earth, the Firestorm Matrix, and Stein in particular, possessed a quarter of the Life Equation, which could counter the Anti-Life Equation. Stein was successfully taken, and for a while, Jason and his girlfriend/merge partner, Gehenna, couldn't find the man anywhere. The Professor eventually turned up in the town of Bludhaven, where he was being tortured by Apokalips's master torturer, Desaad. Desaad managed to force his way into control of Firestorm and the Firestorm Matrix, but the interference of the Atomic Knights led to Desaad's defeat and the successful rescue of Firestorm.

After that, the Professor decided he was ready to retire from active duty. He'd been through enough as it was, and he wasn't getting any younger. Jason's powers allowed him to merge with anyone of his choosing, so this wasn't as hard on Firestorm as it could have been. Professor Stein soon turned his energies towards researching the Firestorm Matrix in the hopes of understanding Firestorm's powers better. He was still available as a potential merge partner, but for the most part, he preferred to stick to his research.

The events of Blackest Night came to pass, with many of Earth's fallen heroes and villains reviving as evil zombiesque Black Lanterns. Once the Black Lantern threat had been taken care of, twelve individuals were brought back to life. Among these was Ronnie Raymond. Stein was thrilled to have Ronnie back, and less than thrilled at pretty much everything else going on surrounding that. As a Black Lantern, Ronnie had killed Jason's girlfriend, and while he pretended not to have any memory of this, he turned to alcohol and partying as a way to fail at coping with things responsibly. It was behavior Stein had seen many times in his own life, and he was disappointed at Ronnie's actions. Jason understandably had issues with Ronnie as well, but the two of them were suddenly stuck together battling for control of Firestorm. Stein's research proved that if the pair of them could not handle working together, they'd trigger a new Big Bang.

The Black Lantern Firestorm, which still existed inside the Matrix, revived as a separate entity known as Deathstorm. He planned on exploiting Ronnie and Jason's emotional instability to force them to trigger another Big Bang and wipe out all life in the universe. One of the first things he did was to kidnap Professor Stein as a merge partner--the Professor's scientific knowledge had always come in handy for a reason. Deathstorm also kidnapped Jason's father, which forced Ronnie and Jason to work together against a common enemy. They attempted to save both men. Deathstorm released Professor Stein from the merge in an attempt to taunt the pair of them, and then he attempted to turn Ronnie into salt. Professor Stein took the brunt of that attack. As he died while dissolving away into salt, Stein was at least able to let Ronnie know that he was the son Stein never had. His death was also the impetus for Ronnie and Jason to work together, rather than constantly fighting each other.

Personality: Professor Stein is a planner. He'd much rather sit back and analyze a situation rather than rush into it headlong. This has, in a sense, been the bane of his existence as Firestorm, wherein he would inevitably be stuck riding mental shotgun with some hot-headed kid that didn't seem to know the meaning of the word "caution."

With that in mind, over the years, he's become a very experienced mentor. He's learned from Ronnie and Jason, his young merge partners, and in turn he has tried to teach and guide them. He is closest to Ronnie in particular, viewing the young man as the son he never had. His relationship with Ronnie is better than the relationship Ronnie has with his own father, and Stein is often the only person that stands a chance of breaking through Ronnie's stubbornness. Professor Stein is at a stage in his life at which he acknowledges that he's made some mistakes. His alcoholism and the irreparable dissolution of anything resembling a normal family life are evidence of this. He's trying not to repeat his own mistakes, as well as trying to make sure his mistakes aren't repeated by the younger generation.

He's not perfect with this, and sometimes he isn't always good at communicating with his partners. On one occasion when he was merging with Jason, Jason's overuse of his powers caused both of them to become ill with food poisoning like symptoms. At the time, the Professor just needed some distance from Jason, and it was the holiday season. His solution? Tell Jason it was Hanukkah and that he had other plans. He's Jewish; the excuse made sense. He was banking on Jason not knowing and not bothering to look up when Hanukkah actually was that year, as the time he was isolating himself really wasn't Hanukkah. He could have handled the situation better by communicating with Jason, but he's only human--his emotional needs got the better of him. When Ronnie returns to life after Blackest Night but shows no signs of behaving responsibly or wanting to talk about his problems, Stein could have handled that better. He could have been more persistent in his attempts at approaching Ronnie for a talk about what's bothering him, but instead, winds up bringing Ronnie and Jason in for a "Hey, you two need to shape up and work out your differences or you're going to kill us all" talk. (Granted, at that point, he may have felt that this was the only thing that would have any effect, given the pair's stubbornness.)

The Professor can be incredibly self-sacrificing when the situation calls for it. When he had only weeks to live, his immediate thought was to make the most of his time in an attempt to make the world a better place, even if he ended up hated for it. When Brimstone threatened the sun and the plan to re-form Firestorm as an elemental in space was hatched, Stein did not hesitate even though the plan was crazy, dangerous, and highly likely to result in his death.

He has shown a tendency to be extremely brave in other situations, as well. There is one instance in which the Justice League has fallen to the mental assaults of Hector Hammond, and they're all in hospital beds. Although Firestorm is physically unconscious thanks to Ronnie's unconsciousness, Stein is still awake, though unable to do anything. When Hammond shows up on the astral plane to gloat at the fallen League, Stein is able to pull together a full astral form together for himself and give Hammond an astral beatdown. He saves the entire Justice League without anyone having any idea what's happened, and he's perfectly satisfied with that. He isn't the sort that needs recognition for his good deeds; he's now used to working behind the scenes without getting noticed.

Stein is also a very compassionate man. He genuinely wants to make the world a better place, and he only tries to do the right thing. He wasn't always like this. He's made some selfish mistakes in his life that led to the mess at Hudson that caused Firestorm to be born in the first place. He was so blinded by his own ambitions that he drove off his wife to the point that she came back working with the 2000 Committee, a villain group, and most of the people he worked with simply didn't like him. He meant well with his earliest research--finding a clean, infinite source of renewable nuclear energy would have helped a great deal of people--but he also tended to get lost in the prestige that would bring, too. His experiences as Firestorm and the Fire Elemental caused him to grow to see the bigger picture and to look at things with the eyes of one who has the power to change them. In particular, his relationship with Ronnie forced him to reevaluate the way he was handling his life. He started to see things as a father might, not as a man who lived only for the work he saw as more important than anything else. Black Lanterns have the power to see which areas of the emotional spectrum their victims are giving off most strongly. When Stein was killed by Deathstorm, the Black Lantern Firestorm, Deathstorm saw nothing but compassion coming off of the man. In his final moments, Stein was worried about Ronnie and Jason and how his death would impact them--not himself. He didn't care what happened to him as long as the others were safe.

It's pretty hard to surprise the Professor on some levels. He was a superhero and a fire elemental--he's seen and done a lot of weird, weird things in his life. Getting admitted to the Reaper's Game for a chance to come back to life? That's no big deal, that's Tuesday. He'll want to win the game so he can get back to his life and responsibilities, but the existence of such a thing isn't anything that will really make him bat an eye. Look at his death--he got turned into salt. The man's no stranger to weird or unpleasant experiences.

He can also be a bit of an absentminded professor at times. It can be easy for Stein to get wrapped up or lost in his work, and at times, this has negatively impacted his personal life. He doesn't mean any harm by it, but his studies are one of the most rewarding areas of his life. They used to make him a bit arrogant and cold, but his time as Firestorm taught him to view things otherwise. Physics is much easier for him to understand than how other people work and what they might feel. He has, however, learned how to work with others very well, even when their opinions may be diametrically different from his own.

Abilities: Professor Stein is intimately tied into what is known as the Firestorm Matrix, which is tied into the formation of the composite superhero known as Firestorm. A rundown of Firestorm's powers is here for reference. At the time of his death, he was a not an active participant in the merger into Firestorm, but he has served as a component of Firestorm many times before. In each instance, both when he merged with Ronnie Raymond and later with Jason Rusch, he served in an advisory capability. He was a passenger inside Firestorm's head as the superhero went about his business.

In the past, Stein has also served as Earth's Fire Elemental, which gave him the ability to fly, shape and create flame, survive in space, control fire, and communicate with Earth's biomorphic field. He has long since given up these abilities, which were sacrificed to rescue Jason in Infinite Crisis.

Stein is also in possession of a sharp scientific mind. He has won the Nobel Prize for his work in the field of nuclear physics. He's the sort of guy that could build something like a nuclear reactor or a nuclear bomb from scratch. He isn't a gadget-oriented scientist like someone like Bruce Wayne or Ted Kord, but he has all the scientific knowledge an accomplished nuclear physicist--he's won a Nobel Prize--can bring to bear. He is particularly familiar with the atomic structure and chemical properties of matter, thanks to long experience as Firestorm. ~~And he can make a mean cup of coffee using laboratory equipment.~~

Entry Fee: Stein is giving up his connections to the Firestorm Matrix, as well as his memories of Ronnie, who would be the most important person in his life.
Starting Pin: Crackle Pop Barrier
Samples:
[Other people might have been a bit unsettled by the way the RG-ers were totally unaware of the invisible presences in the UG. Not Martin Stein. And for this mission, well, he had some experience with being an invisible presence on someone's shoulder. They were supposed to inspire courage? He could do that.

He's keeping an eye out for Reapers as he moves through the city, hoping he doesn't run into trouble as he searches for a likely target. It doesn't take him long to find what he's looking for. There, a group of young men outside an electronics store. He can hear their discussion; three of them are trying to pressure a fourth into going inside and stealing something as a show of bravery. It's the sort of thing that might have drawn an invisible Stein's attention even without the Game.]

You don't want to do that. Think of the consequences!

[The words have no effect on the pressuring three, and it seems as though the only consequence the fourth can think of is just how humiliated he's going to be if he doesn't go through with this. He's moved to stand behind the kid that's being pressured into shoplifting, and he's speaking softly but firmly.]

Say you get away with it. Then what? You get to deal with the guilt, and with those boys thinking they can force you into doing whatever they want. Stand up to them! If you don't do it now, you'll just make it worse! Stand up to them! Fight if you have to!

[The situation's familiar, and yet...not. He'd never needed to encourage anyone to spring into action before, not with...the memory isn't wanting to come. Lots of memories, all...off. Missing something. Someone. But the words seem to be working. The boy that's being pressured finally breaks off from the group, tries to walk away. It doesn't go well, and a fight breaks out...but at least some courage was involved.]