Firestar #2
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeFirestar #2 is the pivotal middle chapter of Angelica Jones's origin story, the issue in which Emma Frost formally gives Angelica the codename 'Firestar' and deepens her psychological hold over the young mutant through manufactured nightmares and emotional manipulation. The issue assembles the full core cast of the Hellions alongside the New Mutants at a Massachusetts Academy dance, making it one of the earliest comics to place those two rival teenage teams in direct interaction and cementing the Hellfire Club/Xavier's School generational rivalry that would define a key strand of 1980s X-Men storytelling. By structuring Angelica's arc as a high-school coming-of-age story rather than a standard superhero adventure, DeFalco and Wilshire helped prove that the X-Men's mutant-as-metaphor framework could sustain a character study aimed at younger readers without sacrificing emotional complexity.
In "The Players and the Pawn!", Firestar navigates life at the White Queen’s school, where she encounters both the enigmatic Hellions and the New Mutants. As her time there deepens, the White Queen’s influence over her mind grows stronger—leaving Firestar caught between her own will and unseen forces. Written by Tom DeFalco and brought to life by Mary Wilshire’s art and Bob Wiacek’s inks, with colors by Daina Graziunas and letters by Tom Orzechowski, this 1986 issue features a cover by Mary Wilshire and Bob Wiacek.
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The Firestar limited series was conceived to give comics-continuity grounding to a character who had originated entirely on television — Firestar debuted on the NBC animated series Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends in 1981, created by John Romita Sr., Rick Hoberg, and Dennis Marks as a substitute for the Human Torch, whose rights were unavailable. Writer Tom DeFalco explained his intent in Marvel Age #35: to supply the psychological depth that Saturday-morning animation restrictions prevented, exploring who Angelica Jones was rather than simply what she could do. Because Chris Claremont had already slotted Firestar into Uncanny X-Men #193 (May 1985) after reading DeFalco's plots, the limited series — edited by Ann Nocenti under Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter — was published as a prequel to an appearance that readers had already seen, an unusual production circumstance that required both issues #1 and #2 to be set chronologically before that debut. Bob Wiacek replaced series inker Steve Leialoha for issue #2, giving the Massachusetts Academy sequences a slightly crisper finish.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Written by Tom DeFalco, pencilled by Mary Wilshire, inked by Bob Wiacek (replacing series inker Steve Leialoha), edited by Ann Nocenti; cover-dated April 1986, on-sale December 1985.
- Emma Frost formally assigns Angelica Jones the codename 'Firestar' for the first time in this issue, framing it as an honor tied to Frost's secret plan to groom her as a Hellfire Club assassin.
- The story is set chronologically before Firestar's published comics debut in Uncanny X-Men #193 (May 1985); issues #1 and #2 of the limited series both precede that appearance in Marvel continuity.
- The Hellions — Catseye (Sharon Smith), Jetstream (Haroun ibn Sallah al-Rashid), Empath (Manuel de la Rocha), Roulette (Jennifer Stavros), Tarot (Marie-Ange Colbert), and Thunderbird (James Proudstar) — appear together in the issue as Angelica observes their training session for the first time.
- The New Mutants (Cannonball, Sunspot, Wolfsbane, Magik, Magma, and Mirage) attend a school dance at the Massachusetts Academy, bringing Xavier's two rival junior teams under the same roof; Angelica shares her first kiss with Sam Guthrie (Cannonball) during the event.
- Emma Frost covertly starts a fire in the school stable and telepathically kills Angelica's horse Butter Rum, engineering a psychological breakdown to make Angelica wholly dependent on her — a key beat in the series' sustained examination of emotional abuse and manipulation.
- Each issue of the limited series is structured to represent approximately one year of Angelica's high school life, a formal conceit that created a deliberate continuity tension with the slower-aging rest of the Marvel Universe.
- The entire four-issue series was collected and reprinted as a Marvel Digest (X-Men: Firestar) in May 2006 to mark the 25th anniversary of Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and was later included in the New Mutants Omnibus Vol. 2 (2021).
Cast · 28 characters
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Reprints
Reprinted in Un Récit Complet Marvel #16 (1987), Limited Serie #7 (1989), X-Men: Firestar #[nn] (2006), Women of Marvel: Celebrating Seven Decades Omnibus #[nn] (2010), X-Men Origins: Firestar #[nn] (2017), New Mutants Omnibus #2 (2021)
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