The Fury of Firestorm #7

Dec 1982 · DC · 0.60 USD; 0.20 GBP; 0.75 CAD

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“Plastique Is Another Word for Fear!”

★ 1st appearance — Plastique

About this Issue

The Fury of Firestorm #7 is the debut of Bette Sans Souci, the French-Canadian separatist terrorist who operates under the alias Plastique — one of the most politically grounded villain concepts to emerge from the Bronze Age DC roster. Conway rooted Plastique in the very real tensions of the Quebec sovereignty movement, giving the issue a topical edge unusual for a superhero title of that era. The character proved durable enough to migrate well beyond Firestorm's corner of the DC Universe, becoming a key player in the Captain Atom series and, decades later, a recognizable face across multiple animated and live-action television adaptations. That long afterlife makes this a genuinely consequential late-Bronze-Age first appearance.

In "Plastique Is Another Word for Fear!", Firestorm faces a volatile new threat as the eco-terrorist Plastique hijacks the newspaper office where journalist Ed Raymond works, holding the building and its staff hostage to protest the environmental cost of paper production. Written by Gerry Conway and brought to life with sharp, dynamic art by Pat Broderick—enhanced by Rodin Rodriguez’s inks and Gene D’Angelo’s colors—this 1982 issue blends social commentary with high-stakes suspense, all wrapped in a striking cover by Broderick and Dick Giordano.

writer Gerry Conway · artist Pat Broderick · inker Rodin Rodriguez · colorist Gene D'Angelo · letterer Adam Kubert · cover Pat Broderick, Dick Giordano

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VG · Newsstand $3.99 VF $6.99 CGC 9.4 $80 DC Comics The Fury of Firestorm Nuclear Man #7 Dec 1982 1st app Plastique (a) $4

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History

The Fury of Firestorm ongoing series launched in March 1982 as Gerry Conway — Firestorm's original co-creator — returned to the character he first built in the 1970s before the DC Implosion cut that run short. Conway served as both writer and editor on the title, with Pat Broderick as the regular penciler, Dick Giordano providing cover inks, Rodin Rodriguez inking interiors, Gene D'Angelo on colors, and a young Adam Kubert handling lettering duties. Conway has described his intention for the book as fundamentally fun and youth-facing — a deliberate echo of the Spider-Man energy he had worked with at Marvel — and Plastique's debut in issue #7 (cover-dated December 1982) exemplifies that approach: a villain with a newsworthy political motivation who is defeated in a memorable, even comedic fashion when Firestorm vaporizes her bomb-laden costume.

Trivia · 8 facts

First appearance of Plastique (Bette Sans Souci), created by writer/editor Gerry Conway and penciler Pat Broderick.
Published by DC Comics with a cover date of December 1982; the series launched in March 1982 as a 100-issue ongoing that ran until August 1990.
The issue's story is titled 'Plastique Is Another Word for Fear!' — the Grand Comics Database also records an alternate title variant referencing the character by name.
In her debut, Plastique is portrayed as a member of a French-Canadian separatist extremist group; she straps conventional plastic explosive devices to her costume and takes hostages at the New York News Express newspaper offices to demand Quebec's political independence.
Firestorm defeats Plastique by transmuting her costume into vapor, leaving her without her bombs and publicly humiliated — a resolution that established her original power set as entirely technology-dependent, with no innate metahuman abilities at this point in continuity.
Doreen Day, Ronnie Raymond's girlfriend and a recurring supporting cast member throughout the series, also appears in this issue.
The DC Database notes a secondary first appearance in this issue: Bert Day, whose given name is not confirmed until issue #10.
Plastique went on to be adapted into animation in the Justice League Unlimited episode 'Task Force X' (2005), voiced by Juliet Landau, and into live action in The CW's The Flash Season 1 episode 'Plastique' (2014), portrayed by Kelly Frye, as well as in Smallville, portrayed by Jessica Parker Kennedy.