Firestar - Powers and Abilities

Powers and Abilities

Firestar is a mutant possessing the ability to convert ambient electromagnetic energy from her environment into microwave energy, which she can then manipulate for various effects. As she alters the electromagnetic wavelengths, they form a microwave aura around her body, at which point she mentally "pushes" the microwaves away from herself. Doing this allows her to release heat, light and radiation into her environment at various intensities. By focusing microwaves on a specific target, she can cause it to burst into flames, explode or melt. She can project microwave energy blasts which have a thermo-concussive effect, heating objects to the point of melting or being incinerated, while the superheated and pressurized air created by the directed microwaves produces impact. Firestar can also sense microwave signals (such as cellular phone signals or remote-control devices) and disrupt electronics with her own microwave emissions. By superheating the air around her, Firestar can generate enough upward thrust to fly at high speeds and lift objects as heavy as the X-Man Colossus. Firestar's mutant abilities do not grant her any particular immunity to the effects of intense heat other than that generated by her own microwave powers. During training exercises with Emma Frost in her limited series, she was chastised by her teacher for clumsiness and warned that she could have been "badly burned" by a laser. During a fight between the Avengers and Fantastic Four years later, the Human Torch was afraid of burning her with his own flames. However, she eventually displayed the ability to siphon heat energy and to detect electromagnetic signatures from broadcast transmissions.

Though exposure to high levels of microwave radiation can be harmful or fatal to living beings, Firestar is apparently immune to most of the damaging effects of her powers. Unlike most mutants, however, her immunity to her own power was not complete; she was in danger of rendering herself sterile until a cure was discovered by Henry Pym. He designed a suit of micro-circuitry to be worn under her costume that absorbed the excess microwave energy that was affecting her cells, and diverted it in a way that would "kick start" her natural immunity to her own powers. Pym claimed it would take about six months for process to be complete, and over time Firestar appeared to be functionally immune to microwave radiation. However, she was later diagnosed with breast cancer which was attributed to long-term exposure to her own power. Though the cancer is now in remission, the current status of her immunity is unknown.

On rare occasion, Firestar has demonstrated the ability to disrupt the psionic powers of others using her own power (namely, Emma Frost, Empath, and the Darkling). She is not immune to psychic assault, but when using microwave abilities at a high level she is capable of disrupting it. Onslaught, and the Gamesmaster, were both able to use telepathy against her effectively.

The nature of Firestar's power grants her the capacity for large-scale destruction. However, she typically limits how much of her own power she accesses for fear of permanently damaging the planet, its atmosphere and electromagnetic field. In space, she is far less inhibited, and can access greater levels of ambient electromagnetic energy to fuel her powers. She easily produced an attack that injured Garthan Saal when he possessed the energy of the entire Nova Corps, and also used her enhanced abilities to power a massive Shi'ar interstellar transport gate with very little effort.