Wildfire (comics) - Post-Zero Hour

Post-Zero Hour

Following Zero Hour, Wildfire was absent from Legion comics for some years, and when he returned, it was with a drastically different origin.

In a fight with Mordru, Atom'X (Randall Burroughs) and Blast-Off (Jahr-Drake Ningle), members of the Uncanny Amazers and Workforce respectively, were seemingly killed by the villain. However, some time later, several Legionnaires noticed energy patterns in the area, and Umbra was able to contain the energy long enough for them to realize that it was sentient. However, when they retrieved it to a laboratory they found it contained the inseparable minds of both Atom'X and Blast-Off. Although Umbra in particular was disgusted by the forced integration, they successfully contained the energy long enough to create a containment suit for it, and the new being took the name Drake Burroughs after his forebears and the codename ERG-1.

Shortly afterward, ERG-1 was one of the Legionnaires lost in a spacial rift - although he suffered a traumatic experience as his containment suit was ripped open by the rift.

When Element Lad had returned the other Legionnaires to normal space, albeit becoming separated from them in time in the process, ERG-1's energy leeched into space too, congealing as a "star" noticed by Shikari's nomadic people, the Kwai, which led her to discover and accidentally revive the other Legionnaires, who had been held in suspended animation. Soon afterward, while the Legionnaires met the Kwai, Kid Quantum noticed that the "feral star" the Kwai had been following was in fact ERG-1. Brainiac 5, with the Kwai's help and materials, managed to create a new containment suit for him, restoring a semblance of form to him. In addition, the time spent alone in space had merged his two minds into one. Shortly afterward, he took the name Wildfire after a mistranslation by Shikari.

Some time after they returned to their home galaxy, however, he was captured by Qward and used to power their whole planet for a considerable period. Though his power was great, it was finite, and after his rescue, he was left so weakened by the experience that the threat of running out of energy became a real and ongoing threat to him.