Firefly

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Context

Firefly is a minor, obscure DC Comics villain. He first appeared in 1952, yet had but a handful of appearances.

If you’re not familiar with DC’s Crisis on Infinite Earths 1985/86 event, we recommend that you read our Ages of DC Comics article before this one.

Background

Powers & Abilities

Mr. Lynns is a particularly accomplished stage lighting technician. He could achieve sophisticated theatre effects using hand-operated coloured projectors.

(Even if you move his origin from 1952 to the 1970s or early 1980s, stage lighting was still mostly low tech. Usually the lighting director had to switch their projectors on and off in real time using a switches board. It was kinda like a keyboard player, but playing lights instead of music. More involved effects, like a tracking spotlight, was done by hand by operators in the rigging.)

In 1952, Firefly was accompanied by three stock gunmen. As was the style of the day.

1952 tech

The costume has protective goggles against bright lights.

The cowl also features a short-wave antenna. What it does isn’t demonstrated, but I’ll assume that Firefly can listen to radio transmissions (such as the police’s).

The light belt was an impossibly small array of powerful searchlights, most having coloured or otherwise modified lenses. Applications included :

1975 tech

By 1975, the Firefly is using more advanced tech.

The “laso-lighter” is a jury-rigged compact device. It focuses ambient light. So it can pick the light of a full moon to become a cutting torch that melts steel (!). It can also serve as a flashlight, torch and laser pistol.

The light belt also demonstrated new beams :

There presumably were more.

1986 tech

A sort of energy grenade. It can leech colour from everything in the blast. The effects presumably last for a few days, but his pistol can cancel these.

He now used an energy pistol instead of his old light belt. Two effects were demonstrated :

1987 tech

The equaliser beam. This pen-like device makes him blend with the background. However, this chameleon-like invisibility seems to weaken if he moves.

He again uses his light belt. Perhaps Looker disarming him in ’86 made him realise a pistol couldn’t be relied on. Demonstrated uses :

His costume also had plenty of hidden pockets with tech gizmos. They presumably did nifty light-based things.

His base also had some sort of huge light-based booby trap. The effect seemed to be mostly heat and light, but it’s hard to assess.

Soundtrack

Some characteristic 1952 US music for atmosphere… mmm… Patti Page ?

History (part 1)

Garfield Lynns was a superb lighting technician.

However, like many 1950s Batman villains, he was embittered. He hated that the idle rich were rich (and idle) while he wasn’t paid all that much despite his achievements.

(Ironically, financial inequality in the US was at a low point  back then.)

During the “Aqua-melodies of 1952” exclusive stage show, Lynns abruptly switched to special red, yellow and orange lights. This made it look like the theatre was on fire.

Fire in a crowded theatre

During the ensuing panic, two accomplices disguised as ushers grabbed jewels from the posh audience.

Batman (Bruce Wayne) and Robin (Richard Grayson) responded, capturing the “ushers”. Lynns shot one of his accomplices who was about to talk, then drove away.

To prevent Batman and Robin from breaching his speeding car, Lynns swerved too hard. He crashed.

While looking for Lynns in the dark, Batman and Robin were lured away by the light of a firefly. This allowed Lynns to escape.

It also inspired him to take on a new criminal identity as… the Firefly !

Yes, the Human Firefly !

Lynns hid in a cave under a barn, outside of Gotham. He had previously used it to run lighting experiments.

Using the equipment therein, he devised his Firefly costume and weapons.

As per tradition, he soon had a gang of thugs and attempted to dramatically rob museums. As per tradition, the Dynamic Duo foiled him. But Lynns managed to flee.

The Firefly then had his men attack and shut down a lighthouse. Using his light belt, Lynns tricked a freighter ship into crashing into reefs. But before they could pillage it, Batman and Robin came in and dispersed them.

And it would have worked, too…

Lynns turned the table by trapping our heroes in the lighthouse basement.

He then left behind his “cyclops light”. It shone an extreme level of couloured lights on the Dynamic Duo. The batteries would allow for three days of this torture.

However, Batman managed to alert the cops. The Caped Crusader and the Boy Wonder thus were rescued.

… if not for this meddling bat

Meanwhile, in their helicopter, the Firefly and gang intercepted an airplane carrying gems. They shot at it to force it down.

(The helo resembles a good old S-48  . Though the captions insist that it’s an autogyro.)

However, Batman and Robin intervened. They shone the cyclops light at the helicopter, forcing the pilot (who lacked protective goggles) to land. The Firefly and gang were thus arrested.

Gotham Pen

In prison, Lynns was a hardcase, getting into many fights. He was thus still locked up by 1975.

By that point nobody in corrections remembered what he could do. Lynns thus managed to scrounge some optical parts.

With his “laso-lighter”, he escaped. Even the Creeper (Jack Ryder) failed to stop Lynns.

(The story shows the likes of Two-Face and Scarecrow imprisoned in this vaguely Gothic, island prison. It could be retconnedMaking changes to a character or story after the fact as Arkham Asylum, which had appeared but a few months before.)

Burning diamonds

The Firefly visited a dive to recruit thugs. But his aged, prison-worn looks and garish 1950s costume led to laughter.

However, one of his super-science beams cowed some thugs into subservience.

(Batman books had entered the Bronze AgeSuper-hero comics from (roughly) the mid-1970s to the early 1990s years before. The first such tale featured the Muerto spouses. Mind, not every story became grittier as if flicking a switch. But by 1975 the shift was well-established – and a Silver AgeSuper-hero comics from the late 1950s to the early 1970s villain like Firefly now looked silly.)

Using smoke charges and his old lighting tricks, the Firefly made it look like the top of a diamond exchange skyscraper was fiercely burning. This would give him hours to loot it.

But the Creeper again intervened… and was defeated.

Lights out

The Creeper then deduced that the Firefly would repeat his old lighthouse scheme. He came in in time, and wrecked the Firefly’s light belt.

Lynns switched to his laso-lighter, but the Creeper grabbed a piece of reflective glass. The Firefly was thus hit by his own beam.

This knocked him off the tall lighthouse, to his apparent death.

Crisis on the Crisis of Infinite Crises

First – the simplified, but technically wrong, version.

The version of Firefly (Garfield Lynns) we’ve been discussing is the pre-Crisis one. Then the Crisis on Infinite Earths occurs, all Earths are destroyed, and New Earth is created.

New Earth also has a character called Firefly (Garfield Lynns). But this post-Crisis version is different. He’s a much more menacing villain, using incendiary weapons.

But there’s a glitch

Several appearances of the “pre-Crisis” Firefly actually take place *after* the Crisis. And the post-Crisis version doesn’t appear until 1993.

My stance — which you greatly respect because I’m old and wise, and I even wore a tie at some point — is that it ain’t no big deal.

More specifically, that the Crisis on Infinite Earths’ effects do not have a clear endpoint.

Penumbra

This is the “Crisis penumbra” idea. It acknowledges that during the immediate post-Crisis era (mostly 1986/87) there were continuity glitches. Fragments of the old reality were still floating in the new reality’s minestrone.

The pre-Crisis Firefly thus was still around. Because it had not yet been decided that there would instead be a post-Crisis Firefly, with the exact same name. Making Garfield Lynns a fine example of the Crisis penumbra.

The Crisis penumbra is more an acknowledgment than an explanation. It’s the “embrace the suck  ” approach.

If we accept the Monitor, the Anti-Monitor, the anti-matter, the collapse of infinite Earths, the recreation of reality, etc. then the notion that there was some reality dither afterwards isn’t that big of a pill.

Nonumbra

If you don’t want to use the Crisis Penumbra approach, there are alternatives.

The simplest is to declare that it wasn’t Firefly (Garfield Lynns) in 1986/87. But Doctor Light (Arthur Light). Or Crazy Quilt. Or the Rainbow Raider (Roy G. Bivolo). Or Doctor Spectro (Thomas Emery).

(Crazy Quilt works best.)

Or you could make something up with the Firefly who fought Batman in 1959. But this is getting nerdy.

History (part 2)

The Firefly survived his clash with the Creeper. Though he kept his weapons, he now operated in the shadows as an industrial saboteur.

He was forgotten. His 1975 return hadn’t produced much exposure, and zero footage.

In late 1986, Lynns was paid to sabotage a fashion show. He lobbed a colour-draining grenade at the exhibition clothes racks. But he randomly ran into Looker (Lia Briggs) and Halo (Gabrielle Doe).

Delighted to fight super-heroes again, Lynns switched to his Firefly costume. However, the has-been villain was soon defeated.

Man of a thousand lights !

Lynns still considered that his fight with the two Outsiders was a sign from fate. He jury-rigged an equaliser beam, and used it to escape during a prison transfer.

He then attempted to place a classified advertisement to challenge the Outsiders to a big public fight. The ad was refused, but the Outsiders were still warned.

The Firefly could thus challenge them in a packed stadium. He used his tech to kill all the lights across the entire stadium. He then made odd threats about stealing all light nationwide.

The public thought that it was pre-match entertainment. And the Outsiders treated the fight as a joke. They obviously outgunned the Firefly… until he shone a special light upon Halo.

A little light in the dark

This stole her powers. Not only were the tables turned, but Halo started dying.

The Firefly took off to practice with his new abilities. He would likely keep Halo’s powers once she’d be dead.

The Outsiders located the Firefly’s hideout. But he had just left… for the heroes’ base. Lynns had realised that Halo was being medically stabilised, and that he needed to kill her.

The Outsiders got back just in time, yet found Firefly too powerful to handle. However, Katana (Yamashiro Tatsu) tricked him into using several auras at once. His powers fizzled out long enough to conk him out.

Dr. Helga Jace then used experimental equipment to transfer the powers back to Halo.

Identity Crisis on Infinite Earths

The Outsiders had been shaken by nearly losing Halo. The defeated Firefly gloated about that. He claimed that no matter what, he’d always remember how the Outsiders had come to fear Firefly that day.

Incensed, Looker used her telepathic powers on Lynns. Implicitly, she removed his memories of his two encounters with Outsiders.

This version of Firefly (Garfield Lynns) was never seen again. Two hypotheses :

Description

Lynns’ brown hair became white when he had the accident that inspired him to become the Firefly.

Personality

Originally, a stock bitter early 1950s villain. His spectacular crime wave was supposed to make him a great man, he was cruel and ruthless, he sought dominance, etc..

In 1975 he already came across as a weird relic from a goofier age. People laughed at him, but he could still bulldoze his way to dominance through sheer power.

In 1986 he was a pathetic has-been. He longed for an imaginary world where :

The latter implies that he knew that it was a dream. He therefore toiled in the shadows as an industrial saboteur. Rather than trying to make his dream a reality by fighting, mmm, Blue Beetle (Ted Kord), Batgirl (Barbara Gordon) or somebody like that.

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