I grew up reading the second series, written by Gerry Conway with art by Pat Rodriguez (sp?). I always associate the smell of handbugers in shopping malls with Firestorm, because that's where I read my first one (where Firestorm turns into the Hyena).
Really liked the character as a kid, used to spend summers in the pool swimming underwater pretending I was Firestorm. As I grew up I started swimming underwater instead looking at girls' arses. Firestorm became a fond memory of my youth.
When Mike Carey was originally assigned writing chores, I wold have read it because I think Carey does a great job on Lucifer. If he could bring that level of sophistication to a superhero comic - maybe something similar to James Robinson on Starman - then I would have read it.
But Carey got dumped. I've never heard of the current creative team on the book, and the elevator pitch I've read makes it sound pretty run of the mill superhero fare, which isn't my preferred reading.
On the issue of making Firestorm black.... fine by me. There aren't enough black characters in the DCU, and now we've got another black role model who has significant powers (not too many characters could take out Superman with a wave of his hand, encasing him in kryptonite). Not sure how that would work with Ronnie Raymond and Firehawk, although I'm sure there is some sort of technical bullshit explanatory device for it.
