Firestorm, alternately known as The Fury of Firestorm the Nuclear Man or Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, is a DC comic created by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom in the late 70's. This is the bare-bones basic of the story up to issue #60.

Ed Raymond and his son Ronald moved back to New York after an absence of several years. Ronnie was the new kid in school and felt like an outsider. He wanted to make friends because he and his dad had moved around a lot and he'd never had a chance before. He met a girl named Doreen Day and wanted to impress her, especially after the class whiz-kid Cliff continually shot him down and made him look bad. He joined a band of radicals protesting the Hudson Experimental Nuclear Power Plant so she'd think he was more than just a dumb jock.

The plant was designed by Nobel Prize winning physicist Martin Stein. It was to be the world's first fully-automated and fully-safe nuclear plant. On the day it was to be activated, Stein's former assistant, Danton Black accused him of stealing the plant's design from him. Stein was ordered not to go online with the plant that night but wait until Black had his day in court. Stein believed that this would lead to his plant never going online and all of his work being for naught. So he stayed on that night to bring it online against the injunction.

The group of radicals gladly took Ronnie on as a volunteer. Since he couldn't be connected to them, he made the perfect fall guy for their plan to blow up the plant that night. They slugged him and drug him inside where they planted the bomb. Stein, working late that night, discovered them and was also knocked unconscious. The radicals left them with the bomb next to the nuclear pile to be killed in the explosion.

Shortly before the bomb went off, Ronnie woke up and tried to drag Stein away. They didn't make it far before the bomb went off. They were fused into a single being that Ronnie named Firestorm. As Firestorm, they had power over matter transmutation and their own physiological structure. Ronnie had conscious control over their shared form and Stein could act as a kind of telepathic advisor. Ronnie immediately whipped up some clothes and they began their career as a superhero.

Firestorm was a very successful superhero in New York. He worked alone to begin with, but was later affiliated with the JLA. What he lacked in experience as a superhero, he made up for in enthusiasm and raw power. Ronnie played basketball in high school and went out with Doreen. Stein drifted, sometimes successfully and sometimes not, from job to job. Danton Black, also in the plant that night, became one of their main enemies, Multiplex, whose powers were over nuclear fission.

Henry Hewitt and Danton Black set out to recreate the explosion that created Firestorm, but ended up creating a slightly different explosion instead. This resulted in Lorraine Reilly, a senator's daughter, becoming Firehawk. Her powers were more focused toward nuclear fire and she did not have the transmuting ability of Firestorm. Hewitt also used the process, slightly altered, and became a villain named Tokamak. He was defeated by Firestorm and Firehawk teamed together. Other major recurring villains included Killer Frost and Typhoon.

Firehawk pursued Firestorm romantically, therefore Lorraine and Doreen competed for Ronnie. Lorraine had an edge because she knew Ronnie's secret identity and Doreen did not. Ronnie was unable to make a decision between them. Ronnie graduated from high school and decided to attend Vandermeer University in Pittsburg, where he played college football. Stein was hired on as a professor of physics. Doreen, Cliff and Lorraine all also moved to Vandermeer.

The greatest strain in Ronnie's friendship with Stein came during the 'Legends' crisis. Ronnie forced Stein into the Firestorm merger against his will. Stein, who had trusted Ronnie implicitly, was devastated by this mental rape. Afterward Ronnie and Stein talked and made the agreement that only Stein would be allowed to initiate the merger unless a life was in danger.

It was because of the endangerment of life that Ronnie formed Firestorm while standing next to Doreen. (Cliff was suicidal and jumped from a building. He did this because he had cut the strap on the football helmet that had been worn by his cousin Hugo, who was paralyzed after breaking his neck. Cliff's real target was Ronnie.) This is how Doreen finally learned Ronnie's secret identity. She felt he didn't trust her and broke up with him.

Stein was diagnosed with a brain tumor. He kept this a secret from Ronnie for a period of time, unsure of how to tell him. The Parasite absorbed their energy and taunted Ronnie with Stein's secret. Firestorm, with assistance from Firehawk, later defeated the Parasite. This is the bare bones of Firestorm's story up to issue #60.