Tales from Development Hell: The JLU "Firestorm" Episode

During production of Justice League Unlimited, rumors swirled about an appearance by Firestorm, the Nuclear Man, but we never found out why the episode was abandoned. Until now.

For every DCAU episode that saw release there were hundreds of pitches that were either abandoned or cancelled outright by the show’s creative team.  They may have featured wonderful stories that were championed by established talents but, for whatever reason, they were unable to survive the development gauntlet required to reach completion.  And even though they were aborted for a variety of reasons—changed premises, developmental delays, character unavailability, DC Comics saying “no,” etc.—the memories of these unstories live on in the memories of fans who read about them on message boards such as Ain’t It Cool News, Comic Book Resources, and Anime Superhero.  This is another Tale from Development Hell.

Above, left to right: Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #1 (March 1978), The Fury of Firestorm #1 (June 1982), Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #23 (May 2006), Fury of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #1 (November 2011), and The Fury of Firestorm #1 (June 2026).

Created by Gerry Conway and Al Milgrom, Firestorm was a Bronze Age DC Comics hero who debuted in Firestorm: The Nuclear Man #1 (March 1978). Caught in a nuclear accident, the teenaged Ronnie Raymond found himself fused together with Professor Martin Stein, a Nobel Prize-winning physicist. Now a singular being, Ronnie himself was in command of their body with Professor Stein relegated to a secondary personality within their mind, allowing him to offer advice on how to use their powers effectively. Possessing the ability to alter inorganic matter into whatever form they desire and the power to project blasts of nuclear fire, they joined the ranks of the world’s metahumans as Firestorm, the Nuclear Man. Conceived by Conway as a teenaged hero like Spider-Man, he discussed the origins of the character in a June 2019 interview with Back Issue!:

I’d been playing around with the idea of a teenaged superhero for DC, who could sort of fill the hole that had been left in my heart by leaving Spider-Man behind. I’d been thinking about the tropes—one of which was the meek, mild alter ego, the brainy kid who, in wish fulfillment, gets superpowers, is extremely powerful … able to do things that he hadn’t been able to do before. That was, I think, the major motivating force—I wanted to play on that trope. To do that, I wanted to flip it around: create a guy who wasn’t the brightest guy in the room, the not-terribly-smart guy who became a superpowered character. The way I’d make that work: I’d bring him into contact with the smarter person, who would also share the powers. This led to … the multiple-people-in-one, Professor Stein / Ronnie Raymond dynamic.

[…] I always loved the idea of the hair on fire—I think it goes back to Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, an entire flaming character, of course. I created [Galactus’ herald] Firelord—I actually sketched out his costume. I was really taken by the idea of the flaming head. […] I think that the two notions, the fire-based character, and—you’re talking two characters that are merging as one, that’s a “fusion.” “Fusion” leads to “nuclear”; “nuclear” leads to words like “firestorm,” a term for what would happen in a nuclear blast—it all sort of came together organically. I don’t know where you can really separate out where the different elements took priority, where any of it came first. (qtd. in Disharoon 3-4)

Despite being one of the most powerful heroes in the DC Universe, Firestorm eventually was relegated to the second-and-third tier of DC superheroes. They were frequently retooled and rebooted—split apart, merged with new personalities, brought back together, etc.—and, during John Ostrander’s run on the title, he was changed into a Fire Elemental and a sort of environmental crusader (he also introduced his Russian equivalent, the metahuman Pozhar). Beginning in Firestorm #1 (July 2004), the conjoined duo were replaced by Jason Rusch, who would soon come to share Firestorm duties with Raymond for several years. And, in addition, Firestorm periodically served as a member of the Justice League of America, most famously in the final two incarnations of Super Friends (1973-1985): Super Friends: The Legendary Super Power Show (1984-1985) and The Super Powers Team: Galactic Guardians (1985). Despite this, however, the character sort of faded into the background, only brought back for the occasional inter-company crossover.

Above: left to right: excerpts from Doomsday Clock #9 (May 2019).

In fact, the only significant update to Firestorm arguably occurred in Doomsday Clock (2017-2019), the unofficial Watchmen sequel series written by Geoff Johns, where Ronnie Raymond discovers that what he thought was a nuclear accident was actually staged by the U.S. government as part of the Superman Project, a black project attempting to create and weaponize metahumans as part of a global arms race. Suddenly, the kindly Professor Stein who was always there for Ronnie was, in fact, a predator grooming him into becoming a superhero that he could manipulate and control. This thread is currently being explored in the current Fury of Firestorm series.

Regardless, Firestorm’s history made him a candidate for Justice League Unlimited (JLU), and unlike fellow League members like Blue Beetle, Plastic Man, Captain Marvel, and Black Lightning he was apparently approved for use on the series … but it never happened.

Above: the Ronnie Raymond / Martin Stein Firestorm, from Justice League Action (2016-2018).

Broken Arrow

Of course, the reasons for Firestorm’s absence were not immediately known at the time, but details from the creative team eventually began to trickle out. The earliest information surfaced in a September 12, 2004 message board post on Anime Superhero (formerly Toon Zone), where Producer Bruce Timm revealed that the comedic Booster Gold episode, “The Greatest Story Never Told,” “started out as a ‘straight’ Firestorm story” (b.t.). Unfortunately, he would not elaborate further until three years later where, in an April 2, 2007 message, he would offer the following:

But as for Firestorm [himself], I think I’ve mentioned this before, we definitely were planning on using him in JLU, but it just never worked out.  “The Greatest Story Never Told” started as a Firestorm story, but as we were breaking the story it became more and more comedic, and we soon realized it would work better with Booster Gold in the lead. And actually, we had started with a quite different story altogether that we ended up killing at the outline stage.  It was going to be Firestorm’s origin, with a [Justice League] vs. Clayface “A-plot” mixed in, but it just wasn’t working, so we threw it out and started over from scratch.  After several more false starts, we wound up with the “Greatest Story” plot, and then [we] had to replace Firestorm to make it work. (b.t.)

He would continue the following day in another message board post regarding the complications in adapting the character:

Firestorm’s ongoing “one-sided dialogue” with [Professor] Stein was, of course, one of the things we liked the most about the character, the one signature gimmick that makes him unique (among DC heroes anyway—the gimmick is obviously a blatant lift from Mar-Vell / Rick Jones).  But it made the story-break process even harder and more complex—setting up Ronnie Raymond’s back story, introducing the professor, showing the accident that fused ‘em, showing him discovering his new powers and dealing with the [professor’s] disembodied voice in his head plus having a real [Justice League] action “A-plot,” and ending with Firestorm officially joining the JLU—that’s a helluva story to cram into 22 minutes.

One of the “false start” story ideas we toyed with for a hot minute:  we were thinking of doing a story with Firestorm and Professor Stein narrating the entire episode in “director’s commentary” style, but [we] soon realized it would be just way too confusing to a non-geek audience, without having already set-up the Firestorm gimmick in a previous episode … not to mention having two disembodied voices narrating the story would almost completely cancel out the effectiveness of [Professor] Stein’s usual presence. (b.t.)

Of course, complications with the plot were soon dwarfed by another issue: their apparent distaste for his superhero costume, as discussed in an additional post on April 3rd:

And that’s why he never showed up at all, not even as a “seat-filler / red shirt” hero—[Producer and Character Designer James] Tucker and I both did a few Firestorm sketches and quickly decided we didn’t really care a whole lot for his costume either! If his story had actually gone through, we would have had to find a way to transform the basic design into something we found visually appealing but still retained some of the original motifs.  For sure, we would have kept the flaming head (you can never have too many of those) and definitely would have lost the puffy sleeves.  But when we killed the story, we realized we already had enough “background” heroes, and [we] didn’t need to bother cracking the “Firestorm” code. (b.t.)

(It is worth noting here that Timm and Tucker were not alone in their criticism over Firestorm’s outfit as, during a 1998 Wizard interview, JLA writer Grant Morrison offered their take on the signature look: “His costume looks ridiculous.  I’m sure it would look great on a dancer in Rio, but not on a superhero” [Brady 73].)

Above: the Jason Rusch Firestorm, from Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010).

Also offering his take on Firestorm was Producer, Story Editor, and Writer Dwayne McDuffie, who openly admitted that the character was one of his favorites (Morse, “‘Firestorm’” 21). When referencing the abandoned episode in a November 2006 interview with Wizard, he stated that they “got pretty far with a Firestorm story, but it just wasn’t quite right” (qtd. in Morse, “‘Firestorm’” 21); he would later add—in a July 7, 2006 post on his now-defunct message boards—that “[w]e just never came up with a good script for him” (Maestro). Fortunately, McDuffie would later get his chance to write Firestorm both solo (a three-issue stint of Firestorm: The Nuclear Man, beginning with #33 [April 2007]) and with the Justice League (beginning with the Justice League of America Wedding Special #1 [November 2007]).

Above, left to right: the Ronnie Raymond / Martin Stein Firestorm, from Justice League Action (2016-2018), and Dr. Jonathan Katz and Ben Katz, from Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (1995-2002).

Of the potential episode’s content, however, McDuffie offered little, save for the voice casting: “I wanted to do Firestorm and cast [Dr. Katz:  Professional Therapist stars H.] Jon Benjamin and Jonathan Katz as Ronnie and Professor Stein” (qtd. in Morse, “5” 17).

After that the trail went cold, as no additional information was forthcoming at the time. It would seem that the proposed Firestorm episode was destined to be another forgotten premise until recently, when my interview with freelance Justice League writer Keith Damron turned up some new information.

Above: the Jason Rusch / Ronnie Raymond Firestorm, from Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008-2011).

Nuclear Enrichment

During my October 2, 2026 interview, Keith Damron volunteered that he had written the first draft of the Firestorm story for Justice League Unlimited. According to the writer, the creative team “wanted a Firestorm story,” and so “I wrote the script, and we had the meetings, and I got paid, and then they decided they wanted to go into a different direction, so it didn’t get produced, which is disappointing” (qtd. in Davis). Unlike previous jobs for the series, he was not asked to do any sort of revision on the script, and he revealed that the creative team instead elected to bring the script “in-house,” meaning that the staff writers intended to continue working on the plot independent of his further contributions, which appears to be corroborated by Bruce Timm’s comments above (qtd. in Davis). However, instead of moving it further into production, they decided to shelve the material after several false starts.

Following our interview, we continued our discussion about the episode, dubbed “Firestorm,” and Keith Damron graciously offered to let me read his first draft of the script and, later, gave me permission to make it available. And so, for the first time, a PDF file of “Firestorm” can be read here.

NOTE: This script is the property of Warner Bros. Animation; it appears on this website with permission from the original author. This script’s presentation here is merely for historical and / or academic purposes. I receive no profit from its availability, and Aglets Are Sinister is a non-monetized website.

To recap, the episode begins by introducing Ronnie Raymond as a food delivery person making a drop-off at WayneTech for Dr. Martin Stein and his coworkers. Stein attempts to show Ronnie a device he’s working on, which “can actually alter the atomic structure of matter” (Damron 2). Batman arrives, revealing one of the coworkers to be Clayface, and in the ensuing scuffle Stein’s experimental matter transmutation device explodes, fusing Ronnie and Stein into Firestorm. The rest of the episode deals with the Justice League—specifically the Dark Knight and J’onn J’onzz—figuring out how to handle the situation, with J’onn nudging him into a superheroic role and Batman recognizing that “it takes more than a freakish lab accident to qualify for this line of work” (Damron 10). Meanwhile, it turns out that Clayface is actually interested in another of Dr. Stein’s projects—a “high-speed cloning project [that] can increase the world’s food supply a thousand fold” (Damron 24)—and he intends to use it to clone himself, with the intended outcome of taking over the planet via a form of the gray goo scenario (brown goo?). However, in the end, Clayface is defeated, and Firestorm joins the Justice League to the delight of J’onn and the dismay of Batman.

So, now we have the story and the background, but the reasons for its termination still elude us. That said, based on what we currently know, I have a theory.

Above: the Jason Rusch Firestorm, from Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010).

Meltdown

As stated above, the first draft of “Firestorm” was written by Keith Damron, but the creative team decided to work on the script independent of him, resulting in the writing staff (i.e. Dwayne McDuffie and Stan Berkowitz) taking over. Well, with apologies to Damron, the script in its earliest form—while good—was a little formulaic, as the trope of the metahuman origin story taking the form of an industrial accident has been done frequently in the DCAU, as seen with the origins of Mister Freeze (“Heart of Ice”), Parasite (“Feeding Time”), Metamorpho (“Metamorphosis”), and even Clayface himself (“Feat of Clay”). To make this episode really pop, it would need something to differentiate it from the other origin episodes, and—considering how this script was worked on during Season One of Justice League Unlimited—I speculate that the creative team’s intent was to make it part of the Cadmus arc.

As readers are no doubt aware, the Cadmus arc was a multi-part storyline during JLU’s first and second season featuring a top secret organization called the Cadmus Project (or Project: Cadmus), which was the end result of a decades-long partnership between industry and the U.S. government to utilize new technology and metahumans for “national security and profit,” as stated by General Hardcastle in the JLU episode “Fearful Symmetry.” Cadmus’ specific goal, however, was the creation of a deterrent should the Justice League ever become a threat to the planet (or, more likely, to the United States’ autonomy). Given their desire to manufacture metahuman assets to deploy as countermeasures—such as Doomsday, Galatea, Volcana, the Ultimen, the mutants who would later become the Royal Flush Gang, and possibly others like Captain Atom—it doesn’t take much to imagine Cadmus manipulating Dr. Stein’s work in an attempt to create a Superman-level metahuman that they could manipulate and control, effectively allowing JLU to do their own take on Firestorm’s Doomsday Clock storyline fourteen years early. Unfortunately for them, the Justice League would beat them to the punch, taking Firestorm into their custody and cutting Cadmus off at the knees.

Above, left to right: Laura, the receptionist character from Dr. Katz, Professional Therapist (1995-2002), and the BTAS incarnation of Clayface.

Of course, Cadmus would need agents to carry out this task, and I would argue that the script had already supplied two such figures. For example, Damron’s script introduces the character of Doreen, a WayneTech secretary working in the office with Dr. Stein and with whom Ronnie has a, shall we say, playful flirtation with. Considering McDuffie’s desire to have Dr. Katz:  Professional Therapist stars H. Jon Benjamin and Jonathan Katz appear as Ronnie Raymond and Dr. Martin Stein, respectively—and considering Benjamin’s character Ben and his similar rapport with Laura on Katz—what if the episode brought in actor Laura Silverman to “reprise” her secretary role as Doreen, and then the writers would adjust her role to become an agent for Cadmus who would monitor Ronnie and Stein? And, once Clayface escaped and Batman took Firestorm to the Watchtower, Doreen would stand in the parking lot, watching her office burn, and then call Amanda Waller to tell her that “we have a problem.”

And as for Clayface, having him perform as a Cadmus agent and strongman would work perfectly, considering his background as an actor and his involvement with industrial espionage as far back as the aforementioned “Feat of Clay.” Retrieved by Amanda Waller after his involvement with Grodd in “Secret Society,” she could utilize the shapeshifter as an asset while, at the same time, use Cadmus science to stabilize his condition (his plot to reproduce himself to take over the world could be repurposed into a ruse to obscure his true task). Finally, let us not forget that Clayface served a similar role in Season One of the recent Creature Commandos series (2024), where he was an agent of the Pokolistan Princess Ilana Rostovic.

Unfortunately, it is because of Clayface’s presence that the episode hit its first major stumbling block: the Bat-Embargo. For the unfamiliar, this mandate took the form of a prohibition preventing Justice League Unlimited from using Batman-related villains and supporting cast, as they were earmarked for Kids’ WB!’s The Batman series (2004-2008), though Batman himself was permitted to appear on both shows. Now, while its existence has been discussed at length by creative team members such as Bruce Timm, we actually know very little about it, such as when it started to be enforced. After all, we have evidence of multiple JLU scripts that originally featured appearances by Batman characters, such as the presence of the Joker and Harley Quinn in “This Little Piggy” (“‘This,’” 00:20:50-00:22:05), Barbara Gordon, Nightwing, Dr. Kirk Langstrom, and Man-Bat appearing in a script that was eventually replaced by “Double Date” (b.t.); and—of course—the possible removal of Robin from “For the Man Who Has Everything” (b.t.). That said, thanks to the metadata provided by the Word Document sent to me by Keith Damron, it appears that his first draft of “Firestorm” was completed on or around September 28, 2003.

Of course, out of context this date provides little, but with additional data a rough timeline begins to develop. According to an August 20, 2003 post on Comics Continuum, work on Season Three of Justice League was “under way” despite the fact that an official announcement had not yet taken place (Allstetter, “Justice”); the new season would not be formally identified as Justice League Unlimited until a February 26, 2004 post (Allstetter, “Justice”), though rumors of the name change began appearing as early as January 19, 2004 (Allstetter, “Briefly”). Meanwhile, The Batman was announced in a February 9, 2004 Comics Continuum post (Allstetter, “Batman”). Now, considering how “The Greatest Story Never Told” premiered September 11, 2004—and considering how episodes of an animated series such as this often take about a year or so to produce (O’Brien, 00:34:10-00:34:18)—it appears that “Firestorm” was most likely turned in right before the Bat-Embargo went into effect, thus preventing Clayface from being used, necessitating additional rewrites.

Above: the Jason Rusch / Ronnie Raymond Firestorm, from Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008-2011).

Unfortunately, this was compounded by the art department’s inability to settle on a model design, as Bruce Timm discussed above. Fortunately for the character, however, approved designs would later be chosen, clearing the way for the Firestorm to appear on Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008-2011) where, in the episode “A Bat Divided!,” he successfully appeared alongside another Ron Perlman-voiced DC villain, this time Doctor Double X instead of the aforementioned Clayface. This would then be followed up by further appearances in Justice League Action (2016-2018) and the direct-to-video, Dwayne McDuffie-written animated film, Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010).

Above: the Ronnie Raymond / Martin Stein Firestorm, from Justice League Action (2016-2018).

Spent Fuel

At the end of the day, the “Firestorm” story was one that died by a thousand cuts. Keith Damron’s first draft was good; a rewrite by Firestrom fan Dwayne McDuffie would have made it great. Unfortunately, rewrites, issues with the character design, and the Bat-Embargo killed this story, allowing the Booster Gold episode “The Greatest Story Never Told” to take its place in the lineup. And while the potential of such an episode succeeded in provoking the imagination of fans for over twenty years now, I’m glad that this new information has largely put this speculation to rest.

Above, top left: the Jason Rusch Firestorm, from Justice League: Crisis on Two Earths (2010). Above, bottom left: the Jason Rusch / Ronnie Raymond Firestorm, from Batman: The Brave and the Bold (2008-2011). Above, right: a scene from Justice League of America #15 (January 2008).

That said, I do have one more detail to draw attention to, and it involves the Dark Knight. As previously stated, in the original script, Batman appears to be reluctant to let the novice Firestrom join the Justice League, as he considers them too inexperienced and a danger to themselves. This attitude stays the same until the end of the script, where J’onn invites him to join the team anyway. Based on Dwayne McDuffie’s later work, I suspect that had the episode been made, Batman’s attitude towards Firestorm would have been changed. After all, in the McDuffie-written Justice League of America #15 (January 2008), Batman confronted the young hero following his first adventure with the team and informed him that he was joining the League whether he liked it or not. His justification for the move was as follows: “You’re too powerful to be out there unsupervised” (McDuffie). And he was right. Unfortunately, Firestorm would remain unsupervised for several more years until he returned to animation in other projects.

Works Cited

Allstetter, Rob.  “Batman:  A New Animated Series, The.”  Comics Continuum.  9 Feb. 2004.  <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0402/09/index.htm>.  Accessed 6 Jan. 2023.

---.  “Briefly.”  Comics Continuum.  19 Jan. 2004.  <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0401/19/index.htm>.  Accessed 6 Jan. 2023.

---.  “Justice League Animated Update.”  Comics Continuum.  20 Aug. 2003.  <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0308/20/index.htm>.  Accessed 5 Jan. 2023.

---.  “Justice League Animated Update.”  Comics Continuum.  26 Feb. 2004.  <http://www.comicscontinuum.com/stories/0402/26/index.htm>.  Accessed 7 Jan. 2023.

Brady, Matthew.  “Scouting Report.”  Wizard JLA Special.  1998:  70-73.  Print.

b.t.  Comment on “Am I Blue?  The Conroy Version!”  Anime Superhero.  12 Sept. 2004.  <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/am-i-blue-the-conroy-version.3711821/page-2#post-55033911>.  Accessed 12 Sept. 2023.

---.  Comment on “’Perchance to Dream’ Vs. ‘For the Man Who Has Everything’ (Spoilers).”  Anime Superhero.  14 Aug. 2004.  <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/perchance-to-dream-vs-for-the-man-who-has-everything-spoilers.3689421/page-4#post-54617641>.  Accessed 11 Sept. 2023.

---.  Comment on “Rejected Plot Elements.”  Anime Superhero.  2 May 2007.  <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/rejected-plot-elements.4336231/page-2#post-66260351>.  Accessed 7 Oct. 2023.

---.  Comment on “Firestorm Villain Multiplex in JLU’s ‘Dead Reckoning?’”  Anime Superhero.  2 Apr. 2007.  <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/firestorm-villain-multiplex-in-jlus-dead-reckoning.4321751/#post-65942971>.  Accessed 7 Oct. 2023.

---.  Comment on “Firestorm Villain Multiplex in JLU’s ‘Dead Reckoning?’”  Anime Superhero.  3 Apr. 2007.  <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/firestorm-villain-multiplex-in-jlus-dead-reckoning.4321751/#post-65943021>.  Accessed 7 Oct. 2023.

---.  Comment on “Firestorm Villain Multiplex in JLU’s ‘Dead Reckoning?’”  Anime Superhero.  3 Apr. 2007.  <https://animesuperhero.com/forums/threads/firestorm-villain-multiplex-in-jlus-dead-reckoning.4321751/#post-65943051>.  Accessed 7 Oct. 2023.

Damron, Keith.  “JLU-FIRESTORM-1.”  Microsoft Word file, created 28 Sept. 2003.

Davis, Joseph. “Interview with Justice League Writer Keith Damron.” Aglets Are Sinister. 11 Oct. 2026. <https://www.agletsaresinister.com/post/interview-with-justice-league-writer-keith-damron>. Accessed 13 Oct. 2026.

Disharoon, Cecil. “The Firestorm Interviews.” Back Issue! Jun. 2019: 2-5. Print.

Maestro (DMcDuffie).  Untitled.  Dwayne McDuffie.  The V Hive.  7 Jul. 2006.  <https://www.thevhive.com/forum/dwayne-mcduffie/threads/ask-the-maestro/1146?thread_skip=50&folder_name=dwayne-s-world>.  Accessed 19 Feb. 2011.

McDuffie, Dwayne. “Unlimited, Chapter 4: Unleashed.” Justice League of America: The Injustice League.  Illustrated by Ed Benes. DC Comics. 2009.

Morse, Ben.  “5 Questions with … Dwayne McDuffie.”  Wizard:  The Guide to Comics.  Sept. 2006:  17.  Print.

---.  “‘Firestorm’ Unlimited.”  Wizard:  The Guide to Comics.  Nov. 2006:  21.  Print.

O’Brien, Daniel, host.  “Insane Simpsons Easter Eggs (Explained by Simpsons Writers).”  The Cracked Podcast, featuring Mike Reiss and Jeff Martin. Earwolf. 13 Jun. 2016. MP3 file. Created 26 Sept. 2016.

“‘This Little Piggy’ Audio Commentary.”  Justice League Unlimited:  Season One.  Warner Bros. Animation, 2006.

Images—unless otherwise indicated—courtesy of Skydance Corporation, Warner Bros. Home Entertainment, Warner Bros. Animation, DC Comics, HBO Downtown Productions, Popular Arts Entertainment, and Tom Snyder Productions.