The Hard Life... Lives, Plural... of Professor Martin Stein: A Follow-Up

A lifetime ago...  more than 17 years, as it happens, I wrote a trio of posts about the then-history of Firestorm, arguably my favorite super-hero, specifically through the lens of Professor Martin Stein, who for much of Firestorm's history was one-half of the composite character. I observed that Stein had really been put through the ringer, and indeed when I was writing in 2009, it wasn't entirely clear what was going on with the character. I later learned that this was more or less the reality for the writers, as well. DC's publishers really didn't know what to do with the "old guy" (as they sometimes derogatorily referred to Professor Stein, despite the character having been consistently middle-aged at the most). Now that Firestorm is back on comic book shelves again, and selling extremely well by all indications, it seemed that it was time for a follow-up. While I'll try to avoid significant spoilers for the current series, be warned, I consider anything more than a few years old to be fair game.