Fire manipulation is a pretty
standard superpower. And by that I mean, there are a lot of characters that
shoot flames, either as their main superpower or a secondary effect of their
powers. There’s El Diablo, Heat Wave, Legion, Crystal, two Human Torches, The Phoenix, two Ghost Riders, Sunfire, Firestorm, Firestar, Harry Dresden, Molten Man,
and Magma, to name a few. But, it’s one of those powers that’s useful enough to
warrant such widespread use. Burning down buildings and capturing people in
circles of fire will always be useful options. That all being said, there is no
flame manipulator quite like Pyro. Because that’s literally all he can do. Let’s
get to it.
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| I'm just picturing a bunch of fans swarming him and begging Mr. Allerdyce for his autograph during a Mutant brawl. |
Pyro was born St. John (pronounced Sinjin)
Allerdyce in Sydney, Australia. He discovered his mutant ability to control
flames when he was a teenager, but never found a practical use for it. See,
unlike any of the fire elementalists I mentioned above, St. John can’t create
fire on his own. Literally everyone else in this category, excluding stupid M.
Night Shyamalan adaptations of great cartoons, is able to generate their own
fire. Either their bodies generate the flames like Human Torch, or they can
ignite the oxygen in the air via their will like Sunfire, or they have magic
powers like Dresden. Not the case with St. John. He can shape the flames and move
them but he can’t make them. Weird, right? Not being able to use his powers for
anything useful, he went on to be a journalist and novelist in the Outback. He
was eventually approached by Mystique to join her version of the Brotherhood of
Mutants. She outfitted him with a flamethrower to fully utilize his powers. He
signed up to help her assassinate Senator Robert Kelly, the famous anti-Mutant senator.
In one timeline they were successful, but that lead to the dystopian hellscape
of the Days of Future Past timeline, but in the main one they were stopped by
the X-Men.
He stuck with the Brotherhood for
several years, and remained with the group when it was rebranded the Freedom
Force and started working for the US government. They performed well under the
Freedom Force banner, but the group folded after a failed mission in Kuwait.
One of the groups lesser members, Super Sabre, was killed, and Pyro and Blob
were abandoned and captured in Kuwait. They were forced to work as bodyguards
for a few of the country’s military commanders… not sure how that works but
there you go. What? One’s bulletproof and one controls fire, how do you force
them to do jobs they don’t want to do? No idea. They were eventually freed by
Toad, who bought their release and had them join up with his version of the Brotherhood.
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| Fire Glove < Full Flamethrower |
A few years later, Pyro was
infected with the Legacy Virus. The virus is fatal and has the nasty side
effect of driving Mutant’s powers to run wild. That’s a pretty dangerous
condition for a fire elementalist to contract. He got several former Brotherhood
teammates and other infected to help him try to find a cure. Their efforts were
less then effective. He eventually died from the virus. But it was actually a
surprisingly noble end for the former Brotherhood mutant. See, in what turned
out to be his last day. Pyro attended a rally for Senator Kelly, who’d been
running for President. The current Brotherhood attacked Kelly and attempted to
assassinate him. Déjà vu. Pyro chose to call in the X-Men for backup, and
incinerated his former teammate Post. The X-Men arrived and handled the rest,
while Pyro actually died in Kelly’s arms, and in classic last stand fashion,
asked the senator to try and stop Mutant/Human hostility. Protecting Kelly at
the cost of his own safety was, not only ironic, but the final instance of
Mutant goodwill to turn Kelly from a bigot into one of the biggest Mutant
supporters in the world. Way to go St. John.
He remained dead for several years,
but was resurrected along with hundreds of other Mutants by the T-O
(Techno-Organic) virus to serve in Selene’s army. Selene is the Black Queen of
the Hellfire Club. She’s basically the opposite number of Emma Frost. He was forced
to partake in the assault on the Mutant nation of Utopia. He survived the
attack and was purged of the T-O virus, and has been on the loose ever since.
Can’t keep a good bad guy down.
As stated above, Pyro’s only ability
is mentally controlling masses of fire. He can cause an existing fire to grow
exponentially, but not create it himself. Flames under his control can also be
shaped into different forms, such as animals or people. Any fire in his line of
sight within 100 yards or so of himself could be boosted in such a way. Any
fire under his control can’t burn him, but if he’s knocked unconscious or something,
he’s as flammable as anyone. In order to circumvent his limitation, he wears a kerosene-based
flamethrower to fuel his powers. Considering he only needs a very small amount
of base fire to create an inferno, the flamethrower contains significantly more
fuel than he typically uses.
Pyro has been used a few times outside
of the comics. He, Mystique, Toad and Blob are probably the most used members
of that particular team. Not counting Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch, obviously.
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| I wish I could find something I love half as much as Pyro loves burning things. |
Pyro appeared as a member of
Mystique’s Brotherhood in a handful of episodes of X-Men: The Animated Series.
He works with Avalanche and Blob most often. Oddly, while this version of Pyro
is a foreigner, this one is British. Which I just don’t get. It’s not like it’s
hard to fake an Australian accent, am I right?
He appeared in the second season of
X-Men: Evolution. This is the one time I know of where he’s Australian. He’s
introduced in the season finale two parter “Day of Reckoning.” He’s part of
Magneto’s elite team of Mutants, the Acolytes. It’s comprised of Sabertooth,
Gambit, Colossus and Pyro. He works as one of the group’s ranged specialist. He
often cackled with delight as he tried to burn things. He’s largely a background
character. The most memorable moment, other then trying to incinerate a giant
spider, was in “Cajun Spice.” In it, Gambit had kidnapped Rogue and was using
her to help out his adoptive father. Wolverine, concerned about one of his kids
missing and noted Gambit’s scent, finds the Acolytes base to find where he
went. What he finds is Pyro watching a video of Magneto being obliterated by
Apocalypse a few weeks back, cackling. Wolverine interrogates the Aussie, who
explains that the team kind of fell apart after their boss died. Colossus went
back to Russian (he was being forced to work with them from the start) and Gambit
and Sabertooth vanished. When Logan leaves in a huff, Pyro starts watching the
tape, saying it’s just “what [he] needs to turn a frown upside down.” Yeah,
this version of Pyro is a sociopath.
Pyro is introduced in X2: X-Men
United, portrayed by Aaron Stanford. He’s introduced as John, we know how I
feel about all this Americanization of X-Men, and is a frenemy of Bobby Drake (Ice
Man) and friend-friend of Rogue’s. He’s introduced in a museum where he used
his powers to cause a cigarette to blow up in the face of a guy that stole his
zippo. Bobby puts it out and Xavier mentally freezes the museum to cover it up.
He, Rogue and Bobby are the only Mutant kids to escape the government raid of
Xavier’s School with Wolverine. Over the course of the film, he meets and
ultimately leaves with Magneto at the film’s end.
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| G'day, Mate. |
He’s still around in X-Men: The
Last Stand, and seems to have taken Mystique’s place as Magneto’s number
two after the femme fatale was captured and then lost her powers. He’s been
outfitted with a flame creating glove that he uses constantly. He and Ice Man
end up going against each other in the final fight at Alcatraz Island. He tries
to incinerate his friend, telling him that he “Should have stayed in school.” Ice
Man reveals his Ice Armored form for the first time, and knocks Pyro out with a
headbutt telling him “You should have never left.”
Pyro is interesting mostly for the
unique limitation of his powers, and for having a kind of unusual background. I
mean, he’s a best-selling author and journalist turned terrorist. How many of
those are there? Not many. His genre was Gothic Romances, FYI. I’ve always
enjoyed his design, his flamboyant (not apologizing) personality, and his
accent. The whole “has a great power with a major limitation” thing is kind of
interesting, though it seems like they don’t do much with it. Were he a hero in
the X-Men mythos they’d probably explore how he can feel on top of the world
one minute, and completely useless the next if his equipment was taken away. Include
him in the list of underutilized Brotherhood members due to the fact his biggest
roles were in X 2 and 3, but he’s so heavily modified he’s pretty much an
original character. I hope to see him again in future projects, with his Down
Under accent intact.
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Twitter: @BasicsSuperhero
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