Hellions A lonely girl raised by her widowed father Bartholomew and paternal grandmother, Angelica Jones discovered that she possessed
mutant powers. After her grandmother's death by heart failure and her revelation that she was a mutant, her father sent Angelica to the
Massachusetts Academy. The
Hellfire Club's original White Queen
Emma Frost began training Angelica in the use of her powers for the Hellfire Club's
team of young mutants. She was never sent on field missions with the other Hellions, however, because of her lack of control over her lethal powers and because the White Queen wished to instill cruelty and callousness in Firestar's personality, and befriending other young mutants would work against that goal. The White Queen manipulated Angelica into perceiving Frost as a loving mother figure, unaware that Frost was secretly grooming her to be a potential assassin and bodyguard. Angelica did meet the
New Mutants at a Massachusetts Academy dance and, with the White Queen's telepathic prompting, formed a crush on
Cannonball. Firestar was later emotionally manipulated by
Empath, and accompanied the
Hellions Thunderbird, Empath and
Roulette on a mission against the
X-Men, in which Thunderbird sought revenge on Xavier, thinking him responsible for his brother
John's death. Angelica felt terrible guilt over the incident once she was free of Empath's power, however. Professor Xavier offered her a place at the Xavier School, but although she declined out of loyalty to the White Queen, she was touched and pleased by the offer. While a student of the Massachusetts Academy, Angelica had Hellfire mercenary Randall Chase assigned to her as a bodyguard. Growing close to Angelica, Randall eventually began to suspect the White Queen's true motives and was to be terminated. He escaped, mortally wounded, and managed to warn Angelica of Frost's duplicity just before he died. In retaliation, Jones attacked and defeated the White Queen, and decimated the hidden training complex beneath Frost's Massachusetts Academy. Afterwards, she returned to living with her father (as she was still a minor at the time) but kept the unique costume and identity of Firestar given to her by Frost. Firestar was later to become one of the few surviving original Hellions after most members were murdered by
Trevor Fitzroy. She, Warpath and Empath were the only members of the team not present during the massacre. Firestar and Warpath (accompanied by Warpath's X-Force teammate and Firestar's former love interest Cannonball), travelled to Nova Roma in
Brazil to inform Empath and former New Mutant
Magma of their teammates' deaths. The trio then went to the Massachusetts Academy where they removed the few remaining files on record of the Hellions' existence.
New Warriors Shortly after her resignation from the Massachusetts Academy, Firestar became a founding member of the
New Warriors when she was invited (or rather blackmailed) by
Night Thrasher into joining, and helped them battle
Terrax. She also aided Night Thrasher against
Midnight's Fire. She also helped
Thor defeat the
Juggernaut alongside the New Warriors. The team battled the
Mad Thinker and
Primus, and then battled
Psionex. The team battled the second
Star Thief and
Stane International's
Mandroids. With teammates
Marvel Boy and
Namorita, and the Star Thief, she launched into space aboard a Stane rocket. They encountered the
Inhumans and the
Watcher on the Moon. With the help of
Black Bolt and the Star Thief, she destroyed the Stane rocket containing
hazardous waste. Back on Earth, the New Warriors battled the
Force of Nature in a Brazilian jungle, and rescued teammate
Speedball's mother. The New Warriors also battled the
White Queen and her Hellions. Eventually, she fell in love and became engaged to teammate Vance Astrovik (also known as
Justice, formerly
Marvel Boy). She later discovered that using her microwave powers could eventually render her
infertile. During a revenge scheme by a gang of thugs called the Poison Memories, Firestar's father was shot in the chest. He nearly died but recovered. Firestar also faced a time without Vance, as he had to serve a prison term for the involuntary slaying of his own abusive father. Firestar also provided vital assistance in helping Spider-Man tackle
Carnage during "
Maximum Carnage", when he was also forced to ally himself with
Venom,
Black Cat and
Morbius to stop Carnage's reign of slaughter. Her microwave power proved the only weapon truly effective against Carnage following his 'upgrade'—his vulnerability to sonics having been weakened—but she still refused to kill Carnage, even to stop his murders. For a time, she was briefly attracted to Spider-Man's clone,
Ben Reilly, when he joined the New Warriors under the identity of the Scarlet Spider, but their relationship never went beyond an interest due to Firestar's engagement to Justice and Reilly's secrecy causing him to avoid revealing his identity.
Avengers Firestar and Justice eventually left the New Warriors together. Some time later the two joined the
Avengers after an alternate-universe adventure and a struggle against
Morgan le Fay. Firestar helped demonstrate her fitness for the position when she and Vance took down
Whirlwind, a villain that had foiled most of the other Avengers at once. Firestar demonstrated a more restrained fashion sense, refusing to wear a cleavage-baring costume designed by the
Wasp. Though she is seen wearing exactly that costume in an Avengers promo poster and in some early Avengers appearances, she quickly altered the costume to be more modest, which was consistent with her personality. During this period,
Hank Pym determined that the cause of her potential infertility was that her natural immunity to the effects of her own powers (which all mutants possess) had never fully developed. He designed a costume for her that would siphon off the excess radiation, give her natural immunity the opportunity to manifest fully and heal the damage already done. After a distinguished tenure with the Avengers, including going undercover in a bizarre cult, facing a horde of
Ultron robots, and struggling against
Kang the Conqueror's takeover of modern-day Earth, she and Justice left the Avengers. She also made a tentative peace with Emma Frost during this time. Angelica started college and enjoyed a "normal life", but she abandoned wedding preparations, leaving Vance with all of the responsibility. When Vance confronted her about this, she confessed that she needed more life experience before settling into married life. Vance left in anger and presumably ended their engagement.
Retirement Firestar is one of the few mutants left on the planet with her powers intact after the
Scarlet Witch altered reality and
decimated the mutant population. Firestar was not among the New Warriors who died in the catastrophe that sparked the events of
Civil War. She was presumed to be among the Warriors who confronted the operator of an anti-Warriors hate site created in the wake of the catastrophe, revealed to be former Warriors member Carlton LaFroyge (
Hindsight Lad). She is seen flying in the background, above the confrontation. Firestar responded to the
Superhuman Registration Act by effectively retiring from her career as a costumed hero. She was seen as part of a New Warriors reunion of sorts with Nova and Justice, with whom she seems to be on good terms again.
Marvel Divas In the limited series
Marvel Divas (which was pitched as "
Sex and the City in the Marvel Universe"), it is revealed Angelica's closest friends are
Black Cat,
Hellcat and
Photon. At the end of the first issue, Firestar announces she has been diagnosed with cancer. She's later diagnosed by
Doctor Strange and the
Night Nurse as being in the earlier stages of the illness, provoked seemingly by the same inability to shield herself from her microwave emission powers that is making her infertile. Despite her bravery in dealing with the illness (she asks Patsy to write a book and a blog to relay her experience to other cancer survivors, strongly believing in her ability to heal), and Hank Pym offering her a second opinion (despite Pym actually being a
biochemist, and not a
physician), she is still in visible distress; enough for
Daimon Hellstrom to approach his ex-wife Patsy, ensuring her fast healing in exchange for Patsy remarrying him (and giving him her soul in the process). Learning about Patsy's brave move to help in her recovery, Angelica and her supportive friends travelled to Hellstrom's dimension to rescue her, thereby rejecting his 'healing' help for Hellcat's freedom and taking her chances against the cancer. After returning to Earth, Angelica had a follow-up exam that revealed her cancer to be in complete remission. During this series, she is a New York University graduate student in art history, specializing in Medieval European art. Due to her chemotherapy, Angelica began to lose her hair. Initially opting for a wig, she decided to cut her hair short instead.
One-shot and Young Allies Firestar continues her education while engaging in super heroics part-time. In her one-shot issue, she is wearing a long-haired red wig as her natural hair has not grown back yet. When the
Bastards of Evil attack at the World Trade Center Ground Zero, she is the first of New York's heroes to respond. Shortly after, she is joined by
Gravity,
Nomad,
Spider-Girl, and
Toro. The five heroes unite to defeat the menace, but are not taken seriously by the established teams (the Fantastic Four and Avengers) to arrive after the battle. The group worked to track down the Bastards of Evil, Firestar partnering with Gravity while the others pursued independent leads. In addition to tracking the Bastards, Firestar and Gravity begin to patrol the city at night fighting street level crime. During this period, Angelica is dismissive of Nomad and Spider-Girl, which she later regrets as it was not that long ago that she was an adolescent super hero. In the final issue of
Young Allies (issue #6), Emma Frost attempts to recruit Angelica to move to Utopia with the rest of the mutant population. No offer to join the X-Men was explicitly made, but as most of the mutants living in Utopia appear to be on call as needed, it can be assumed that if Firestar moved she would have been available to the team. Angelica refused the offer, eventually burning down Emma's hotel room to be left alone. Gravity and Firestar continue their evening patrols, and Frost suggests that Gravity has a romantic/sexual interest in her. He also appears to recognize her civilian identity when he sees her in a coffee shop, but she does not notice him. The Young Allies are continuing to operate as a loosely affiliated team to fight
Onslaught alongside the
Secret Avengers in
Onslaught Unleashed, despite the cancellation of their own series. Then Firestar appears at a meeting held by
Prodigy regarding magical hammers that have crashed into the earth. She and Gravity agree to co-lead an Initiative team to help keep order during the crisis. After Gravity is injured in a fight with Crossbones, she assumes full command until she and Prodigy travel to Las Vegas to assist with the damage control efforts after the Juggernaut's attack on the city and subsequent battle with the Heavy Hitters. Reunited with Gravity, who also went to Las Vegas to confront Heavy Hitters leader Hardball regarding civilian casualties during the fight, Firestar joined Gravity, Hardball, and Telemetry on a mission to prevent seismic damage to the area. Believing they were going to die, she and Gravity revealed their secret identities to each other. Following the end of Fear Itself, Firestar has been seen with Gravity and their former Young Allies associate Spider-Girl fighting Hydro Man, indicating the group is still working together. Firestar applied for a teaching job at the
Jean Grey School of Higher Learning but when she admitted that she had a thing for Iceman she was rejected as
Kitty Pryde, the headmistress of the school who was doing the interviewing, was at the time Iceman's girlfriend.
X-Men Firestar joined the
X-Men as a new teacher in the Jean Grey School assigned to teaching physics. After being dragged to Hell with other members of the X-Men, she was pulled into a quest to search for the deceased
Nightcrawler, at one point setting Hell itself on fire to stop a wave of demons attacking her and Iceman, an action that notably impressed Nightcrawler. Later on, after returning to Earth, Firestar and Iceman encountered
Spider-Man. She participated in the containment of a massive
Wendigo outbreak in Canada, became a member of the New Tian Strikeforce after Hydra's brief takeover of the USA, and battled
X-Man and
Carnage.
Orchis After the establishment of the mutant colony on
Krakoa, Firestar was slated to become a full-time member of the X-Men. Shortly after, however,
Orchis attacked the island, slaying several mutants, including
Jean Grey. As she lay dying, Grey telepathically instructed Firestar to join Orchis as a mole, leading the other X-Men to believe that she allowed Orchis access to Krakoa. In this role, she was confronted by
Kitty Pryde and her ex-fiancé
Justice. She was eventually exposed, but rescued by Pryde, Emma Frost and
Synch to participate in their final strike against Orchis.
West Coast Avengers However, the trauma of having worked for a mutant-hating organization caused Firestar to sink into an alcohol-drowned depression. In this state, she was invited by
James Rhodes to join the new
West Coast Avengers which he and
Tony Stark were putting together, which included several former supervillains like
Ultron and Blue Bolt in their lineup. In her feeling of fatalism, she made callous mistakes, like injuring people she was supposed to subdue. However, Blue Bolt, after giving her a kiss before willingly returning to prison, managed to talk some sense back into her; a deed which evolved into a mutual romantic attraction. ==Powers and abilities==