Tokamak
44 years ago - Henry Hewitt is born, the heir to the Hewitt Energy monopoly.
26 years ago - 18-year-old Henry goes to college.
22 years ago - 22-year-old Henry takes a position in his father's company.
16 years ago - 28-year-old Henry takes over his father's company when he retires.
12 years ago - 32-year-old Henry discovers Martin Stein's work on the Nuclear Matrix reactor, and tries to acquire his research to prevent it from disrupting his energy monopoly.
10 years ago - 34-year-old Henry pays Danton Black to sabotage Martin Stein's Nuclear Matrix reactor experiment. When the resulting explosion creates Firestorm, he begins research to replicate the experiment for himself.
7 years ago - 37-year-old Henry masterminds Danton Black's kidnapping of Lorraine Reily to force her father, Senator Reilly, to sign the Hewitt bill, which would allow Hewitt Energy access to the research on the Nuclear Matrix reactor. He uses her exposure to the original Firestorm matrix to attempt to recreate the original accident. Lorraine sabotages the experiment, is infused with its energy and becomes Firehawk. Hewitt is lethally irradiated, forcing him to live in a containment chamber.
6 years ago - 38-year-old Henry creates his containment suit, allowing him to directly battle and nearly kill Ronnie Raymond & Martin Stein as Firestorm. He is defeated finally with the help of Lorraine Reily, and winds up in a coma.
2 years ago - 42-year-old Henry awakens from his coma when the Firestorm Matrix is disrupted by the death of Martin Stein. He comes for Jason Rusch, but Jason's heightened abilities with the Matrix allow him to defeat Hewitt, who is imprisoned.
1 year ago - 43-year-old Henry is freed from prison by Gorilla Grodd, but rather than being invited to join the Legion of Doom he is hooked into the facility as their power source.
For the record, a Tokamak is a device that uses powerful magnetic fields to confine hot plasma in a specific shape, and is being developed as a way to produce thermonuclear fusion. That fact might actually be the most interesting thing about this character as he appears in the comics; a generic villain designed to threaten Firestorm, one of the most overpowered characters in comics. What makes him worth considering isn't his notably cool name, however, but the fact that he manages to position himself inside of several core stories in a way that, if we do him right, will actually give us someone with a pivotal role to play within our larger DC story.
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Tokamak's Comic HistoryHenry Hewitt appeared for the first time in 1983's Firestorm #15, but was just a creepy evil scientist figure for a while before he first put on his containment suit. On the way there he was responsible for empowering Firehawk, Firestorm's female counterpart, a story arc that involved a little more creepy leering that a modern audience would probably be comfortable with.
The big reveal of him putting on the suit for the first time was a development that was built up over several issues and Annuals. The costume showed up for the first time in 'DC Sampler', a book entirely built to push upcoming stories across DC's line, so obviously this was thought to be a big seller, but it didn't really take off they way they might have been expecting. To date, Tokamak has appeared in 9 regular comics, 2 annuals, and a DC who's who anthology. It's weird that he's still even considered worthy of remembering as part of Firestorm's rogues gallery, but the fact is that he actually did have a pivotal part to play in the story. If done correctly, Henry Hewitt can actually be an important part of this story. |
Our Tokamak StoryHenry Hewitt fills several major roles that really flesh out the Firestorm story. He's essentially a Lex Luthor figure... a shadowy evil billionaire in the background subtly influencing everything that happens to Ronnie & Martin, and by tying that all the way back to the original explosion that turned them into Firestorm he becomes a much more integral part of their story.
In the comics, He spends a long time developing his influence over Lorraine Reily. So much so, in fact, that the bulk of his comic appearances don't even feature him in his armor, but rather in a lab gazing into the chamber where she's being changed. Lorraine is a character that has a lot of untapped potential, so that means we need to better establish his motives for why he takes her. In this case, it's because she's been exposed to the Firestorm matrix, which he wants to capture and contain. It should also go without saying that we want her to be treated as less of a damsel in distress, so she totally gets to free herself, and is the catalyst for his defeat when he attacks Firestorm in his containment suit. |
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Tokamak's CostumeIf there's any one thing responsible for how little exposure this character has, it's his design. There was a very evident atmosphere of experimentation in the original Firestorm series... there's really no other explanation for the crazy look of the main character. You can kind of imagine how that same aura of trial-and-error could lead to a look like Tokamak. He's essentially a giant tech suit bathysphere, and there's no reason not to try it, but it clearly never really took off. Later in the 2004 series a new version of the character (this time TokOmak instead of TokAmak) was introduced as an enemy for Jason Rusch. He wore a far more generic costume over glowing skin on his face and hands, and was killed off an issue after this look was revealed.
This character is really a huge opportunity waiting to happen. The concepts at play here; a tech billionaire bathed in radiation turning him into a human reactor who builds a containment suit that allows him to battle one of the most powerful superheroes in the world... this is just ripe for someone to come up with a completely ground-breaking design. It should be a massive, bulky tech suit of some kind, but creating the look with the right style and silhouette would easily make him a character that could have a huge role to play. |