Firestorm Hates Captain Atom, part 3

Captain Atom and Firestorm just don't get along. Will the threat posed by the Manhunters in Millennium Week 4 be enough for them to put their differences aside and work together?

Fat chance. It's time for Captain Atom #11, by Bates, Broderick, and Smith.

Making this one more interesting than just your standard Cap/Stormy slap fight, is the fact that this is the 'new' child-like Firestorm who understands very little about the world. His simplistic nature means the Manhunters were able to convince him they were his creators, allowing them to use him to interfere with the good guys. Cap is on a mission to stop a nuclear bomb, but faces a bit of a delay...

The initial skirmish is surprisingly brief. Captain Atom gets in a good first punch, but Firestorm retaliates by encasing him in a metal sphere. Cap tries to blast his way out, but Firestorm is able to regenerate the shell as quickly as it's destroyed, resulting in a stalemate. An effective strategy, which it's fair to say the old Firestorm wouldn't have thought of. Score one for the newbie.

All that's left, is to do what they should've done long ago, and talk.

Cap figures out quickly that the Firestorm he's dealing with isn't too bright (well, moreso than usual, atleast where these two are concerned). Assuming it's the result of brainwashing, he tries to reason with him by using stories from his past. He starts off with his childhood and how his love of flying developed.

He succeeds in showing Stormy that the Manhunters preventing manking from reaching it's full potential would be bad. However, FS still has doubts that the Manhunters would deceive him. Time for a story about Cap's early days...
...where he had to disobey orders to save a couple of soldiers. There's a slight hitch to this plan though. The Manhunters gave Firestorm a full briefing on Captain Atom's history, leading Flame-head to call bullshit on his silver foe.

Liar liar, pants on fire. Or lungs full of nerve gas. Something like that, anyway.

In a last ditch attempt, Cap tells one final story, this time about the real events behind his origin.

...aaaand Firestorm gets the lesson that he should trust his instincts. So he does, and lets Cap go. They race off to stop the nuke from hurting anyone, then it's time for some bonding.

Awwwww, they end up as friends. Yay.