Firefly

A beloved actor suddenly passed away, and as usual we homage him with the bio of one of his characters: Ray Stevenson died a couple of days ago, and he was quite well-known by comicbook fans. Not only he starred as The Punisher in Punisher: War Zone, as Volstagg in the first three Thor movies and as Big Ray in the two Accident Man, he was also the evil Firefly in G.I. Joe: Retaliation. His version of the character was an ex Joe, who got his name from the insect-like explosive drones he uses as a trademark weapon. In the movie, he’s the one who breaks Cobra Commander out of prison, but he’s eventually killed by Roadblock during the ending sequence. Let’s see who the original Firefly is.

The true identity of the man known as Firefly is shrouded in mystery, as not even his usual employers from Cobra know his name or face. He was born in France, and when his father died the Koga Ninja Clan, who had a debt of honor with the man, took him in and raised him as one of their own. Firefly turned out to be an eager learner, and among his clan he was known as the Faceless Master: he knew how to disappear anywhere, how to infiltrate any group or facility, how to move without being seen. He used his skills to become one of the world’s most renowned and appreciated assassins and saboteurs, and he specialized in the use of any explosive known to warfare, hence his codename. He was nearly infallible, and his services weren’t cheap: his employers, however, didn’t mind to pay him in advance, in non-refundable fees without any guarantee on a non-traceable Swiss bank account. After all, when someone hired Firefly, they hired the best. One such men was Cobra Commander, the leader of the terrorist organization Cobra: the first time the two met was when the Commander was trying to exact a personal revenge against Snake Eyes, a ninja from the Arashikage Clan. Wanting to get rid of his enemy, Cobra Commander hired Firefly, who traveled to Japan to study his target… only to realize that Snake Eyes was his better by far, and that he couldn’t possibly sneak up on him as he usually did with his victims. Recognizing when he was outmatched, but bound by his “work ethics” to try and complete the contract nevertheless, Firefly contacted the only other assassin in the world as capable as he was, Zartan. Together, the two killers stalked the target enough to learn his habits and his strengths, even memorizing his heartbeat, and agreed that he had to be taken out from afar: unfortunately, when finally Zartan sniped him with bow and arrow, an identity mistake led him to kill the leader of the Arashikage Clan, Hard Master, instead. The two made sure that Hard Master’s designated heir Storm Shadow took the blame, causing a fracture that brought to Cobra Commander a new powerful ally: this way, also a failed mission was a victory.

Failing a mission was always a possibility: after all, Firefly never gave insurances to his clients, as the variables were always too many for a precise prediction. Cobra Commander, however, wasn’t a client like all others, and he took it quite personally. Firefly kept working for Cobra from times to times, but when the chance arrived for the Commander to punish him, the mercenary was left behind in the Florida Everglades, to be killed or captured by the enemy. Firefly, of course, was too skilled to be trapped this way, and on the opposite he ran into Destro, the Commander’s former right-hand man, fallen from grace and abandoned as well. The two teamed up, wanting to take revenge on their former boss, and together they made it out of the swamps, coming back to the anonymous and apparently innocuous town of Springfield, where the secret HQ of Cobra was hidden. Here, the two of them earned their readmission by participating to a mission against Snake Eyes, aiming at regaining their position to better strike their intended target. When Commander’s son, Billy, who had betrayed him, was put on trial, Firefly participated, but secretly aided Storm Shadow in freeing the boy. As Billy was trying to escape from Springfield, however, someone unexpected reached it: the Soft Master, who had figured out that Storm Shadow wasn’t the true killer of his brother, and who had tracked down the culprit to the small town. In the chaos ensuing, Firefly took one of his subordinates, Scrap-Iron, and took care of the unwanted visitors, blowing up the car Soft Master was using to escape, killing him and the girl he was trying to protect, Candy (who was, incidentally, the girlfriend of G.I. Joe agent Ripcord), and causing Billy to lose an eye and a leg. Even if the base was lost (Ripcord found Springfield and sent the coordinates to the other Joes), the carnage caused by Firefly was enough for Cobra Commander to trust the man again, and little by little, mission after mission, the saboteur regained his old privileged position… one from which it would have been easier for him to obtain his revenge.

Firefly is an ambiguous man, a mass murderer with no loyalty but to the contracts he signs. He’s rightfully known as the world’s greatest saboteur, a trained ninja unparalleled in infiltration and stealth; he is an expert in all kinds of explosives, and he rarely fails when there is some place or person to blow up; albeit being also a formidable hand-to-hand fighter, he prefers to strike from the shadows, reducing the target area to a burning crater before anyone can see him. A professional who sells his services to the highest bidder, Firefly is a precious asset for anyone… but also a very dangerous man to make an enemy of.