Description
Pyro
Real Name: St John Allerdyce
First Appearance: The Uncanny X-Men #141 (January 1981)
Sydney born aspiring writer St John Allerdyce was an early student at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. His mutant power was the unique ability to control the shape, path, and intensity of any fire near him, which he dubbed "the living flame." So great was his potential that he was considered for a spot in the still relatively new X-Men's lineup as a replacement for Warren Worthington in the ill-fated Krakoa mission, but this role ended up going to a classmate of St John's named Bobby Drake. The X-Men's new "Iceman" was an occasional friend and rival of St John's, and while their powers were diametrically opposed, they were more alike than they cared to admit. Both were known hotheads, and both dealt with complicated feelings for each other regarding their sexuality. But St John was a vocal proponent of mutant rights, and often used his creative writing talents to pen columns in local papers about the issue that some human residents considered threatening.
After the Krakoa incident, St John became more frustrated with hiding his powers to the outside world and felt he was being constrained, and this appeared in his writing as well, which slowly turned more revolutionary. When confronted on this, it was revealed that St John had been in contact with emissaries of the Brotherhood. But before the staff could decide what to do with their wayward student, he fled the institute. Welcomed into the fold by Raven Darkholme's cadre, St John became fully committed to the cause and was transformed into one of the shapeshifting mutant's favorite subordinates under the call sign of Pyro, who turned his living flame into a weapon against the world who sought to control them.
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So he's basically Mystique's favored lieutenant in her band of the Brotherhood. Just like in the comics he can't produce flames on his own and is equipped with a pair of liquid fuel tanks on his back and a delivery system equipped to each arm to create fire for him to control.
After Destiny it feels right to fill out some other Brotherhood members, so here's a classic: Pyro. I kind of feel a lot of adaptations of the X-Men are a little too Brotherhood heavy, especially since the original movie, so I had deliberately tried shining a light on other X-Men villains before getting to them so if it feels like a long time coming that's why. Anyway, Pyro himself is a pretty standard Brotherhood member, a mutant whose main reason to exist is to give the X-Men a superpowered mutant to fight. His backstory is pretty light in the comics, but I liked some of what they did with him in the second X-Men film so I pulled quite a bit from that. So he's a wayward student of the school who ends up betraying them to the Brotherhood, and he has some rivalry with Iceman. Here I actually decided to make it some sort of romantic friction between the two of them, a pair of closeted gay teenagers who lash out against each other. Pyro isn't gay in the comics like Iceman is (to this point anyway), but he was originally designed to be by the original artist who created him and the second Pyro (who was virtually indistinguishable) was, so I thought, hey, why not.
And yes, his name in the comics is "St. John" (with a period), not "St John" (without), but the former spelling is a pretty uncommon spelling of a pretty uncommon name and I thought it looks better without. But to be perfectly clear for those unaware, that is just his given name, not an actual indication of sainthood!
Anyway, Pyro has a pretty consistent look in the comics and I have a pretty well established "grungy" look for my Brotherhood members so it was a pretty simple matter to merge the two. Due to Pyro's use of two big liquid fuel tanks and his fire powers the decision to make his outfit look like a protective suit of sorts was a pretty easy one for me. And he's got this simple body armor as well, alongside some goggles to complete the look. He's also covered in soot and burn marks from use of his powers, which I imagine him to be fairly reckless with (despite his skills). My main addition here is the big skull on his armor--it came from a sudden idea I had to make the yellow diamond that is usually on his chest into the silhouette of the nostril on a skull and the rest fell into place. I imagine it, and the flame colors underneath, are spray painted on to make him look scarier to the humans he terrorizes. You can also see it as a reference to his modern design in the Krakoa era where he has a skull tattooed onto his face.