Martin Stein


 * This article is about one of the two humans whose fusion makeup the conjoint meta-human Firestorm. For the meta-human, see Firestorm.

"If living the last fourteen months as a conjoined meta-human has taught me anything, is that my life's work should have been being the best husband I could to my wife."

- Martin to Harrison Wells about their life's works

Professor Martin Stein is a physicist who was the team leader for the F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. project. He co-wrote a paper on it with Jason Rusch. He is also one half of the transmuted and conjoint meta-human, Firestorm.

He is also a fully licensed rabbi.

Life prior to the accelerator's malfunction
Martin Stein was born into the Jewish faith and his father made him become a rabbi directly before Martin's enrollment at MIT.

Martin Stein attended University of Chicago where he became classmates with Quentin Quale, as they were both of class of 70'. Their relationship could be seen as more than mere acquaintance, for Stein was the only person with whom Quale shared the truth about his brother's death being a suicide.

Martin accomplished various achievements in the scientific field and even had a table for all the awards he received, though his wife Clarissa would remark that perhaps he was just a tad too focused on his career. He wrote numerous papers on different sorts of theories, a lot of them for the Oxford University Press; one of them being the topic on time travel, published around 1990, was well-known in certain circles.

Professor Stein worked as the leader of the F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. project. He published an 800-page paper regarding the project that was co-written by Jason Rusch. Wishing to get help for it, he went to an unspecified source.

The day of the accident at S.T.A.R. Labs and afterwards
Martin Stein was on the train back to Central City, the same train Barry Allen rode from his trip back from Starling City. They both interacted, discussing the theories of Albert Einstein and Barry's own girlfriend problems.



That night, Martin was near S.T.A.R. Labs and happened to be in the middle of an anti-particle accelerator protest. With the accelerator on, he dropped his Firestorm Matrix and the wave (containing particles of Ronnie Raymond) hit him, fusing the two together. Martin Stein was considered "missing" ever since.

One month later, Stein (in Ronnie's body) found himself trashed. He went back to his wife, who obviously could not recognize him as he took on the appearance of a stranger, forcing him to flee from their house and live on the streets.

Close to the one year anniversary of the S.T.A.R. Labs incident, Ronnie's subconscious loosely gained minimal control of his own body and revealed himself (with Stein still the prominent conscious) to Caitlin Snow. Afterwards Caitlin and Cisco Ramon became persistent on finding Ronnie, not knowing that Martin was the one in most of the control of Ronnie's body. They wanted to help him but he refused. Later when The Flash was about to be killed by the Reverse-Flash, Stein came to his aid by blasting the speedster off of him. He then told Caitlin not to look for him again before flying off.

Stein, still in Ronnie's body, later came to his old schoolmate Quentin Quale asking him for help but ended up losing control of his powers and severely burned Quale to a critical condition. Team Flash eventually tracked him down and managed to persuade him to come in, thanks to Clarissa. As the team did test on Stein, they discovered that Ronnie's body was becoming unstable and that he would eventually explode. Hearing this, Stein traveled as far as he could from the city to avoid harming anyone. Caitlin and Barry tracked him down and tried to prevent him from exploding by putting a device on his chest, which didn't seem to work at first, as the explosion still happened with Barry and Caitlin barely escaping the blast.

They succeeded in separating. However, Martin and Ronnie maintained synchrony in their brain waves, enabling them to communicate telepathically to a degree. General Wade Eiling eventually sought to kidnap both of them to experiment on, succeeding in kidnapping Martin. Barry and Ronnie went to rescue Martin. While Barry was occupied, Martin and Ronnie were cornered, and forced to merge. However, this time, having accepted each other and achieved balance, both of their minds were active on a conscious level. Although Ronnie was in control of the Firestorm body this time, Martin was still active to communicate with one another telepathically. With the use of the device, they were able join and separate at will and separated after the incident. Ultimately, they chose to visit a colleague of Martin Stein's in Pittsburgh to get a better understanding of their condition. Having decided this, they joined again to become Firestorm and flew off.

Later when Barry realized he was too slow for the Reverse-Flash he called Firestorm and Oliver Queen / The Arrow to help him in his upcoming fight against him. When Wells arrived at S.T.A.R. Labs to use the particle accelerator the Flash confronted him and Firestorm and Arrow son joined him, but Wells was unimpressed and fought all 3 of them. When Flash was down Firestorm distracted Reverse-Flash so Arrow could shoot him with a special arrow to disable his speed, but Reverse-Flash used his tornado powers to send Firestorm blocks away. Flash quickly recovered him and stopped him falling to his death and resumed the fight shooting a massive ball of fire at Reverse-Flash atop S.T.A.R. Labs when Flash lead him up there, causing him to fall on a car where Arrow finally finished him off with an arrow and made him pass out. Having defeated the Reverse-Flash, the Arrow parted ways with Flash while Firestorm remained.

While incarcerated inside the Particle Accelerator, Eobard Thwane revealed his plan of having Barry Allen opening up wormhole inside the accelerator in order for him to time-travel back to the future. Eobard proposed that when the wormhole opened, Barry should use it to travel back to the night when his mother got killed and prevent her assassination. Hearing this proposal, Martin discussed the complications, calming that if Barry does decide to prevent Nora's death then his entire life and all of the current history up to that point would be completely erased and Barry would never have met all the people in his new life as The Flash. However, Martin remained uncertain as to the full extant of the repercussions.

Doctor Stein began analyzing the variables of the wormhole in order to verify Thawne's claims, working alongside Eobard's distant grandfather, Eddie Thawne. Eddie immediately felt unqualified to help so he decided to leave, but he is stopped by Martin who said that he is equally important as anyone else. Eddie gave a rebuttal by mentioning Eobard's claims about the future, how Eddie failed to accomplish anything in his life. However, Martin dismissed these claims by pointing out to Eddie the incredible coincidence of him and his distant grandson existing in the same moment in time and that he is the only person in that era who Eobard is incapable of killing. Martin believed that Eddie is the only individual in this entire scenario he exhibits free-will. Just as encouraged Eddie to stay, Martin noticed that one of the possible outcomes of opening up the wormhole would be the creation of a singularity, a black-hole capable of swallowing the entire planet and he immediately warns the rest of the team.

Personality
Martin is a pacifist, having protested the Vietnam War. He also hated pizza before merging with Ronnie. After merging he picked up some of Ronnie's characteristics, such as obsession with pizza. Martin is also shown to have a childish and laid back personality. One example was when he stated he was "game" if Ronnie was also willing to try to separate. He is also shown to have a sense of humor, telling Ronnie they should not fight on their wedding day shortly before officiating Caitlyn and Ronnie's marriage. He also believed that any relationship should be prioritized above everything else.

On his first encounter, he is shown being cold towards Team Flash's camaraderie, asking if they were going to start chanting soon. However, after being rescued by the Flash, with the help of the team, he seems to have warmed up to the idea of the collaboration. This is even more apparent when he returns with Ronnie to help Barry. Not only does he help Barry travel back in time, he also helps a disheartened Eddie understand his role in everything that was happening.

Powers

 * Firestorm Matrix: When Martin merges with Ronnie Raymond, the two create the nuclear-powered composite being Firestorm
 * Psychic link: Ronnie Raymond can hear Martin's disembodied voice while the two of them are merged into Firestorm. Even when they are separated, their link allows them limited communication of sensations or emotions.

Skills

 * Skilled in using Morse code:  Martin is familiar enough and able to construct Morse code messages without having to look it up.
 * Expert in quantum physics: Martin's profound knowledge of the subject is shown by the many awards he won; not only is he good at theorizing, his project, F.I.R.E.S.T.O.R.M. has demonstrated a practice that has yet to be successfully done by mankind. He is also especially interested in the concept of time travel and has several ideas on this topic alone.
 * Indomitable will/Tolerance for pain: After getting captured by general Eiling, he was tortured in order to get the secrets of firestorm, so they could weaponize it. However he resisted (something even Eiling was surprised of) without saying a word.
 * Rabbinical Knowledge: Having attended a seminary or a Jewish theological college, Martin has become a fully legitimate Rabbi, and as such, he is able to read in Hebrew and is licensed to pronounce marriage.
 * Bilingual: Martin is fluent in both American English and Hebrew.

Weaknesses

 * Ionized radiation: The Firestorm Matrix can be destabilized by bombarding its cellular structure with ionized radiation, temporarily disabling Firestorm's powers.[6] Though it will not separate Ronnie and Stein it will cancel Firestorm's powers for a small amount of time.

Behind the scenes

 * In the DC comics, Dr. Martin Stein became one half of the nuclear superhero Firestorm when he was combined with Ronnie Raymond after an explosion at a nuclear facility. Similar to how the Flash tapped in to the Speed Force for his powers, Firestorm used the Firestorm Matrix to transmute elements.