What did Hal learn in his hard travelin' days? Good question.

I wish I remembered what I thought of this issue when it came out. From 1987, Firestorm #66, "Out of Control" Written by John Ostrander, pencils by Joe Brozowski, inks by Sam de la Rosa. 

This was about a year and a half into Firestorm's current status quo: after getting nuked with Russian super-powered conscript Pozhar, the Firestorm matrix had changed. Dr. Stein was MIA, Pozhar had seemingly lost his powers but as Mikhail Arkadin was now part of Firestorm, along with Ronnie Raymond. Trouble was, neither of them was in the driver's seat! This Firestorm seemed to be a blank slate. While Mikhail is grilled by the KGB but eventually allowed to see his family; Ronnie's family stages an intervention: he was not dealing with the situation well, since he didn't even know what triggered the transformation.

Ronnie goes for a sulk-walk; so he's nearby when three black gents drive into a bad neighborhood. At a gas station, one is doused in gas by a racist attendant, who then cries wolf and claims they were going to rob him. White guys come out of the woodwork for that, although I don't think any of them really believe it. Two of the black men are badly beaten, while the third flees torching by running onto the freeway. Seeing him in danger, Ronnie seems to trigger the transformation: Mikhail disappears from Russia, and the strangely disaffected Firestorm appears to save the fleeing man. The mob flees, but then take some shots that ricochet into the gas pumps. Firestorm has the fleeing man and his friends in a bubble, and the man encourages Firestorm to let it burn.

Enter Green Lantern, who starts putting out the blaze. Furious, the man then convinces Firestorm to stop Green Lantern: Hal tries to remind him they were on the Justice League together, but he doesn't remember. Hal argues it's wrong to force their will on society--and I'm not sure the old Firestorm would've agreed, since he had been trying to end nuclear weapons--and stricken with indecision, Firestorm splits. The fleeing man checks on his friends; one of whom had died: if he had gotten him to the hospital sooner, instead of watching the fire, could he have been saved? Hal gets the other friend to the hospital, with some closing advice.

As J.J. Birch, Brozowski was the artist for Xombi, one of my favorite series ever; but I think he might've had more of a Neal Adams-influence earlier and he might be leaning into it here. While usually I'd take a shot (or another shot!) at Hal, there's no way he could've known the situation on the ground when he went to stop the fire. Should Firestorm have stopped it? ...yes. Too great of a chance the fire would hurt innocents; it wasn't a magic blaze that only burned racists. But I understand the temptation, especially nowadays. I wonder if I did in 1987...