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| “ | I sell purpose. These people got nothing. Maybe they lost a job or a house or a kid to oxy. Politicians don't give a shit, mainstream media tells them to be ashamed of their skin color so, well, I bring 'em together, tell them a story, give them a purpose. Which would you rather believe? That you belong to a community of warriors battling a secret evil, or that you're a lonely, inconsequential nobody that no one will ever remember? | „ |
| ~ Firecracker explaining her "occupation" to Sister Sage. |
| “ | We wake up to a new world. Where hope, purity and Jesus' love shine down upon us all. Where children can sleep peacefully in their mother's life, knowing Starlight's pedo agenda has been thwarted. [...] Where America finally sees the Woke Mob by what it is: monsters that want to destroy our heritage, traffic our children, and feminize our men! Where, with Homelander's guidance... we will all come together in unity. [...] We will make America strong again, proud again... And most of all, we will make America super again. | „ |
| ~ Firecracker's "Make America Super Again" speech after Homelander's rise to power. |
Misty Tucker Gray, better known as Firecracker, is one of the two secondary antagonists (alongside Victoria Neuman) of Season 4 of the 2019 Amazon TV adaptation from the comic book series The Boys. She is the archenemy of Starlight.
In her youth, she was the heroine known as Sparkler and was a part of the same Christian Supe pageants as Starlight. After the former spread indecent rumours about her, her reputation was permanently ruined, leading her down into a darker path. Since then, she became a redneck alt-right online conspiracy theorist who amassed a large cult following, and eventually was recruited into the Seven by Sister Sage for her charisma, influence, and hostile relationship with Starlight herself.
She is portrayed by Valorie Curry, who also played Emma Hill in The Following.
Personality[]
Firecracker is extremely racist, transphobic, homophobic, judgmental, and hypocritical. While she admits to not believing the more outlandish conspiracies she propagates, she is still incredibly intolerant (calling Sister Sage "one of the good ones," clearly implying a bigoted view on African Americans). She seems indifferent to her audience at best - and disgusted at worst - since she views them only as props to advance her own reputation and success.
She is irrationally petty, vindictive, immature, and vile. While her adolescent past in which Starlight orchestrated a cruel bullying and false allegation of sexual misconduct against her does result in an understandable level of grudge, her execution of vengeance far exceeds the original crime; Starlight did the wrong thing as a child pressured by her overly competitive mother, and didn't realize the consequences of her actions, whereas adult Firecracker is free from external input and does realize the consequences and is in fact aiming towards them, hoping to destroy her childhood rival's entire life. She relentlessly spews endless false accusations of drug peddling, thievery, fraud, child prostitution, murder, and money laundering; then, from access to Vought resources, she publicly exposed Starlight's abortion, not only forcing an emotionally devastating event into public scrutiny, but also recontextualizing it as evidence of her being a "baby-killer." All of which she does will malicious glee, and zero empathy.
Her spiteful attitude is emphasized when Starlight tries to apologize for her past misdeeds, as she not only rejects the attempts, she counters with an insistence about her aims to destroy her life.
Despite proclaiming strong Christian values, it is apparent that it is merely a smokescreen that she uses to not just ensnare a fundamentalist audience, but also excuse any wrong she may have committed, such as refusing to take responsibility for her statutory rape of a teenage boy, as she deceptively yet successfully frames it as some sort of noble trial that Jesus Christ sent (the irony of this crime is that she was once falsely accused of undertaking it, except as a *willing* victim). She may be attracted to Homelander because of his power, or may be just aiming to increase her portfolio; regardless, another hypocrisy as she condemns sex outside of marriage, yet hopes to seduce Homelander, thus she betrays her own cited morals if it can help her gain clout.
Her superpowers thus far are either weak or hidden; either way, whenever danger confronts her, she immediately falls into cowardice, and desperately tries to escape. When engaging in violence, she relies entirely on firearms, which reinforced the likelihood that her powers are ineffectual.
She seems to be adept at flaring up the emotions of her extremist audience, as well as provoking emotional breakdowns in her targets. However, it seems like her arrogance or unexceptional intellect can make her underestimate how extreme the reactions in her victims will be, because when Starlight finally confronted her, she seemed shocked upon receiving a brutal beating.
Even though she is horribly racist and cruel, Firecracker does appear to hold one redeeming quality, which is an aversion to actual violence and murder. When Homelander brutally split Webweaver's torso in half, she was visibly distressed and horrified, which is notable since she is typically enthralled by Homelander, believing him to be infallible, and yet she didn't appear to agree with his murdering. Arguably, she could be okay with death, but she is only unable to be witness of it when it is particularly gruesome.
Biography[]
Early life[]
Just like every other Supe, Firecracker's parents allowed her to be subjected to a dose of Compound V by Vought-International just after her birth, which granted her the ability to generate sparks, as well as enhanced strength and durability.
She comes from a very poor family, which didn't even have a backyard for her to practice her routines for the Supe Pageants. In spite of this, she was extremely talented and worked hard to beat her peers for the next 3 years, to no avail. One of these peers was none other than Starlight.
In one of these pageants, she had made it into the finals, where she would face off with Starlight. Unfortunately, just before the event, Annie spread the rumor that the only reason why someone like her made it this far into the competition was because she had been bribing the judges with sexual favors, despite her only being 13 at the time.
When she confronted her about the rumor, Starlight only insulted her further, calling her a fat slut and refusing to talk to her. Obviously, a rumor of such gravity wouldn't die down just like that, so it kept tormenting her until she was forced to drop out the pageant circuit altogether. It is because of this rumor that she decides to antagonize Starlight and her followers, accusing them of sodomizing children, paralleling Starlight's claims about her.
Truthbomb with Firecracker[]
It is later revealed that when she was 28 years old, she worked for the Christian-Supe movement, Capes with Christ, where she would meet a 15-year-old boy and eventually have intimate relationships with him, which would be recorded by an unknown party.
Years later, she would start an YouTube channel named "Truthbomb with Firecracker", where she would spew out conspiracy theories and flat-out lies to her public to give them "purpose" in their miserable life, to the point of becoming a leading voice in the "Alt-Supe" internet movement. Though it's hinted that she doesn't truly believe in most of the things she says and that she's only saying them to appeal to her followers and for revenge, she doesn't seem to care, instead enjoying telling them the "truth" as she puts it.
In her time as an online personality, she would meet and befriend a like-minded fellow Supe by the alias of Splinter, who saw her as an obsession and as a love interest, which she selectively elects to ignore.
The Seven[]
She was eventually recruited by Sister Sage to join the Seven.
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Powers and Abilities[]
- Sparkle Generation: She is able to generate sparks by snapping her fingers.
- Superhuman Strength: Like most Supes she has superhuman strength making her stronger than humans and some Supes, as shown when she manages to fight superhumanly strong Supes like Kimiko.
- Superhuman Durability: Like most Supes she has superhuman durability making her more durable than humans and some supes, as shown when she resists Kimiko's superhuman attacks and blows and can also withstand being thrown through a wall.
- Regenerative Healing Factor: Firecracker has a healing factor that allows her to recover faster compared to ordinary humans as shown when she recovers in just one day from the injuries Starlight caused.
- Superhuman Hearing: Firecracker possesses superhuman hearing, allowing her to hear better than humans. Like all Supes, she can hear higher frequencies that humans cannot.
Weaknesses[]
- Her powers: Despite situations in which she should use her powers to defend herself or follow Homelander's execution edict, she doesn't use them, and her main method of attack is just using a gun.
- Cocktail of medication: The collection of drugs that she took to induce lactation indicated negative side effects, as she began to look noticeably pale (needing above average level of make-up for her show) and periodically coughs without known reason.
- Arrogance: She displays an overconfidence that far exceeds her capacities. When Sister Sage set her up to provoke Starlight enough to trigger an attack, Firecracker failed to understand that she was being set up and failed to expect Starlight would actually hurt her. Due to becoming Homelander's new "mother" she became excessively smug and condescending towards others - more so than before - and she seems to overestimate her value to Homelander, as she missed the facts that his attitude remained fairly hostile away from feedings, and his disgust at her cough displayed an irrational selfishness and disregard for her.
Quotes[]
| “ | Firecracker: I just want you to know that I will forever be your most loyal servant. Homelander: Okay. |
„ |
| ~ Firecracker's advances getting ignored by Homelander, as well as her most infamous quote. |
| “ | Sage: Hmm. Is this your angry look, or did Starlight fuck up your face? Firecracker: You know, if you weren’t Homelander’s right-hand bitch, I’d take you out behind the woodshed and whup your ass. Sage: Mm, sounds on-brand. Firecracker: You set me up to get my ass beat. Sage: And you fell for it. But, hey, now you don’t have to play a victim. You can really be one. Firecracker: Y’all just think I’m stupid poor white trash. Sage: I don’t think you’re poor. Firecracker: Underestimate me all you want. Makes it that much easier to stick a fucking shiv in your back. |
„ |
| ~ Firecracker and Sage arguing. |
| “ | So either Sage was lyin' to you, or she's as useless as tits on a mouse. | „ |
| ~ Firecracker tries to turn Homelander against Sage. |
Trivia[]
- Firecracker is a villainous parody of Jubilee from Marvel Comics.
- Jubilee herself has occasionally been referred to as "Firecracker" but it's likely that this is just a coincidence.
- Ironically, Valorie Curry is a lesbian in real-life, where in the show she is portraying an alt-right propagandist. Despite this, she says that she connected with the character.
- In an interview with showrunner, Eric Kripke, stated that one source of inspiration for Firecracker was U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia, Marjorie Taylor Greene; both are far-right conspiracy theorists who spread misinformation and engage in xenophobic, homophobic, and transphobic rhetoric. Her name, "Misty Tucker Gray," also has the same initials as Marjorie Taylor Greene.
- "You have these Trump spawn that are trying to outdo each other for how outrageous and sexualized and gun-toting and slavishly obedient they can be. And just that idea — it wouldn’t just start and end with Homelander, he would start to create these spores that would grow into these other characters, and she’s a version of that.", a quote from Eric Kripke.
- Firecracker and Stormfront share very notorious parallels, almost making her a lesser version of the latter.
- Prior to being recruited to The Seven, they were both online personalities with a massive following. However, while Stormfront was more subtle about her bigoted views to cater to a larger audience to later radicalize them, Firecracker made her entire online presence revolve around them and by consequence only amassed an already bigoted audience.
- While they both are extremely xenophobic, antisemitic, racist, and homophobic, Firecracker is only an alt-right political grifter who's implied to not fully believe everything she talks about, while Stormfront was an actual member of the Nazi Party.
- Both of them have seduced Homelander to sleep with them; not only did Stormfront was the only one to succeed while Firecracker was completely ignored, but she also permanently changed him and his worldview, making him more jaded and bigoted than he already was.
- These parallels actually extend beyond fiction, since Stormfront's actress, Aya Cash, a Jewish actress, was portraying an actual member of the Nazi Party, and Valorie Curry, an LGBT person in real life, is portraying a homophobic alt-right activist.
