Blackfire
Blackfire is a supervillain featured as part of the wider DC universe, most well-known for being the antagonistic elder sister of Starfire. She first made her debut in 1982 as part of The New Teen Titans run of comics, which had just prior introduced Starfire as a principal member of the then-latest incarnation of the titular Teen Titans team. This run would go on to be the primary comic inspiration for the 2003 show Teen Titans, which introduced the most well-known incarnation of Blackfire in its second episode, "Sisters". The episode had her befriending the other Teen Titans before it was revealed she had secretly planned to have Starfire framed for her crimes. She would make a later appearance in the episode "Betrothed" as the Grand Ruler of Tamaran, attempting and failing to use Starfire in a forced engagement plot.
Cunning and often remorseless, Blackfire is about as recognizable for her manipulation as much as her potent set of superpowers. Despite not having as much exposure as a lot of her DC contemporaries, Blackfire has still retained reasonable popularity and been paired alongside her sister many times both in official and fan contexts.
Tournament History edit
Blackfire has managed to be repeatedly nominated since at least 2020, where she ended up as exactly the 200th character per that year's qualifier results. She had remained in the top 200 the following three years, and got extremely close to qualifying in 2021 in possible relation to her sister sitting out that year due to the Elite Eight rule. Despite this, she failed to break into the tournament bracket for the first six years of Ms. /co/'s run.
After several attempts, Blackfire finally qualified for the very first time during Ms. /co/ 2024 as the 72nd seed, a fair jump from her previous high of 131st during 2021. Her rise to the bracket could be attributed to several different factors: Raven sitting out the year due to the aforementioned Elite Eight rule, the higher amount of voters in 2024 following prior drops that hit a low the prior year in large part from a couple of now-fired host NightShiftAnon's controversial changes, and just a generally better showing from comic picks across the board in both major tournaments that year. Whatever the case, this marked her first tournament berth to date. After a blowout against fellow 2024 newcomer Mama Bravo, Blackfire would begin her run as a (fittingly) dark horse candidate. She had two very close calls against Ty Lee and returning 2022 Elite Eight member Nani Pelekai, with the latter being won by a mere eight votes. The latter win marked her debut into the Elite Eight, making her one of two newcomers that year to achieve that outcome along with the far-higher seeded and previously hyped up Pomni.
As she defied the odds and proved to be a potent contender, Blackfire started gaining more vocal support in the threads. Some argued potentially in jest that the GIF chosen for her during nominations was giving her a boost, but this was presumably taken almost non-seriously. Out of the top eight girls in the tournament, she was considered the most surprising out of them to make it that far. As a consequence of this, however, she didn't seem to rank as a particularly popular pick to outright win going off responses during quarterfinals. Many had anticipated the possibility of a sister showdown between Starfire and Blackfire during the quarterfinals, but this was prevented by Frankie Foster taking down Starfire during the fourth round. Frankie would go on to then usurp Blackfire the following round and end up winning the entire tournament. Despite this loss, Blackfire would end up still receiving fair honors as the tournament's 5th place.
It remains to be seen if Blackfire will make a return or match her 2024 levels of success. Either way, her next chance to qualify will be during Ms. /co/ 2026.
Results edit
| Ms. /co/ | |||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024 - seed 72 | |||||||||||||||||||
| Round | Opponent | Series | Votes | Pct. For | |||||||||||||||
| Round 1 | (118)  Mama Bravo
|
Johnny Bravo | 653 - 323 | 66.9% | |||||||||||||||
| Round 2 | (110)  Sandy Cheeks
|
SpongeBob SquarePants | 445 - 347 | 56.2% | |||||||||||||||
| Round 3 | (30)  Ty Lee
|
Avatar: The Last Airbender | 350 - 332 | 51.3% | |||||||||||||||
| Round 4 | (66)  Nani Pelekai
|
Lilo & Stitch | 349 - 341 | 50.6% | |||||||||||||||
| Quarterfinals | (2)  Frankie Foster
|
Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends | 285 - 432 | 39.7% | |||||||||||||||
| 5th-8th match | (1)  ENA(8)  Pomni(17)  Kim Possible
|
ENA The Amazing Digital Circus Kim Possible |
??? | (5th place) | |||||||||||||||
