Snowflame: The Walking Anti-Drug PSA That Has a Small Cult Following

        Superheroes are one of the most iconic parts of modern pop culture. I mean, sure, we do have a little bit of that post-Endgame superhero fatigue since the entire MARVEL universe was supposed to, you know, end, but when they were in their prime, it was amazing to see. I remember watching Age of Ultron, being amazed at how many heroes were battling it out. However, something that often goes under-appreciated is the villains. Hell, some of my favorite characters of all time are some of the villains of their respective story: Gregorio from Gitaroo Man, Giygas from Earthbound, Tenna from Deltarune 3, the Simulacrum's message from Simulacra is something I somehow get behind, a total online utopia sounds amazing, actually. Just remove all of the AI stuff and microtransactions and ragebait... yeah there's a reason why he's a villain. The superhero world has some of the most iconic villains, though: Joker, Bane, Darkseid, Thanos, Doc-ock, it's amazing. But there is one supervillain that baffles me ever since I watched a video essay on him: Snowflame.

        PSAs have always been an infamous part of culture. "This is your brain," Peewee tells people not to do crack, Captain Lou as Mario saying, "You'll go to hell before you die," such weird stuff. However, a question that no one asked until DC did in the 80s was, "What if we combined these anti-drug PSAs into superheroes? What would that look like?" Snowflame was the answer, a quite literal cracked-out maniac who daylights as a tyrannical owner of a drug ring and moonlights as a pyrokinetic madman. His entire gimmick was that he did cocaine to get his superpowers, and it is a frenzy every time.

        Snowflame debuted in issue 02 of The New Guardians, an obscure, short-lived DC comic series from the 80's where... racial stereotypes fight STD monsters... yeah you can tell something went wrong. What DC was trying to do was make a comic series that was... I guess relevant to the news of the time? All I know is that in issue 01, a canonically gay character gets an STD from the Hemogoblin, the aforementioned STD monster... MOVING SWIFTLY ON, we have issue 02, Jungle Snow, where we get introduced to the man himself.

        Now for an origin story of my own, during the summer, I was really into this YouTuber Huggbees (The "How It's Actually Made Guy"). I didn't watch How It's Actually Made because what interested me more was his other content, video essays about deleted weird Wiki articles, and unorthodox ways that people have died. He had a small series on his channel dedicated to oddball superhero comics: A product placement comic series starring famous athletes and disgraced spokesperson Jared Fogle, instances of Superman acting selfish, the time Spiderman tried to get deep, and of course, Snowflame, the Cocaine Powered Supervillian. His portrayal of the character was top-notch, his wild screaming set to a fast metal backing track, and he even cites himself as reigniting interest in this walking anti-drug PSA. Part of it because: "Snowflame makes cocaine look awesome," his words. I also fell in love with Snowflame, not just because of the weird concept that shouldn't work but somehow does, but because he's an insane maniac that couldn't be stopped. "May this fire burn everlasting. Now I am a true god!"

        There have been small attempts to put the limelight back on this niche part of superhero history, the Huggbees video being the most notable, and as covered in the video, he made an appearance in Catwoman issue 23: What Happens in the Jungle Slays in the Jungle, and its succeeding issue. This was thanks to Blake Northcott, who commented on the Huggbees video. She wrote the Catwoman issues Snowflame was in, and appears to be one of the biggest advocates for keeping the white hot fires of ecstasy going. Since that video, he's made a cameo in a comic called Peacemaker Tries Hard, he's made a cameo in the Harley Quinn cartoon, and, something I was most hoping for, someone has cosplayed him a Comic-Con this year, and got a selfie with Northcott.

        So yeah. There's the story of one of my favorite villains of all time. Because of his oddball-ness, obscurity, and general insanity. You've seen before you a man on fire, a man who craves any excuse to burn brighter. This was the story of Snowflame, the oddest PSA ever.