Stephen King is primarily a prose writer, but he loves comic books too. He's dipped his toes into the graphic medium, contributing to 1985 one-shot "Heroes for Hope: Starring the X-Men" (a "comic jam" featuring writing from Alan Moore and George R. R. Martin too), and co-creating the horror comic "American Vampire" with Scott Snyder.

Before those, King's eighth novel -- "Firestarter" -- was him telling a superhero story in the horror space. "Firestarter" follows the McGees, a father (Andy) and daughter (Charlie) on the run from a government agency called the Shop. Years prior, Andy and his wife Vicky volunteered for experiments with the drug Lot 6, which turned him into a psychic and made Charlie born a "firestarter," able to spark flames with a thought.

King's seventh novel, "The Dead Zone," was about a man gaining clairvoyance and ultimately trying to assassinate a political candidate he foresees causing a nuclear war. "Firestarter" feels like a spiritual sequel, sharing psychic protagonists and a post-Watergate cynicism of government. (In a "Firestarter" afterword, King cites the CIA's real MKUltra drug experiments as an influence.)

Like most King books, "Firestarter" has been adapted to film -- first in 1984 (starring a young Drew Barrymore as Charlie), and then in 2022. Neither film version is too beloved (/Film's review of the 2022 "Firestarter" called it "lukewarm at best") and King himself disliked the '80s one. Watching it, one wonders if the premise was innately better suited for a book. Fire is such an visual horror, but you can only make a close-up stare of a little girl so scary once, let alone repeatedly.

Despite its rocky onscreen record, "Firestarter" dug its roots into pop culture. Wolverine's backstory, a superhuman a clandestine government group tried to make into a weapon, feels much like Charlie's. So does Eleven's (Millie Bobby Brown) in "Stranger Things." Elizabeth "Liz" Sherman, a pyrokinetic monster hunter in Mike Mignola's "Hellboy" comics, also feels like a grown-up Charlie McGee.