A devout Catholic social worker of Mexican ancestry, Bonita Juarez was wandering her beloved desert outside Albuquerque when a fiery meteor struck mere feet away from her. Miraculously unharmed, Bonita discovered she now had supernatural power over flame, which she used days later to foil a convenience store robbery. Described as "Pajaro Del Fuego" by one of the robbers, Juarez took the costumed alias Firebird and protected the American Southwest, both alone and as a member of the short-lived Rangers team. Later, after she was attacked by the demonic Master Pandemonium, Bonita tracked and fought him alongside the new West Coast Avengers roster. Eager to join their ranks, Bonita aided them against other foes such as the Werewolf and the Cat People, but team leader Hawkeye passed over her in favor of the Thing. Firebird's subsequent attempt to revive the Rangers was a failure (though she did succeed in exposing the demonic possession of her old teammate Shooting Star), and she soon left on a spiritual retreat.
Returning in a more overtly religious guise as Espirita, Bonita helped a depressed Hank Pym rebuild his life, sharing a brief romance with him. She also helped rescue the West Coast Avengers from Dominus' time travel trap, using a message from Hawkeye entrusted to her family over two hundred years earlier. She later met SHIELD (the Society of Higher Interstellar Education and Logistical Development), a group of alien scholars who claimed the meteor that empowered her was waste material from one of their failed experiments. Bonita accepted the revelation as a lesson in humility, comforting herself with the belief that God might still be the author of her powers, albeit more indirectly than she had first imagined.
Resuming her original alias as Firebird, she returned to her career as a social worker and became an Avengers reservist, aiding the team against various foes such as the Awesome Android, the Acts of Vengeance conspiracy, Atlantean invaders, SURF, Morgan Le Fay, and Dominex, and helping monitor the captured Bloodwraith and an alien invasion of Madripoor. She has declined several offers of full-time Avengers membership as she is devoted to her church work, but she did temporarily join the active roster for the duration of the Kang Dynasty war, helping liberate Earth and successfully counseling a disillusioned Thor.
During the Civil War Firebird registered with the SHRA but following the news of Goliath’s death traveled to New York and joined the "Secret Avengers". After Captain America’s Surrender Bonita was one of the many people who excepted amnesty and now serves the Initiative as one of the Texas Rangers.
