Origin
Isaiah Crockett (Hotspot) was born and raised in a middle class family. Although his mom did know that Isaiah Crockett was going to be born, he didn’t know her son’s true origin. Apparently Isaiah Crockett was part human and also part H’San Natall (an alien race), making him a human-alien hybrid. The father of Isaiah became a great inspiration to Isaiah, he always taught him the difference between right and wrong. Another one of Isaiah Crockett’s qualities was that he was a genius, in fact he was so smart that when he was sixteen he was invited to take classes in a college, he tried to enter college, however in his first day his powers manifested for the first time changing his life forever.
After Isaiah Crockett’s powers started to manifest, his body started to create heat based powers, seconds after that both him and a de-aged Ray Palmer were teleported into an alien ship. The alien ship was from the race known as H’San Natall, it was there where Isaiah Crockett would meet other teenagers that would soon become his teammates as the newest incarnation of the Teen Titans.
Discovering the Truth
It was during this adventure that Isaiah Crockett would discover along with the other teenagers their true origin. They learned that they were hybrids, they were half alien and half human. The reason behind this was that the people of H’San Natall had impregnated their mothers sixteen years ago. The motives of this was that they needed humans that would all be born on June 21st and that when they turned 16 they would get their powers and kill all metahumans and other super powered beings on Earth so that the people of H’San Natall were able to take control of the planet.
Teen Titans
The group of teenagers decided that they would stay together and form their own superhero group, after this they received the funding of a former ally of the original Teen Titans, Loren Jupiter ( Mr. Jupiter). Thanks to his money and their powers they decided to form the newest incarnation of the Teen Titans lead by the de-aged Ray Palmer. Each one of the members choose a code-name. Isaiah Crockett decided to take the name of Slager, in part because of his powers, however upon his dad’s request Isaiah Crockett decided to take the code-name Joto, the Swahili word for heat.
Death
Some time later the Teen Titans would have a fight with Loren Jupiter’s (Mr. Jupiter) son, Jarrod Jupiter ( Haze).
It was during this fight that Joto would sacrifice himself in order to save Loren Jupiter from an attack of his son. After Haze’s (Jarrod Jupiter) attack hit Isaiah Crockett (Joto) his body started to burn leaving it with lethal burns which seemingly killed him.
The Return
However, fate had other plans for Joto, although it looked like Joto was murdered by Haze. Using his last energies Joto was able to touch Prysm’s cheek which gave him the opportunity to send his life essence using a heat pulse into Prysm’s body before he died.
After this the life essence of Joto stayed undetected into the body of Prysm until the day that both the H’San Natall and the veil attacked the Teen Titans once again.
Using their technology, The H’san Natall had been to able to reanimate the dead body of Joto, the reason behind this is that they wanted to take control over it and use it as a killing machine against the teen titans and the rest of the metahumans on Earth. Soon after this, Prysm was able to get close enough to Joto’s reanimated body and transfer back the essence of Isaiah Crockett into his old body. Thanks to the combined effort of both Superman and the Teen Titans, the H’san Natall made an agreement with Earth to stop any future aggression to each other.
Just after this the team broke up, Prysm and Fringe decided to remain in space, and the rest of the team just decided to leave the hero business and each one departed in his/her own way. Isaiah decided to return to college and also go back to his family and reveal to them that he had been revived.
The Technis Imperative
Some time later Cyberion (Cyborg) would return to Earth to rebuild the reign of the Technis and populate the Earth’s moon with the members of the Teen Titans, past and present. However, thanks to the fact that he had given up to his humanity he didn’t remember his friends, so instead of kidnapping only them he captured everyone who had ever been a Teen Titan.
During this conflict the Teen Titans and the Justice League of America entered in conflict. The reason for their confrontation was that the teen titans wanted to save Cyberion (Cyborg) before doing anything else, while the Justice League of America wanted to ensure the Earth’s security even if that required to sacrifice Cyberion (Cyborg). In the end both teams worked together and were able to both protect the Earth while saving Cyborg from being destroyed
A Titan Again
After the events of Infinite Crisis, the DC universe skipped one year of continuity. During the lost year Issaiah Crockett became a hero once again and also a very brief member of the Teen Titans.
It was during this time that Isaiah Crockett took the new codename of Hotspot, which was his name used in the Teen Titans animated series. He also took an appearance similar to the one used in the show.
Post Flashpoint
Hot Spot first appeared in Metropolis fighting Replicant, Hot Spot was saved by Sideways as Relicant was about to kill him. Some time later Hot Spot checked into The Sanctuary where he was killed along other heroes by The Crisis Killer.
Powers
Initially, Isaiah only was able to increase the temperature of objects he physically touched, His costume was equipped with a wrist cannon. This cannon could fire objects that were superheated by his powers. He could also send out and reabsorb heat pulses to create a sonar-like effect that enabled him to see through solid objects.
After One Year Later, he became more powerful, where he gains the ability to fly and surround him self with fire.
Other Media
Joto appeared in one episode of the second season of the Teen Titans animated series, he was one of the contestants in the tournament between young heroes along with Robin, Beast Boy, Cyborg, Gizmo, Aqualad, Speedy and Wildebeest in the episode “Winner takes all”. His voice was provided by Bumper Robinson. He was defeated by Robin in the first round of the tournament making him be eliminated and imprisoned by the master of games.
Hotspot would later return in an episode of the fifth season of the animated series. That episode was named “Trust” and it was completely focused to Hotspot, in this episode Madame Rouge wants to capture Hotspot and take his titan communicator to track any member of the teen titans around the world. However this turns to be a very difficult job for Madame Rouge because of Hotspot’s powers. After a confrontation Robin gives Hotspot another communicator because the original was destroyed, however it was revealed that the Hotspot that received the communicator from Robin was really Madame Rouge pretending to be Hotspot thanks to her powers and that the real Hotspot was captured by the Brotherhood of Evil.
It was asked to the producer of the animated series (David Slack) why his name and appearance was changed for the Teen Titans animated series.
David Slack says:
“Then there’s Hotspot. He was Joto originally, and then we learned what that meant in Spanish and changed his name.”
What the producer meant was that although in English the name Joto is a scientific term, in Spanish it’s used as a term to insult homosexuals.
After this change for the Teen Titans animated series, it was decided that in the comics Isaiah Crockett would take the codename Hotspot as well as his appearance to prevent any insult to homosexuals.