Head Gasket experts...check in....

From what I can tell from the pics, it doesn’t look like heat burned through the fire ring.
It looks like the fire ring wasn’t holding a seal, and the escaping combustion gasses torched the paper/rubber part of gasket that’s out past the fire ring.

It’s a common area for a SB Mopar head gasket to fail since it doesn’t have a lot of area to be squeezed between the block and head, so it doesn’t have a very good way to transfer/dissipate the heat out of the gasket body into the block and heads.
The material the Cometics are made of will be able to withstand the higher temps better.

Fundamentally, I think it’s likely a tune up issue.
Whether that’s from a faulty timing light, weak fuel pump, bad batch of fuel, etc..... who knows.
But I think a Cometic would have a better chance of surviving it.