The Human Torch
After racing a missile, Johnny Storm, the Human Torch, heads for him and his sister Susan Storm's house in Glenville for the night. Johnny claims that the area has become more popular now that people know Sue, the Invisible Girl, lives there. However, they are unaware that Johnny is the Human Torch. Only 4 close friends knew his secret, but an editor's note tells us they have all moved away (these must be the friends we saw in FF #1, #3 & #4).
Inside his home, the Torch goes over his mostly asbestos covered room that Reed designed for him. A precaution in case Johnny accidentally flames on during the night. After getting ready for bed, the teen recalls the Fantastic Four's origins. The failed journey into space, the crash back to earth and the gaining of supernatural powers. As Johnny slips off to sleep, elsewhere in town a mysterious figure calling himself The Destroyer stalks a nearly completed amusement park.
The next morning, Johnny and some of his school mates walk past the same amusement park. That day at the local newspaper, the Glenville Gazette, the publisher, Charles Stanton, receives a note. It is from The Destroyer who threatens to strike if the amusement park is completed. Charles tosses the note away, who thinks it's just a prank. The following day as the roller coaster is tested, it breaks off of the track. Bystanders, including Johnny, look on in horror as the man starts to fall. Johnny uses smoke from a nearby pipe-smoker to camouflage himself as he flames on. The Human Torch rescues the plummeting park tester, then goes back into the smoke to change back into Johnny to keep his secret identity intact. The amusement park workers go over the track, but since they can't find a reason why it was sabotaged, they figure it was faulty construction.
The day after that, the Glennville Gazette receives yet another letter from The Destroyer. It claims responsibility for the roller coaster malfunction the previous day, and promises to strike again. Charles decides to take it more seriously, so he heads over to the park to let them know. The owner of the park tells Charles that he doesn't see any connection.
A few days later, Johnny and his friends visit the amusement park again. This time the workers are testing out the parachute jump ride (as seen on the cover). Again the ride starts to break apart. Johnny distracts the crowd's attention by shooting fireballs out of his fingers so he can go hide in a nearby fun house and flame on as the Human Torch. He uses his flame to weld together the base of the ride that is breaking apart. Before returning to his friends, he creates a flaming duplicate of himself. He uses this to distract the others so he can secretly change back to Johnny again. This new attack alerts the owner to realizing the note was serious after all.
More days later, Johnny reads a copy of the Gazette. He reads that The Destroyer has challenged him to a battle. The article dares the Torch to meet him at a cabin in the woods that night. As Johnny gets ready, there's a knock on his door. It's the Thing. He has come to help Johnny battle the Destroyer, but Johnny tells the Thing that he wants to fight him alone. After calling Johnny a stubborn brat, the Thing stomps off.
Later that night, as the Human Torch, Johnny spies the cabin where he is to meet The Destroyer. Peering through a window, he makes out a person sitting in a chair. Too dark to see any detail, the Torch creeps inside. He finds the sitting figure to be only a dummy. Suddenly liquid foam bursts from the wall and ceiling of the cabin, completely coating and dousing the lad's flames. The Destroyer, who is watching from outside, is preparing to finish Johnny off when he hears some teenagers approaching from a distance. This scares The Destroyer off. Johnny emerges from the cabin and asks the teenagers if they've seen the Torch in order to protect his secret identity.
Johnny goes back home. He tries to put together some clues to stop The Destroyer. It suddenly dawns on him that The Destroyer is only attacking the more elevated rides, but not harming any of the others. Johnny flames back on and heads to the roller coaster. From up high he can see why The Destroyer is sabotaging the taller rides. They have a view of the coast. And on the coast lies a Soviet submarine.
The Human Torch defeats commies. He flies down to the quickly submerging vessel and uses his intense heat to cause the sea to boil around the submarine. This makes it too hot so the enemy agents must surface. Suddenly the Coast Guard shows up to help the Torch. They gather up the commie agents and then go in search of The Destroyer. The Destroyer pulls a gun on them, but Johnny melts it with his flame. They take the villain into custody and remove his mask. It is Charles Stanton, the publisher of the Glennville Gazette. The Coast Guard piece together the information: Charles was sneaking secrets to a communists in the sub. He wanted the amusement park rides destroyed so that no one could see the secluded area that they were using. As the Coast Guard takes them all into custody, the Human Torch flies off to change before his flame dies out.
Notes:
Welcome to the convoluted mess that is Human Torch's solo stories. It turns out the newspaper publisher was sending notes to himself that nobody else could read in order to threaten the amusement park. How does that work? Also Johnny does not have a secret identity. The Fantastic Four is a public group who do not hide behind masks. In the last story he was being honored as the Human Torch along with the rest of the FF by members on Congress.
If you can ignore the stuff that doesn't make sense and just read it as a light-hearted romp, it's some fun romp.
Trying to make some sense out of this, you could possibly argue that Johnny is only worried about people in his immediate community figuring out who he is, but in like 5 issue's time we find out that this is not the case at all.
If want to go deeper, I guess there could be a theme of hiding things found if you look hard enough. Johnny is hiding his secret identity from everyone and The Destroyer is trying to hide his scheming with the soviets.
Random observation: The Destroyer's costume looks a lot like Hydra's and Baron Mordo's.
The List
- Amazing Fantasy (Spider-Man) #15
- Fantastic Four #1
- Fantastic Four #4
- Incredible Hulk #1
- Fantastic Four #5
- Amazing Adult Fantasy (X-Men) #14
- Fantastic Four #6
- Journey into Mysetry (Thor) #85
- Journey into Mystery (Thor) #83
- Fantastic Four #2
- Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #35
- Journey into Mystery (Thor) #84
- Tales to Astonish (Ant-Man) #27
- Fantastic Four #3
- Incredible Hulk #2
- Fantastic Four #7
- Incredible Hulk #3
- Strange Tales #101
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