Amazing Spider-Man 1b

Spider-Man vs. the Chameleon

by

Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

Peter Parker has figured out how to make some money. He will join the Fantastic Four and they will pay him a top salary to be on their team. Entering the Baxter Building, Peter presses the elevator button to go to their floor. But he suddenly remembers that to use the FF’s private elevator, he needs a special belt beam to access it. He gets the idea to simply crawl up the shaft, however upon opening the doors Peter sees that the elevator car is above him to block his way.

Failing to reach the top floors, Peter decides to take a more direct approach. Donning his Spider-Man costume, Peter climbs up a building across the street from the Baxter Building. As a small crowd gathers to watch, Spider-Man shoots a small strand of webbing at the FF’s 35th floor to walk along.

Inside the Baxter Building, the Fantastic Four are alerted to Spider-Man's presence by an alarm. The moment he dives in through a window, Reed lowers a large plexiglass chamber to trap the intruder. Spider-Man uses his strength to force the doors apart. Once free, he starts attacking the group. Dodging a punch from Thing, Spider-Man tosses him into the Human Torch. Reed stretches to grab him, but Spider-Man entangles his arm in a web cocoon.

With Spider-Man's attention diverted, Susan Storm sneaks up behind the lad to ensnare him in rope. Just as she tosses the lasso, Spider-Man’s warning sense kicks in. He spins her around to make her dizzy, when her brother the Human Torch blocks Spider-Man's way. He encircles Spidey in his own flame lasso. Spider-Man leaps to the ceiling; when he lands, Reed stretches into a large wall to bar Spider-Man from attacking anyone else and finally asks Spider-Man what he is doing. Spider-Man explains his money situation and figures they could pay him to be on the team. He was just giving them an exhibition of his worth. The FF explain that they are a non-profit group and any money they make goes strictly into scientific research. Before they can figure out a way to help him, Spider-Man takes off.

At a defense instillation on the edge of town, the Chameleon has taken on the guise of a janitor he has hogtied in a closet. As the janitor, Chameleon has access to more restricted areas of the facility without raising suspicion. Spotting the professor he is after, Chameleon changes yet again into a Professor Newton disguise. Having stolen the professor’s identity, Chameleon sneaks into a lab where he steals some files. After returning to his hideout, with plans to sell the files to the soviets, he hears on the news a report of Spider-Man’s criminality. He makes a plan to have Spider-Man be his patsy when he steals the other half of the defense plans. Chameleon rigs up a device to contact Spider-Man through his spider sense.

While at a spider exhibition, Peter receives Chameleon’s broadcast. He wants to meet Spider-Man at the Lark building to offer him some money. Peter can’t turn it down, so he quickly changes into Spider-Man to meet Chameleon on the rooftop. As Spider-Man travels, Chameleon has already broken into the building in disguise and stole the rest of the defense plans dressed as Spider-Man. He flies away in a helicopter that was parked on the roof, just as the real Spider-Man reaches the building. As soon as he does, two security guards burst through the roof access with guns drawn. Spider-Man quickly realizes he’s been set up. He webs the guards to the roof door, before swinging off towards the helicopter.

Spider-Man chases down the Chameleon. He shoots his web from both arms extended to create a sling that he can launch himself from into the air in the direction of the helicopter. Flying over a dock, Spider-Man makes a web parachute to safely land in a docked motorboat. He drives the boat out to the sea, where he sees the helicopter approaching an emerging soviet submarine. Spider-Man webs the hatch to the sub shut. The soviets, realizing they have been spotted, quickly submerge before they can carry through on the deal. Spider-Man springs up off the boat and hit the helicopter with his web. As Spider-Man dangles from the webline, Chameleon fails to shake him loose. Spider-Man lunges up to the door of the helicopter and pulls it open to commandeer the vehicle. Spider-Man and Chameleon land before the guards on the rooftop. As Spider-Man presents Chameleon as an imposter, the criminal tosses a smoke grenade to bypass the guards. He quickly finds a private room where he can change into a disguise of one of the security police.

As Spider-Man and the cops search the building, Chameleon sneaks right past them. Spider-Man’s spider sense kicks in, alerting him to the deception. Just as Spidey spots the phony cop, Chameleon turns off the lights to add to the confusion. Spider-Man attempts to shoot web at him, but finds he is out of web fluid. Leaping at the shadowy figure, Spider-Man is again played the fool. When the cops get the lights back on, the phony cop claims that the Chameleon has turned back into Spider-Man. Panicked, Spider-Man leaps out of the building before the cops can accost him. But not before he tears a piece of Chameleon’s police uniform to reveal the Spider-Man costume lying underneath. The cops realize their mistake and arrest the real Chameleon.

Spider-Man races back home with tears in his eyes, wishing he had never got his spider powers. They only seem to make things worse. The Fantastic Four read the evening newspaper, wondering if they will have to be wary of Spider-Man in the future.

Notes

• First time The Fantastic Four & Spider-Man meet.

• First introduction of the Chameleon. A clever spy with Soviet connections, who uses disguises as his gimmick. He’s reminiscent of the Destroyer from Strange Tales #101, but handled so much better.

• Throughout this entire issue, Peter Parker keeps being referred to as Peter Palmer.

• Unintentional foreshadowing of Peter’s career as a photographer. When the crowd gathers under the Baxter Building, there is a photographer who mentions getting a bonus for a shot of Spider-Man

• It’s been previously established in the Marvel Universe in the Ant-Man stories, that ants communicate through their antennae, so apparently spiders have a similar trait and that is what Chameleon taps into to get Spider-Man’s attention.

• First time we see Spider-Man using his parachute webbing. I wonder if he got the idea from the parachute from his previous adventure in this issue.

• First instance of Spider-Man running out of web fluid as a limitation to his abilities.

Review & Ranking

This a good, fun Spider-Man romp, but it feels a little cramped with only 10 pages to tell it. The Fantastic Four meeting and the Chameleon part are just only tangentially connected. They are both done really well for what we are given. The Chameleon feels like just another soviet spy villain, but there is something about him that is a bit more intriguing than the typical ones we’ve seen.

Next Time: Ant-Man succumbs to hypnotism.

Fantastic Four 12

The Incredible Hulk!

by

Stan Lee, Jack Kirby & Dick Ayers

Alicia Masters and Thing are on a date. As the couple leave a performance of Beethoven’s 5th, their conversation about music is interrupted rather rudely by a man pointing out the soldiers patrolling the Manhattan streets in front of them.  Thing starts to accost the rude man for his interruption, when the man’s shouts of panic are heard by a passing military unit. Witnessing his vast strength, the soldiers mistake Thing for their intended target. The troops surround Thing, who after making sure Alicia is safe, pulls out a fire hydrant next to him in order to slam his weight down on top of the water, making it geyser all over the soldiers.

Before Thing can escape the soldiers, they fire an entrapping device that shoots out of a bazooka style gun. After he easily busts out of the confines of the device, the soldiers shoot a heavy gas at him to knock him out, just in time for the captain of the unit to realize the mistake they’ve made. Minutes later, Thing comes to and the army captain profusely apologizes, explaining that they mistook him for the Hulk. As a frustrated Thing tries to retaliate, Alicia holds him back. After she manages to calm him down, Thing walks her home.

Leaving Alicia at her place, Thing arrives at the Baxter Building. Realizing he lost his special elevator belt beam thingy, he decides to tear open the elevator doors and climb up the cable, through the elevator shaft, to the 35th floor where the Fantastic Four’s headquarters are. When he arrives, the group notices his foul mood. The Thing tells them what happened on his date. This leads Reed and Sue to reveal that they just got a call from a General Ross, who is on his way to meet them about the Hulk. The Thing exclaims that he doesn't even believe in a Hulk, when suddenly their buzzer rings. Sue notices it is General Ross and lets him in.

General Ross and his aide, Captain Nelson, meet everybody before they get down to business. He explains there has been a national alert out for the Hulk. They suspect him of sabotaging certain missile defense systems in the southwestern region of the US. He points out that the mistake with the Thing happened because one of the main ways of recognizing the Hulk is his tremendous strength much like his. Showing the group a picture of the Hulk, Ross says he wants their help to capture and destroy him.

In the living room, General Ross continues his presentation. He runs the most recent footage captured of the Hulk destroying military equipment. The image of the Hulk frightens Sue, so that she loses control of her powers and starts to fade. When Reed comforts her, the team describes the various ways they plan on taking out the Hulk; Thing by brute force, Human Torch by making a maze of flame to confuse him and Reed by stretching himself flat on a ceiling and then dropping over the Hulk like a tarp. Sue makes a comment about how useless she’d be, but General Ross assures her that she’d be useful in keeping the men’s morale up and Reed concurs. Johnny gets so caught up in his fantasy that he forgets to turn his flame off before it burns out. Thing catches him and Ross admonishes Reed for having such a young member on his team. Reed explains that his powers are one of their most important weapons and he has great mechanical skills.

The Fantastic Four lead General Ross into their garage. There they show off their new and improved Fantasticar, which Johnny helped design. They all get into the vehicle and fly off towards General Ross’s base in the American Southwest. On the way there, Ross points out an example of some of the wreckage caused by the Hulk. After they land, they meet with Ross’s scientific executive, Bruce Banner, and his assistants, Rick Jones and Dr. Karl Kort. Bruce argues that the destruction couldn’t be the work of the Hulk because all of the equipment he supposedly destroyed happened from the inside out, not the other way as the Hulk would do. General Ross explains that he put this team together to go after the Hulk and that is what they are going to do. Reed and Bruce shake hands, expressing their admiration of each other’s work.

Out in the hall, the rest of the Fantastic Four wait for Reed and Bruce Banner to come up with a plan. Karl leaves to get back to work. As he passes by, a bored Thing and Human Torch tease him with their powers. The assistant flees from them and accidentally drops his wallet in his hurry.  Torch picks it up with a flaming lasso trick he’s been working on. Thing gets fed up with waiting and bursts into the meeting room with his teammates.

Thing, Human Torch and the Invisible Girl all burst into the office, startling those within. Sue snatches a gun out of one officer’s hand to prevent him from shooting them. General Ross has trouble calming them all down. Bruce Banner points out to the general that the team was invited there to help him, so they should all be in on the plan. When General Ross comments that he thinks Thing is afraid of the Hulk, Thing proves his might by taking Ross’s bound set of telephone books from a shelf and tears them all in half. Reed promises to reimburse him to calm the general down. Bruce informs the team that he and Rick believe the saboteur to not be the Hulk, but somebody they have dubbed “The Wrecker.” They can’t reveal that they know the Hulk is innocent because Bruce fears what would happen if his secret identity as the Hulk is exposed. Before the two of them take off, Johnny stops Rick to hand over the wallet Karl dropped in the hallway.

Bruce Banner and Rick Jones make their way to Banner’s secret lab in the caves. Bruce tells Rick that they are going to have to figure out how to expose The Wrecker in order to convince the FF and General Ross of the Hulk’s innocence. Rick is shown the scale model of project 34, the latest device Bruce has invented that The Wrecker has destroyed. It would be placed in the center of a city and produce electro-magnetic waves to blanket the area as an invisible shield against enemy missiles and aircraft. As Bruce continues to ponder, Rick realizes he still has Karl’s wallet. He heads out to return it to his home at the military base. As he approaches the building, he snoops through the wallet to find a card registering Karl as a foreign communist agent. Karl opens his door as Rick realizes this and pulls a gun on the boy.

Back at the main base, the Fantastic Four are helping General Ross out. Reed has repaired an experimental rocket sled for him and Thing is giving it a test run. Enjoying himself in the sled, it whizzes smoothly across the rails, until it comes upon a twisted up section of metal. The rocket sled slams into the busted rail, sending Thing careening through the sky from all the pressure built up behind him. Johnny flames on and immediately takes off to the rescue. He manages to grab hold of Thing, but his weight drags them both down. Human Torch falls in spirals to slow their descent, but his grip on Thing loosens. Reed stretches like a trampoline under his best friend, bracing his impact as he hits the ground. After they’ve gathered their wits, they argue with Ross that it was sabotaged. Suddenly Bruce Banner appears to inform them all that Rick Jones is missing and he suspects The Wrecker has kidnapped him. However, Thing is now convinced the Hulk is behind it all due to the twisted rail tracks. Bruce insists it is The Wrecker, but decides not to show them the note he found to Hulk, from The Wrecker, that says if he doesn’t get the Fantastic Four out of the area, he will harm Rick.

Bruce returns to his secret lab. Believing there is no way he can convince the Fantastic Four without revealing his secret identity, Bruce steps on his device that duplicates the gamma rays from the gamma bomb. Within seconds, he turns into the green, brute form of the incredible Hulk. Elsewhere underground, Karl Kort leads Rick from his own secret lab in the desert, through the catacombs to beneath a ghost town. Stalking the catacombs himself, Hulk is searching for project 34. Before he can go further, he hears voices just around a corner of the tunnel. It is the Fantastic Four, lead by Thing. He had a hunch there were tunnels below the rocket sled rails due to the ground having a hollow sound. As the Thing rounds a corner, he suddenly stands face to face with the Hulk.

Hulk throws the first punch, striking Thing off his feet. Human Torch blocks Hulk’s way, but the green behemoth scoops up a load of sand and dirt into him to extinguish his flame. With those two taken care of, Hulk emerges to the surface of the ghost town, assuming Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Girl have escaped there. After Hulk buries Torch and Thing in the rubble when he digs to the outside, Reed stretches his arms up through the cracks in the dirt to coil around Hulk. Hulk easily frees himself from Reed’s limbs to find the whole group free. He picks up an entire building structure and hurls it at them, but Thing manages to block it.

Believing his only hope is to beat the group separately to get to Rick, Hulk leaps to smash Thing. Reed curls around him again, but Hulk spins so fast that the centrifugal force unwraps the FF’s leader, leaving him sprawled on the ground. Human Torch proceeds to renew his attack, but Hulk slams his hands together with such might to create a sonic boom, powerful enough to knock everyone but Thing out. The two of them start really going at it, when suddenly a beam from underground strikes Hulk which knocks him out too.

Robbed of his victory, Thing burrows the ground up to find a giant robot which he quickly turns into scrap. Sue, who has awoken by now, tells Thing that she saw the beam of light that hit Hulk. Realizing it has been sabotage all along, Thing follows the tunnel to The Wrecker’s lair. Invisible Girl fades away and follows as Thing bashes the door to Karl’s lab open. Karl threatens to blast Thing with the ray he shot Hulk with, when the invisible Sue knocks it from his hands. Thing grabs Karl while Sue unties Rick Jones. Sue has to remind Thing not to harm Karl, the general will want to question the spy. Reed and Human Torch run in to find everything settled. Sue wonders what became of the Hulk.

Directly above the Fantastic Four, Hulk overhears their conversation. They all realized that Karl was the Wrecker and Hulk is completely innocent of any sabotage. Alone and weary from the ray blast, Hulk leaps to his underground lab to turn back into Banner. As the Fantastic Four and Rick Jones search for him on the surface, General Ross appears with Bruce to take Karl into custody. After Reed and Bruce exchange goodbyes, Bruce tells Rick he suspects Reed might know his secret. Before the Fantastic Four leave for New York, the military holds a ceremony in their honor. The next day, Hulk wonders if they will ever meet again as he watches the Fantasticar fly home.

Notes

Thing and Alicia Masters are definitely a couple in this issue. Their early romance works the best out of all of them because there are no confusing secret identity issues, there are no complicated triangles at this time and Alicia role isn’t diminished to being a nag.

So begins the biggest question in the Marvel Universe. Who wins between Thing and Hulk? More seriously, this begins the relationship between Thing & Hulk, which is a thing that gets developed over time.

In 12 issues, the Fantastic Four have gone from being feared and pursued by the government, to having ceremonies conducted in their honor by the military.








There is a miniseries that came out in 2004/2005 called Hulk & Thing: Hard Knocks by Bruce Jones & Jae Lee that completely revisits this whole fight between Hulk & Thing. It was around this time that my interest in modern Marvel comics started to wane, so I don’t have a lot of memory of it.








This is the very first comic to show that the Stan Lee/Jack Kirby Marvel Universe is a shared universe. Two separate, established Marvel characters during the Marvel age. The very beginning of the Marvel Universe as a whole.

There was one very minor crossover before this. In the issue of Journey into Mystery/Thor 86 that introduced Tomorrow Man there is a panel of someone who looks just like General Ross, but he has one panel of dialogue, appears for only the one panel and isn't mentioned by name.






This is the first Marvel age crossover, however it is not the first crossover. During the golden age, when Marvel was Timely, Sub-Mariner and the original human-android Human Torch/Jim Hammond had a really neat crossover in the pages of Marvel Mystery Comics #8-10. We see the events from the Human Torch’s eyes and we see them from Sub-Mariner’s point of view and then they clash.





Review & Ranking

This is a very strong story. It sets up the Hulk/Thing dynamic in a good way. It’s a bit more layered of a story than we are used to in these early stories. The theme of mistaken identity runs throughout the whole issue.

Thing seems to be the main character focus of the story; it starts with him, he gets the most battle out of the Hulk and it’s mainly him with Sue’s help that resolves the main conflict. We learn more details, that he prefers jazz music to a symphony. The pathos always manages to center around either him or the Hulk.

Sue Storm is at her best in this issue. She is more alert and helpful than she’s been in the past couple of issues, helping to defeat the real villain.  We didn’t see her do this, but I imagine she’s the one who rescued Thing and Johnny when they got buried by Hulk, much like she rescues Rick at the end.

Johnny Storm is pretty much sidelined this whole issue; his attacks against Hulk are pretty weak, he doesn’t contribute much beyond getting the plot device (Karl’s wallet) from point A to point B.

Reed is in typical leader/genius mode, but for the first time he doesn’t have to know everything. Perhaps he has been a bit humbled by his switch with Doctor Doom a couple issues ago. I like that he is late to the resolution of the story (instead of having him explain everything because he’s the leader) for once.

Hulk seems a little toned down in his anger, but not too far off-character this early on. I think all of the Hulk related stuff is pretty good, except they are missing Betty Ross. By far the weakest element of this whole story is the villain, Karl Kort. We don't get a satisfying reason of how he got to be Banner’s aide or why he is sabotaging things beyond him being a communist spy, which is pretty much the definition of being shoehorned in.

The artwork in this starts out about average, but midway through it becomes really simple with a lot of empty backgrounds. There’s no real definition in most of the Hulk fight. It feels like Kirby or Ayers didn’t have a lot of time working on this one. It makes the main Hulk battle feel less intense overall.

I’m slipping this issue right below Fantastic Four #8. They both have a similar layered story structure, but FF 8 has much, much stronger artwork throughout. And I’m more interested in the Hulk crossover element than the Impossible Man story below it.

Next Time: Thor gets a new artist and has one of his worst adventures to date in a contender for worst Marvel Comic of the era.

Strange Tales 107

The Master of Flame Vs. The Monarch of the Seas!!

by

Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Dick Ayers

About a month after his previous adventure, Johnny Storm walks home from school to find the rest of his teammates at his house. Reed Richards informs him that Ben and he were going over notes with Sue Storm for their next Fantastic Four adventure. When Johnny complains that the group never consults with him on their adventures, Reed berates the lad for his poor judgment last month with the Acrobat.

As Thing and Reed take off, Johnny enters his house. He contemplates how he can contribute more to the team, so they will all take him more seriously. Noticing a picture of Namor on Sue’s nightstand, the photo makes Johnny realize that Namor has never really been defeated by them; if he could take out Namor, Johnny just might be in better standing with the team. Before Sue can figure out what he’s up to, Johnny flames on and takes off for the Atlantic Ocean.

After flying over the ocean a ways, Human Torch’s flame starts to falter. He spots a nearby steamer ship and quickly boards it to recuperate. The crewmen are quick to notice him. Believing Johnny to be no more than a stowaway, despite his insistence that he is the Torch, the crew set him to work swabbing the deck. Johnny complies to allow his flame time to recharge. After a while, the ship runs into some fog and the power goes out. Having allowed enough time to pass, Johnny flames on to rescue the crew. He creates fireballs that surround the ship, bright enough to see through the dense fog. Once the vessel is free of the fog, the Torch continues on to his original plan.

Hovering above a spot in the Atlantic Ocean where the Human Torch knows Namor resides, he writes a flaming challenge just above the water’s surface. Suddenly, a school of flying fish emerge. The heat from the message scorches one of the creatures. It drifts down below the sea until it reaches a wary Sub-Mariner. He looks up to see the Human Torch’s message scrawled in the sky. Namor wishes he could meet Torch’s challenge, but he doesn't want to harm him because of how he feels about his sister.

Namor emerges from the sea and yells at Johnny to go back home. Torch responds by throwing a fire lasso around Namor. This infuriates Namor so much that he forgets all about Sue and starts chasing the lad. Torch leads him towards an iceberg jutting out of the ocean. Before he crashes into it, Johnny quickly dives out of the way, allowing Namor to smash into it. Before he does, Namor uses his powers to bloat himself up like a puffer fish in order to escape the hole he makes smashing into the ice.

Diving back into the ocean, Namor searches for weapons to fight off the Human Torch. In the ruins of Atlantis, he finds a fire-resistant sheet and a statue that has special hypnotic properties. As Namor reemerges, the sunlight hits the statue, causing its eyes to glow and hypnotize Torch. Namor suggests to him that they are friends and that he should come closer. Torch obeys as Namor wraps the fire-resistant sheet around his fist; punching the Torch in his face.

Johnny falls into the sea unconscious. Namor goes after him so he won’t drown. He ties Johnny onto the back of a passing porpoise, then tells the dolphin to take the boy to land. Johnny awakes minutes later. He immediately flames back on, burning off his seaweed restraints and flying off, back towards Namor. Namor takes on the traits of an electric eel and flies towards the oncoming Torch. The two of them collide, the impact sends them both falling under the sea.

The Human Torch chases Namor at the bottom of the sea. Johnny has somehow figured out how to maintain his heat under ocean water. He flies back out into the sky to reignite his body. Johnny goes supernova, making his flame so intense that it ignores the water, but he can only keep to this state for a few minutes before it completely diminishes his flame powers. Namor is buried in a hole in the sea floor created by the Torch’s immense heat. The hole quickly caves in due to the ocean pressure at the bottom of the sea, while the Human Torch travels back to the surface.

Breaching the surface in time for his flame to go out, Johnny is quickly spotted and rescued by the ship crew he had befriended earlier. Meanwhile, trapped in the ocean floor, Namor uses his awesome strength to burrow up out of the ground. Exhausted, Namor is still determined to renew the fight with Johnny. He breaches the surface, only to see a ship departing far off on the horizon. Namor is glad, for the Torch was more powerful than he had anticipated. He contemplates what a powerful team the two of them could make after the Human Torch reaches maturity. Johnny arrives home in the middle of the day exhausted. He crashes out on his bed. Sue passes by, wondering how working on cars could tire him out. “She doesn’t know the half of it,” thinks Johnny as he dozes off.

Notes

The Human Torch has added the supernova fire to his list of maneuvers. He is getting increasingly skilled with his powers, able to go toe-to-toe with Namor. He didn’t prove himself as he intended with the FF, but Namor now regards him as a worthy adversary and possible future teammate.

Namor is still lost without his people, residing in the ruins of Atlantis. The Atlanteans had access to some magical weaponry, in this case a bust that can hypnotize people. Namor performs a few tricks himself, he can take on the traits various sea life, including pufferfish and the electric eel, which we’ve seen used before in FF #6 to betray Doctor Doom.

Sue & Namor’s romance is still playing around in the background. Johnny burned up that picture of Namor in FF #6, so she must have gotten another one, probably when they were in Hollywood in FF #9. Sue is written as being really oblivious again.

Almost every time a story describes something as being asbestos from now one, I’m going to replace it with fire-resistant for my own sanity. I’m of the assumption that Stan Lee at the time thought asbestos equals fire-resistant, instead of it being a very specific type of fire resistant fiber that is extremely toxic to people.

Timely

Reed states that this takes place about a month after the events of Strange Tales #106 and the notes they are working on are for next month's adventure. This could mean a few things. Either they are making notes for their trip to the moon coming up in FF #13, they are making notes for their run-in with the Hulk, but that means they would have intentions to find Hulk and that isn't how the case is presented in FF #12, or they are going over notes for the next issue of Fantastic Four that Stan Lee & Jack Kirby are writing since we know Reed consults with them to make their stories. It's kept pretty vague. I personally think that in-universe they are notes for the FF's trip to the moon, because that would be a thing they had planned out.

Review & Ranking

This is one of the better stories in the Human Torch’s solo efforts. There’s still sticking points that drag this down, with the convoluted nature of how they use Torch’s flame and the strange fish powers of Namor. The small side story of Human Torch working on a ship. The characterization of Sue is once again greatly diminished to being just an annoying foil for Johnny’s adventures. The action between Namor and Johnny is generally better and much more fluid than anything else we’ve had in this series so far. The incredible detail on the strange hypnotic bust, silly as it is, gives it more credence at being a threat. Namor is drawn a bit off model in a few panels, but nothing extremely egregious.

Far and away the best solo Human Torch we’ve seen in Strange Tales yet. The story is of no great importance, it reiterates things we already know to a degree. Being billed as a fight issue on the cover, it delivers, but there is no great depth beyond these two characters fighting it out. I am putting it right above ST #103, the previous best solo Torch story, below the Hulk #4a that also told a pretty straight forward story with only a little meandering that doesn’t get in the way of the main plot.

Next Time

Our very first crossover, as the Fantastic Four meet the Incredible Hulk!

Strange Tales 106

The Threat of the Torrid Twosome

by

Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Dick Ayers

The Human Torch spends the afternoon training at an obstacle course Reed Richards built him on the outskirts of Glenville. At home, his sister, Sue Storm, lets a strange man who wants to talk with Johnny, named Carl Zante, into their home. The Torch returns home, ducking into an alleyway to flame off so the neighbors don’t see him and get wise to his secret. Except, a couple of kids do see him.

Minutes later, Johnny arrives at his house. Inside, Sue introduces him to Carl Zante. Zante reveals that he knows Johnny is the Human Torch. Johnny wonders how he figured it out, when Sue explains that everybody already knows his “secret” identity. They were all just playing along for his own sake. With that out of the way, Sue leaves her teenage brother alone with the stranger, so the two of them can have what Sue refers to as “man talk.”

Carl Zante proclaims to Johnny that he is the world’s greatest acrobat. He propositions Johnny that he is not getting the credit he deserves as a member of the Fantastic Four. If it wasn’t for his powers, the FF would not have defeated the Miracle Man nor Namor in their first encounters. He wants Johnny to quit the FF and join him as The Torrid Twosome, with the promise to make him rich and more famous. Johnny considers it, but wants to talk it over with Reed Richards first.

Johnny flames on to fly over to the Fantastic Four’s headquarters in Manhattan. He demands that Reed pay him a salary for his contributions to the team. Reed denies him, reminding Johnny that all money they make goes towards scientific research. Thing reiterates Reed’s point by pouring a vase of water over Torch’s head to cool him down. Johnny retaliates, using his powers to cause the smoke from Reed’s smoking pipe to fill the room. This dries him off so he can flame on again while Thing and Reed are choking from the smoke. He announces he’s had enough and quits the team.

Back home, Johnny rings up Carl Zante. He tells him he’s ready to join his team. Zante is delighted as he has more nefarious schemes in mind than his young cohort suspects. After the phone call, Johnny works on designing new costumes for the two of them; a skin-tight green top and pants, with a brown beret and shorts. As Johnny displays it to Sue, he explains they are made of unstable molecules, so they won’t burn up when he flames on. Sue tries to reason with her brother, but Johnny is having none of it.

A day later, Zante shows up at Johnny’s house again. Their first mission is to rescue a bank teller at the Glenville bank. According to Zante, the teller has accidentally locked himself inside the vault and will suffocate if they don't save him. Without any hesitation, Johnny flames on and rushes to the bank. Zante follows behind in his convertible. As soon as the Torch arrives, he melts right through the bank’s vault door. Inside he finds no one.

Carl Zante blocks the Human Torch’s exit. He pulls out a hose attached to some apparatus on his back, and sprays Johnny with a liquid fire retardant, dousing his flame. Johnny warns him about the bank guards, but Zante has already gassed them all. Before he can protest further, Zante pulls out a gun and shoots Johnny. The bullet hits him in the arm. Zante attempts to finish off Johnny, but the gun jams. He starts stealing money from the vault, when the employees start to come to. With the cash in hand, he uses his acrobatic agility to dive out of a nearby window and into his convertible.

The criminal attempts to drive away, but his car is stuck. Johnny’s teammate, the Thing, has grabbed hold of the rear bumper, keeping the car in place with his strength. Carl tries to get out of the car, but finds the roof held shut by the Invisible Girl and the doors stuck closed by Mr. Fantastic using his stretching powers to tangle his limbs around the doors. The three of them question Zante, when the injured Torch emerges from the bank. He explains how Zante betrayed him and declares he wants to fight him alone.

With a wounded arm, the Human Torch confronts Carl Zante. Zante uses his acrobatic skills to swing from a flagpole onto a ladder. As he climbs up to the roof, the Torch flies after him, but finds his balance off due to his shot arm. He lands back down among the FF to catch his breath, before resuming the pursuit. The Torch beats him to the roof and uses his flame to heat up the metal ladder. Zante lets go instantly, falling towards the ground. He maneuvers himself to bounce off the nearby telephone wires instead. He bounces off the wires, towards an open manhole in the street.

The Human Torch melts the street under Carl Zante’s feet before he can hide in the sewer. The loose, melting tar starts to mesh together with Zante’s boots. Stuck in place, Zante admits his defeat. The rest of the Fantastic Four congratulate the Torch on his victory. Johnny seems surprised they all still speak to him after the way he bailed on them.  He claims he never really wanted to team with Zante, it was all a ruse to find out what he was up to. With the case wrapped up, Johnny tosses his Torrid Twosome costume and rejoins the Fantastic Four.

Notes

The first appearance of The Acrobat, a seldom seen, agile villain named Carl Zante.

It turns out everybody knew Johnny was the Human Torch, they just didn't say anything to be polite according to Sue. A weird retcon that throws a major plot hole into The Wizard stories, where part of his plan was to find out who the Human Torch was. At least we are done with the "secret" identity nonsense.

This marks the 2nd time the Human Torch has quit the Fantastic Four.

The first time in a Marvel comic where one of the heroes actually gets shot. Thus ending the short lived career of The Torrid Twosome.

Review & Rank

This is not a good issue by any means. It’s kind of amusing in a B-movie way. Whether on purpose or accident, it highlights one of Johnny Storm’s character traits, that he is kinda stupid. Not in a “he’s lame” way, but as being a bit gullible/naive. Kinda like Karl Pilkington or Butters from South Park. This might just be what the creators think teenagers are like, because Rick Jones shows similar traits. Sue is not a very good guardian for Johnny. She lets this stranger come into their home and then leaves him and her young, teenaged brother alone with him.

I can't figure out if Johnny's stupidity is on purpose or not because of his belief that the rest of the FF don't take him seriously as a teammate and he doesn't get anything out of it, yet this whole thought process is undermined by the fact that in the very beginning of the story he is using an obstacle course that Reed built him to train on. And at the very end of the story, Johnny claims he was just going along with it to trick the villain, but the look on his face says otherwise.

Another completely nonsensical Human Torch story from start to finish. This is in the same ballpark as Strange Tales 105 with The Wizard. There’s a little bit more going on in here, and while the action sequences aren't all that impressive, at least there are action sequences compared to 105. Also, Johnny actually gets shot! They wave it off as the bullet just winging him, but still this is the most danger any of the Marvel characters have been in so far. The explanation of Johnny's "secret" identity is amusing, but incredibly convoluted and problematic for previous Strange Tales stories. I'm placing it right above ST 105.

Next Time: A solo Human Torch faces off against Namor, the Sub-Mariner!