Featuring: Human Torch and Sub-Mariner
Release: January 13, 1941
Cover: March 1941
10 cents
By Carl Burgos & Bill Everett
26 pages
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|---|---|---|
| Human Torch #2 | PRELUDE | Marvel Mystery Comics #31 |
| Fantastic Four #56 | Reading order | Fantastic Four Annual 4 |
“Are you ready to fight for Uncle Sam under any conditions?”
“You know I am!”
We’ve now seen Namor and the Human Torch battle twice. But between those two encounters, they were sometimes on the same side. This is the story of their first team-up. Their first meeting since that first epic battle.
Usually, this title features a Human Torch story and a Sub-Mariner story. This issue combines them into a single double-length feature that both creators worked on together.
It’s not clear to me precisely which creator did what.
What unites them? Why, patriotism and love for America, of course.
“Are you ready to fight for Uncle Sam under any conditions?” asks the prince of an undersea realm who personally has declared war on the entire surface world before.
It’s early 1941 when this sees print, still almost a year before the attack by Japan on Pearl Harbor. American sentiment still strongly favored neutrality toward the wars occupying the rest of the world. But American superheroes did not. Namor and Human Torch had both been battling their share of German or Japanese spies and saboteurs.
And of course just a month before this comic was released a new hero named Captain America delivered a well-deserved punch to Hitler’s jaw on the cover.
The Axis powers are no longer content with spies and saboteurs. In this issue, German and Japanese forces have teamed up to create an underwater tunnel from Siberia to Alaska to facilitate their invasion of America.
This issue is set up in the prior issue, but I chose not to read that, as I’m trying to do a quick overview of 15 years of Human Torch stories.
In last issue’s Sub-Mariner story, Namor was in France and destroyed a tunnel under the English Channel the Germans planned to use to invade England. A German officer let it slip that Japan also had an undersea tunnel they were building. Namor decided to go to New York and find the Human Torch.
In last issue’s Human Torch story, he defeated a spy who gave hints that this invasion was coming. We also learned that Namor was in New York, and the story ended with him learning that Namor was trying to contact him.
As an odd aside, the name of the special task force Human Torch formed last issue is called the Suicide Squad. I assume Human Torch gets royalties for the DC movies.
In a lot of the ’60s Sub-Mariner comics we’ve been reading, Namor is a very hands-on ruler who likes to deal with problems himself, seeming to never recall that he has an entire army at his command.
The ’40s version does remember he commands an underwater armada and makes use of them. While Torch and Namor take on the tunnel in the middle, on an island halfway to Alaska, Namor dispatches his fleet to Siberia to seal the tunnel entrance. It’s a good balance of being a prince who likes to get his hands dirty with recognizing that he does have resources to call upon.
Other stories in this issue feature Electro, Terry Vance the School-Boy Sleuth, the Angel, the Vision, and Ka-Zar.
I’d next like to jump forward a year and see how Human Torch reacted to the attack on Pearl Harbor when the US actually went to war.
Rating: ★★★☆☆, 53/100
I read this story in Timely’s Greatest: The Golden Age Human Torch by Carl Burgos Omnibus.
Characters:
- Human Torch
- Sub-Mariner
Story notes:
- Human Torch attacks Namor.
- Namor calls Torch “fire-bug” and “hothead”.
- The comic explains how they speak under water.
- Invasion planned through tunnel under Pacific Ocean.
- Namor’s fleet of aerial subs heads for the Pacific.
- Namor notes much of his fleet had been recently damaged against the Axis.
- German sub attacks, only to get boarded by Torch and Namor.
- Then the heroes take out a torpedo boat.
- Axis forces tunnel in Bering Strait to invade America.
- Torch and Namor find tunnel entrance on a volcanic island.
- The tunnel is maintained by Japanese soldiers.
- Namor knocked out by gas.
- Namor reconnects with the Sub-Mariner fleet. He sends them to Sibera to attack the tunnel entrance, then looks for Torch in volcano.
- German and Japanese soldiers use prisoners of war for slave labor.
- Namor captured.
- Tunnel leads to Juneau, Alaska. Torch and Namor destroy tunnel while Namor’s fleet takes care of the entrance.
- Namor and Torch report to Alaskan governor on the events.
| Previous | Next | |
|---|---|---|
| Human Torch #2 | PRELUDE | Marvel Mystery Comics #31 |
| Fantastic Four #56 | Reading order | Fantastic Four Annual 4 |
It’s weird, but there aren’t many crossovers in the Timely era… You’d expect that after the excellent Namor and Human Torch clash we’d enjoy the shared universe even more, but… Nope. All we got were about five Namor/Torch crossovers, one Namor/Angel crossover, about two Cap/Human Torch crossovers, two All Winners Squad stories, and a glimpse of Bucky/Toro in Young Allies. That wasted potential…
Good point. I’m of two minds about that, as I feel like Marvel has overdone the crossovers in recent decades. That they were infrequent makes them seem more like an event.
In these early pre-war years, it’s interesting that the crossovers aren’t just character crossovers. The creators collaborated as well, as the characters were still tied to creators. So it took an act of coordination between Burgos and Everett to make this happen. They each set it up in their respective stories in the previous issue, then teamed on this double-sized issue, which came about 6 months after the last time they did this.