Featuring: Human Torch and Thing
Release: February 11, 1965
Cover: May 1965
12 cents
Edited with reckless abandon by: Stan Lee
Written with daring bravado by: Larry Ivie
Drawn with brash impetuosity by: Bob Powell
Inked with reckless vigor by: M. Demeo
Lettered with a soggy penpoint by: S. Rosen
12 pages
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| Amazing Spider-Man #24 | Reading order | Strange Tales #133 |
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Dr. Strange gets a small box on the cover to acknowledge his story.
Yesterday was the 60th anniversary of the publication of Fantastic Four #1. Wish I could have timed my posts to have something better than this Human/Torch Thing story to celebrate with. So it goes. Happy birthday, Foursome!
Lots to unpack from the credits page.
We’ve already met Mr. Demeo (Mike Esposito), as he also picked up inking on Iron Man this month.
Larry Ivie is a new name to us. He is an occasional comics writer and artist, and perhaps best known as a comics fan.
The blog, Professor H’s Wayback Machine, recently did a tribute series to Ivie’s work on his self-published fanzine, Heroes & Monsters.
This is the last we’ll see of Ivie for some time, but he’ll do occasional Marvel work here and there over the next couple decades.
Also unusual in the credits is a comic Stan Lee takes no writing credit on. This isn’t the first time, but it’s been a rare occurrence, and will become less rare. Stan still gets his name first in the credits somehow.
What we would today call editing is certainly a contribution that Stan makes to every one of these books, and not one to be taken lightly. The issues arise on the comics where he worked as an editor but credited himself as a writer.
Things are heating up in the Fantastic Four book, and there won’t be much space for solo adventures. So far, with only a few exceptions, Fantastic Four adventures have fit into a single issue, where one could easily imagine these Human Torch stories fitting in between the issues. But, as is the general trend these titles are taking, Fantastic Four stories are going to get more involved, with cliffhanger endings which lead us right into the next issue.
To that end, we’re going to knock out the next few Human Torch/Thing stories presently, getting us a little ahead with them. We’ll eventually revisit all these comics and read the Dr. Strange stories.
Thus subjecting myself and you to three of these in a row.
But there’s a light at the end of the tunnel…
These Human Torch stories are generally considered the worst of early Marvel. For the first year or so of our reading, I didn’t agree. I thought the Thor stories were easily the worst. The difference is that the Thor comics have gotten better, and will continue to improve. Whereas this series never did. The Human Torch series will last 34 issues, sharing the title with Thing for the last dozen or so, and mediocrity persisted through its entirety.
While I obviously don’t love this comic, Powell has made this book slightly better, by leaning into the inanity of it. Before, the absurdities seemed a side effect of lazy writing, and now the series at least seems to embrace its own style.
The Fantastic Four are celebrities. World famous. No secret identities. Often in the newspapers. Yet somehow NASA decides Johnny Storm could successfully go undercover as astronaut “Doug Brown” to weed out a saboteur.
When Ben starts to get worried for his friend, he thinks he can also go undercover at NASA, as Dr. Josiah Verpoorten.
Obviously, they had scoffed at the idea of sending Sue. A girl astronaut would be silly. Even though she’s been to space at least four times already, including to another galaxy.
Rating: ★★☆☆☆, 32/100
Significance: ★★☆☆☆
You can find this story in Marvel Masterworks: Human Torch vol. 2 or The Human Torch & The Thing: Strange Tales – The Complete Collection. Or on Kindle.
Characters:
- Human Torch/Johnny Storm/Doug Brown
- Thing/Ben Grimm/Dr. Josiah Verpoorten
- Mr. Fantastic
- Invisible Girl
- Mr. Pearson
- Doris “Dorrie” Evans
- Professor Jack
Story notes:
- Mr. Pearson of NASA.
- NASA fears space magnets have been sabotaged by Professor Jack.
| Previous | Next | |
|---|---|---|
| Amazing Spider-Man #24 | Reading order | Strange Tales #133 |
| Strange Tales #131, Story B | Strange Tales | Strange Tales #132, Story B |
