Day Three of the Fantastic Four
Theme Week. Sorry this was uploaded a little later than usual, I didn’t have
time to write it up last night, and had something of a late start this morning.
But enough about me, we’re here to learn about the Human Torch. Fun fact for ya’ll,
Johnny Storm is actually the second character to bear the name of Human Torch.
The other Human Torch was Jim Hammond, a World War 2 era superhero android. When
Stan Lee and Jack Kirby began revitalizing Timely Comics as Marvel Comics they
took the old alias, formed a team around it, and thus the Fantastic Four were
born. Let’s get to it.
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| Flame On! Not sure why he needs to shout that every single time. |
Johnny Storm grew up in New York
with his parents and sister. After his mother died in a car accident, and his survivor’s
guilt suffering father was arrested for killing a loan shark in self-defense,
he and his sister Sue started living with an Aunt. Sue became something of a
maternal figure for Johnny, but the lack of an actual father figure may or may
not have contributed to Johnny’s personality. He’s kind of a jerk. You know, an
attention seeking hot head that also pulled more than his fair share of
practical jokes. When Johnny was sixteen he accompanied his sister, her fiancé Reed
Richards, and their friend Ben Grimm on an unauthorized test flight of Reed’s
experimental faster-than-light space craft. The ship crash landed after being
bombarded with Cosmic Rays, and the four were given super powers. Reed stretches,
Sue can become invisible and create force fields, Ben became a living stone,
and Johnny gained pyrokinetic powers and the ability to engulf his entire body
in superheated plasma. He could also fly by using his flames to propel himself
forward like a rocket or jet. He took on the name Human Torch after the World War
2 superhero. One of his personal big adventures was finding a hobo that was
suffering from a pretty severe form of amnesia. He helps the hobo regain his
memories, and learned that he was Namor, the Sub-Mariner. He probably came to
regret this, given how often that Namor tries to seduce his sister. Not cool,
Namor.
Despite Spider-Man making the trope
famous, Johnny really was the kid to start out the whole “teenage superhero”
thing. He was still in high school after the cosmic ray exposure, and thus had
to juggle the whole superhero thing with regular school work. Early stories
showed Johnny maintaining a secret identity, but later stories claimed that his
friends and neighbors knew he was a member of the Fantastic Four and were just
humoring Johnny. He quickly met and befriended his polar opposite, Iceman of
the X-Men, and New York’s favorite/least favorite superhero Spider-Man. After
graduating High School, he and the Fantastic Four came up against one of their
most dangerous foes, Galactus and his herald the Silver Surfer. The team was
able to beat back Galactus and befriended his former servant, the Surfer. You’ll
notice that Johnny is very much like his opposite, Iceman, as he keeps making
friends with folks, ever former foes. After that they flew out to Wakanda, met,
befriended, and helped Wakanda’s king Black Panther against one of his foes, Ulysses
Klaue aka Klaw. He had a brief fling with Crystal of the
Inhumans, whom subbed in for his sister while she was pregnant, but that
relationship fizzled out rather quickly.
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| I know I've done this joke already, but I can't help myself. He's feeling hot, hot hot. |
A short time later his nephew,
Franklin, was born and shown to have immense, near godlike powers. After
Franklin was used by the interdimensional tyrant Anihilus in a bid to conquer
Earth, Reed used his tech to more or less lobotomize his son, to ensure no one
would use Franklin’s power for evil again. Sue was furious, rightly so, and
separated from Reed. Johnny forgave Reed significantly faster than his sister.
In an effort to patch the relationship between Sue and Reed, he, the Thing, and
two of the FF’s allies Medusa of the Inhumans and Thundra cooked up what could
only be described as a hair-brained scheme to get them back together. It involved
a staged fight with the Four’s “rehabilitated” foe Namor, who was also in on
the plan. Somehow this worked. Johnny briefly dated a Skrull named Lyja, twice.
Lyja used her shapeshifting powers to more or less stalk Johnny after their
relationship ended the first time. Around the same time he was tasked with
forming a backup Fantastic Four while the other three members were away in the
alternate dimension known as the Negative Zone. His team consisted of Ant-Man
(Scott Lang), Namor’s “sister” Namorita, and the She Hulk. The team was only
together briefly, but they worked well together.
During the Superhero Civil War, Johnny
was the target of at least one “hate crime.” Several folks at a club were
infuriated that Johnny got in, simply because he was a superhero celebrity, and
felt that Johnny wasn’t “worthy” of being called a superhero after the
terrorist bombing that started the whole Registration debate. They got the drop
on Johnny, but, obviously, superhuman mutant > normal townies in a fist
fight. After that, and an insane clone of Thor murdered a friend of theirs,
Bill Foster aka Goliath, Johnny and Sue defected to the Secret Avengers. After
the fighting finally dies down and Captain America surrendered, Johnny was
granted amnesty for his actions. During the following “Secret Invasion,” where
Skrull lookalikes replaced heroes and villains around the world, Johnny inadvertently
saved his teams lives. How? The Skrull tasked with replacing Sue Storm and
taking care of the Fantastic Four was none other than his ex Lyja, who
convinced her superiors to allow her to toss the team into the Negative Zone
rather than blowing them sky high. Bet that’s the first time an ex-girlfriend
worked to keep Johnny from suffering undo harm. The Fantastic Four escape the
Negative Zone and help beat the Skrull’s back.
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| Johnny, you seem to have some sort of parasitic growth on your arm there. Might want to have someone have a look at that. |
A bit after that, the Four travel
to the Negative Zone on a mission. During the mission they were once again
attacked by Annihilus and his horde of interdimensional alien bugs. Johnny is apparently
killed and devoured by the insects, which allows his team to escape. Spider-Man
is offered Johnny’s spot on the team, and accepts it, in honor of his old
friend. But, once again, the tale of a superhero’s death is greatly
exaggerated. Johnny was revived thanks to a species of alien-insects that Annihilus
implanted in his body. Annihilus’ plan was basically to force Johnny to open
the Negative Zone portal so he could invade Earth. Johnny refused, but
Annihilus found a new way to Earth when a parallel universe version of Reed
opened the portal for him. Johnny broke free of his restraints and led a
resistance movement against Annihilus. He was able to get his hands of
Annihilus’s Cosmic Control Rod, which allowed him to control the horde of
Negative Zone insects, which he promptly used on an alien Armada that was
squatting over Earth. Johnny temporarily lost his powers, but regained them a
short while later. After that he helped the Four with their Future Foundation,
and got back into just general superhero work.
Like the rest of the Fantastic Four’s
founding members, Johnny gained his abilities after being hit by Cosmic Rays.
Johnny’s powers are all centered on fire. He can engulf his entire body in
superheated plasma, usually shouting “Flame On!” to do so. In this form he is
able to fly by shooting flames out behind him, giving him thrust. He can also
release a long stream of fire like a flamethrower or toss fireballs. He can
absorb fire and/or plasma into his body, mentally control flames, and also see
into infa-red. He has enough control over his powers that he can grab onto
folks while in his fiery form without, you know, burning them to a crisp. In
fact his control over his abilities are so acute that he was once able to superheat
his blood for a few second to incinerate a poison he’d been injected with.
The Human Torch has appeared in a
number of different Marvel series.
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| I didn't know you could fit this much ego into a single image. |
He had a few appearances in The Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes. He
was briefly shown with his team in “The Man Who Stole Time” while Kang the
Conqueror invaded Earth, and in “The Casket of Ancient Winters” where he flies
by and helps the Avengers battle a gang of ice monsters before skywriting “You
Owe Me” using his flame stream. In “The Private War of Doctor Doom,” he and the
Thing attend a friendly poker match with Hawkeye, Captain America, Hulk and
Black Panther while Wasp and Iron Man visit Mr. Fantastic and Invisible Woman
at the Baxter Building. Their game, which had already been ruined by Hulk and
Thing constantly brawling, was further interrupted when Wasp and Invisible
Woman are kidnapped by Doom. They help break the two out, but fail to learn
that Sue Storm had been replaced by a Skrull. He and the rest of the Fantastic
Four are taken out by Invisible Skrull in “Secret Invasion” but return by the
end of the episode. He and the Four are made honorary Avengers in “Avengers
Assemble” when the Avengers are forced to fight Galactus and his Heralds. For
some reason, he and the Thing were assigned to battle Stardust, a being
composed of water. Not the best idea folks.
He was portrayed in Fantastic Four back in ’05 by Chris
Evans. He’s shown to be an arrogant man working for Von Doom Industries as a
pilot. According to Ben Grimm, he washed out of NASA because he crashed a
flight simulator that he was sharing with a pair of Victoria Secret models. After
being bombarded with Cosmic Rays like the rest of his Team and Doom, he’s shown
having an extreme increase in body temperature and occasionally morphs into his
fire form. He is also the one to name the team after he leaves the Baxter
Building, where they’d been sequestered, to attend a monster truck rally.
During the films climax, he finally flies when his former boss, Doctor Doom,
fires a heat seeking missile at him. It’s a bad, bad movie, but at least Chris
Evans proved it was more a writing/directing issue after excelling as Captain
America.
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| Not going to lie, he does look good. |
Evans reprised the role of Johnny
in the sequel Fantastic Four: Rise of the
Silver Surfer. During the course of the film, he’s touched by the Surfer,
which for some reason gives Johnny the ability to switch powers with his team
whenever they touch him. This gets him into trouble more than once as he keeps
accidentally swapping powers with his teammates as they’re trying to save folks
and he tries to get payback against the Silver Surfer. The rest of this
paragraph contains spoilers, so skip down to the next one if you want to avoid
them. Okay? Last warning. Here we go. In the film’s climax Doctor Doom is able
to steal the Surfer’s board and channel the Power Cosmic through it. His powers
are far beyond any of the Four separately, and he’d used them to impale Sue
Storm during the ensuing battle. She’s not dead, but her ability to stop a
supervillain is greatly diminished. Johnny gets the idea to touch everyone all
at once, gaining all of the powers and personally dukes it out with Doom. With
a normal Ben Grim and a wrecking ball’s aid they’re able to break Doom’s
connection with the Board, get the Surfer his powers back, save Sue, and then
the world. This sequence has bugged me for years and here’s why. The movie
established in every other instance before the point that the power swapping is
involuntary, no matter what Johnny want’s, it happens with a touch. And as
such, each time he touched one of them, he gained their powers and they gained
his. So even if he touched the other three members, he’d at best gain their
powers, and give them his fire power. So the last fifteen minutes of the movie
completely go against what was established before this point. It bugs me, and
made a bad movie even worse. Gr…
In the reboot, he’s be portrayed by
Michael B. Jordan. There was a bit of an outcry when some fans learned that the
traditional blonde haired, blue eyed Johnny would be portrayed by a Black
actor, but I see no problem with it. We could use a few more non-European
America’s in brightly colored costumes. And, if Michael B. Jordan proves that
he’s the best Johnny for the job, more power to him. I still think the movie
isn’t going to be all that great, but that’s just because the previews have
been rather lackluster for me.
For me, the Human Torch is a lot like
Iceman. I understand why some folks like him, he’s the funny, carefree, prankster
of his team, who often befriends enemies, and makes stressful situations a bit
easier. Still, do not care for him. I find him rather annoying most of the time,
and just a pain in the tookus when he’s given too great a focus. I can respect
him as one of the guys that brought Marvel to the top of their industry, but he’s
just not my cup of tea. He’s the flaming jokester, the hot headed hero, the intense
Human Torch. Next time, the most unfortunate member of the Fantastic Four, Ben
Grimm, aka the Thing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Torch#/media/File:Human_Torch.png
http://marvel.wikia.com/Human_Torch_%28Android%29_%28Earth-616%29
http://vignette3.wikia.nocookie.net/avengersalliance/images/a/a7/Human_Torch_Dialogue_2.png/revision/latest?cb=20121002002324
http://avengers-emh.tumblr.com/post/10419833299
http://fantasticfourmovies.wikia.com/wiki/File:Human_Torch_2015_poster.jpg
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