STRANGE TALES 102 (1962)
by Stan Lee, Larry Lieber & Jack Kirby
Possibly the Human Torch solo story with the most impact on the Fantastic Four: the debut of the Wizard.
We begin with a newsreel showing a recap of last issue in theaters.
The Wizard is among the public, and he’s so impressed by the Human Torch that his face melts.
The Wizard is a famous and very very rich inventor.
He’s also a chess champion and an escapist.
Jack Kirby must’ve loved the idea of an escapist that uses high-tech gadgets because this is basically a prototype for Mr. Miracle.
He also invents THIS THING…
…and pretends to be trapped underground, so that the Human Torch will go save him.
Silly, yes, but actually relatively plausible: aside for the Fantastic Four, the only other characters that could’ve answered the call are Spider-Man, Hulk and Thor. EVERYBODY ELSE hasn’t been introduced yet!
Now you might expect the Wizard to have a trap ready for the Torch when he arrives to rescue him. Instead he just… shakes his hand and invites him to his house!
You didn’t have to go this far, Wizard! You could’ve just asked him to come over!
And it’s not like it’s hard to have the Torch fall into a trap.
The Wizard’s plan is to give the Torch cancer.
The Wizard is such a genius that he can create a suit that perfectly duplicates the Torch’s powers. It’s notable because Reed Richards was REALLY inept at this in Fantastic Four #39.
And so the Wizard, impersonating the Torch, goes on a crime spree.
Not because he needs the money, mind you. He just wants to ruin the Torch’s reputation.
His schemes range from the creative…
…to the utterly ridiculous.
However the Wizard overestimated the time his flame-retardant solution would last, and underestimated the Torch’s ability to melt through anything.
The Torch has the drop on Wizard, but instead of arresting him or anything he just goes home and agrees to visit his house again.
The Wizard’s great plan is to force the Human Torch to flame off and reveal his secret identity.
Yeah… the entire story hinges on the EXTREMELY thin premise that the Torch’s identity isn’t known by the public.
However the Torch shows Wizard that he’s all-powerful…
…which is so ridiculous that the Wizard turns into some weird monkey man and surrenders.
We end with the discovery that the hero of our story triumphed… because he called his sister to help.
Truly the greatest crime fighter in history.
Historical significance: 6/10
The Wizard will bother the Human Torch again, and most importantly will become a recurring Fantastic Four villain… where he will mostly ignore the Torch and focus on a rivalry with Reed. The Wizard’s visual design will be completely changed (THANK GOD), and basically 90% of his origin will be utterly ignored.
Silver Age-ness: 8/10
There aren’t THAT many ridiculous Silver Age inventions, but the basic idea absolutely cannot be done anywhere else.
Does it stand the test of time? 0/10
Like I said, the premise of the story is that the Torch’s identity is a secret. Not only that doesn’t work AT ALL with what we see in the Fantastic Four series, but that won’t be properly fixed. We will eventually learn that most of the supporting cast of this serial actually knew Johnny is the Torch and were just humoring him… but the Wizard has no such excuse.
But the story would suck regardless: Wizard has even less reasons to target the Torch than Lex Luthor has for Superman, and that’s saying something!!!
The only saving grace is Jack Kirby’s art, but that’s not enough.
Cancer count: 5
Adding the asbestos cell.