Thursday, January 18, 2007

Playing With Fire


More fun with the Original Human Torch, this time courtesy of Roy Thomas and Rich Buckler's 1990 Saga of the Original Human Torch. This series was part of Thomas' long-standing project to revitalize interest in Marvel's Golden Age by hammering out the creases in convoluted 40s and 50s continuity -- something that DC / National had been doing all along but which Marvel was slow to emulate (still slow to emulate, to judge by how rarely -- and unsuccessfully -- the 40s and 50s characters are brought out of mothballs*). It doesn't help that, as I said, Marvel's wartime and postwar output really was nowhere near as beloved or important as DC's and that, additionally, most of it just wasn't worth remembering. But Thomas made the attempt anyway, spurred by newfound interest in the character after he was resurrected during John Byrne's tenure on West Coast Avengers. Sure, the resurrection made a mess of accepted Avengers continuity and had to be cleaned up about a decade later during Avengers Forever, but I always thought the original Torch was a fun character and it was well-wroth a few continuity headaches to have him running around again.



A whole year? Slowpoke. I built my android in six weeks, during my lunch breaks.



That Professor Horton, always looking on the bright side.



There about fifty things that spring to mind upon seeing this panel. I'll bet you can guess.



There's comic-book science, and then there's this, which is so bad it almost qualifies as Dr. Who science.



Yeah, too bad you never had a special limited series specifically dedicated to unravelling the mysteries of your golden age adventures. Oh, wait . . .





*I did read and enjoy the recent Agents of Atlas mini but the sales figures I saw indicate I was one of about twelve people who did.

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