Every time April First rolls around, I like to honor the spirit of the day by taking a no-holds-barred look at the original appearance of a Golden Age "superhero." In previous years, I've given the business to Superman, Batman, and Captain Marvel. I'm sure many of my fellow comics fans were hoping and praying I had finally gotten it out of my system, but this year I chose to turn my attention to the early efforts of Timely (the future "Marvel") in a double-header look at the original appearances of the Human Torch (Jim Hammond) and the Sub-Mariner (Namor), since both tales were published within the pages of the same comic book in 1939. (Marvel Comics #1, with the series title shifting to "Marvel Mystery Comics" with the very next issue!)
Until about a week ago ago, I'd never read the actual Golden Age debuts of those "early superheroes." While wondering where I could find access to that material, cheaply but legally, I discovered I could buy a digital edition of that classic comic through the Marvel.com website for $1.99, and I decided to splurge.
So bear with me as I walk through the plot of each story, and then I will offer some observations on what it reveals to us about the moral fiber, etc., of each protagonist!
PART ONE: THE HUMAN TORCH
The story begins with the words "The Human Torch" in big letters in a panel stretching across the top of the page, followed by "by Carl Burgos" in much smaller ones. No actual story title; that "Human Torch" bit is obviously the title of the new ongoing feature. (The comics.org listing for this issue assigns the arbitrary title of "[Origin of the Human Torch]" to this tale.)
As the actual plot gets going, we see that a silver-haired man called "Professor Horton" is hosting a press conference in his own laboratory. He says he's created "a synthetic man -- an exact replica of a human being!"
He calls the guy "The Human Torch," and keeps him in an airtight glass cylinder -- but with the option to feed in carefully calibrated quantities of air by fiddling with a nearby control panel -- because it turns out there was one tiny little glitch in the otherwise brilliant design. Whenever Horton's "robot" is touched by a fresh supply of oxygen, he bursts into flame from head to toe. (This process does not seem to harm The Human Torch in any way, so I'm far from clear on just what, if anything, is actually burning to fuel those flames.)
One of the reporters says: "Horton, destroy that man, before some madman can grasp its principles and hurl it against our civilization!"
Er, right. Flawless logic, buddy. After all, it's not as if the science of the early 20th Century had already found lots of other ways to make things burst into flame whenever you really wanted them to!
(Seriously, though -- "thermite" was patented in 1895, and the first battlefield use of a "flamethrower" occurred in 1915. If this reporter thinks getting rid of "The Human Torch" will magically prevent any form of terrifying incendiary weapons from being used on a large scale during the next big war, then I'm afraid he's living in serious denial -- that ship has already sailed, long before Horton ever started building his "synthetic man!")
Professor Horton seems to have a far better grasp of the practical realities than the frightened reporters do; politely but firmly, he tells them that destroying his robot wouldn't solve anything. One of the reporters replies that they will see what "the power of the press" can do to change the Professor's mind.
Before long, the newspaper headlines are informing the general public of what's going on in Horton's lab, and Horton gets a phone call from a representative of a group called "the scientist's guild." An appointment is made. At 8 PM, a three-man delegation shows up to investigate this matter on behalf of the entire guild. Horton repeats the stunt he did for the reporters, deliberately feeding another burst of air into the glass cylinder so the visitors can gauge the results -- and the visitors are stunned when they see a meter on the control panel has suddenly snapped because the temperature of the flaming man is too high for the apparatus to measure! (Nobody tells us just how high the meter was capable of going, though.)
After Horton confirms that he has not found any way to control that reaction (setting aside the obvious fact that cutting off the air supply qualifies as a very crude form of "control" -- an On/Off switch, basically), his visitors reluctantly concede that the newspapers might actually have a point about the dangers. But they do a little brainstorming, and one guy (unnamed) comes up with an alternative that seems less destructive. "Entomb him in a concrete block."
Since it is implied (although never stated) that the "synthetic man's" survival does not depend in any way upon eating, drinking, or breathing anything at all, the general idea is that if Horton's later lab work finds a reliable way to control that incendiary reaction, they can dig the robot out of the concrete, none the worse for wear, and try again!
Note: Since Horton won't have the robot constantly available as a test subject for each new idea he comes up with, I'm far from clear on how he will know in advance that any little tricks he's just pulled in his lab will, in fact, work equally well at suppressing the robot's tendency to burst into flame. But that point is not addressed in dialogue.
At any rate: This plan is acted upon -- the Torch being shut into an airtight steel tube and then lowered into a mass of liquid concrete -- with gentlemen of the press invited to observe the process so that they can then soothe the public's fears by reporting that the Torch is sealed away, inert and harmless, for the foreseeable future.
A caption then tells us: "Time went by -- and everybody had forgotten about the fire-man, until, one early morning, there was a terrifying blast and the earth split open!" (Sound effect: BOOM!)
I love that vague reference to "time" passing. Does that mean weeks, months, or years? It doesn't say!
We are assured that somehow there was a very slow leak which allowed oxygen to seep in through the concrete and into the steel tube until the Torch had (inadvertently, I gather) blasted himself loose. Now he starts running through the streets of the city, and everyone is panicking as he leaves a trail of burning objects in his wake. Which wouldn't bother me so much if one of those objects wasn't a grown man! (Or at least his suit and hat, in one panel -- I hope he managed to strip the burning clothing off before he was badly hurt, but we never hear any follow-up on his fate.)
Until this moment, the most exciting thing we had ever seen the Torch deliberately do was raising and lowering one arm while catching on fire inside that glass tube. Now we are seeing our first proof that he is capable of locomotion -- and rational thought -- and even has some language skills! In other words, that he actually has a personality, a point which had not previously been so much as hinted at! (For instance, I don't recall Horton ever claiming to have made any attempt whatsoever to carry on meaningful communication with his own creation.)
Our feature character's first recorded words are quite reasonable under the circumstances: "I'm burning alive! -- Why must everything I touch turn to flame? --"
(Don't take the "burning alive" part too seriously; I don't think he's suffering. I think he just means: "I'm alive, and I'm surrounded by fire radiating out from my skin.")