"THE FIRE THAT DIED!"
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Artists: Jim Mooney & Frank Springer
Colorist: Phil Rachelson | Letterer: John Costanza
Consulting Editor: Archie Goodwin
Writer/Editor: Roy Thomas | Artists: Jim Mooney & Frank Springer
Colorist: Phil Rachelson | Letterer: John Costanza
Consulting Editor: Archie Goodwin
Continuity Notes: The Torch says that he met Toro in 1940's HUMAN TORCH #1, "nearly two years" before the events of this issue. The story the public knows is that the Torch met Toro when he was part of an act in a circus, and adopted him as a crime-fighting partner after his parents were killed in a train accident. The Torch fills in some blanks, however: Toro is actually the son of Fred Raymond, lab assistant to the Torch's creator, Professor Horton. Raymond is a specialist on asbestos, and has contracted a terminal disease due to his work with the substance. But this doesn't stop him from marrying his sweetheart, Nora, who is also dying due to exposure to radium.
The couple welcomes a child soon after their wedding, but are shortly accosted by the Human Torch's enemy, Asbestos Lady, who wants Raymond to work for her. The Torch saves them and learns from the couple that Toro is a mutant, with flame-based powers. The Torch decides to keep an eye on the Raymonds, but fails to protect them from the train accident, which -- unknown the general public -- was staged by Asbestos Lady. Toro is adoped by the circus fire-eaters, and his survival of the crash soon becomes public knowledge. Asbestos Lady and the Human Torch both go to the circus for him, and Toro's powers awaken as he helps the Torch defeat Asbestos Lady.
Dyna-Mite states that he has no interest in maintaining a secret identity, and invites the Invaders and friends to call him "Roger" with impunity in front of the British sailors.
My Thoughts: I like to comment now and then about certain writers' inabilities to simply let older stories stand (or to let events remain what they appeared to be at first blush, or to leave characters as they were originally intended to be, etc., etc.). I mean, don't get me wrong: I'm absolutely a slave to continuity in terms of comics. I've said before, only half-jokingly, that anyone writing a comic book story should have two main priorities, in this exact order: 1. Acknowledging, adhering to, and respecting established continuity, and 2. Telling a good story. In serialized comics, as far as I'm concerned (and with apologies to Jack Kirby), continuity is king.
But what I'm talking about is writing a story around what has come before. Respecting it, like I said. Not doing the stupid story in the first place if you're going to contradict so much as even one single thing that happened in the umpteen dozen years (and counting) worth of issues that came prior to your issue.
That said, I'm not gonna claim that everything Thomas does here is necessary. I honestly don't think some of it is. But he scores huge points in my book for respecting the original story and "enhancing" it, for good or ill, to fit his own ongoing narrative.
The great thing about the Asbestos Lady is you don't even need to fight her. Mesothelioma will do it nicely, just wait a couple of decades. At least Thomas knew enough to include someone being ill from asbestos exposure since what we knew in 1940 about asbestos and what had been learned by the 1970s was wildly different.
ReplyDeleteA lot of things age badly as time moves on, but anytime asbestos is mentioned as a miracle fireproof material in Golden and Silver Age comics, I have to shake my head. I work in construction and if you find the slightest amount of asbestos in an old building, you basically stop work and hire people to do abatement on it. Mind early comics and radiation weren't much better.
There was an episode of the G.I. JOE cartoon, (and this was in the early 80s!), where one of the characters jokes that he's wearing his "asbestos underwear" after a flamethrower blast gets a little close. Even as a kid I found that odd...
DeleteRoy Thomas may have made a decent go with Toro here but over in Captain America he just contributed a mess. Jack Kirby had just finished on the title and Thomas took over, starting with the traditional ground of revisiting the origin. Only he opted to add a mysterious past pre serum that Cap had forgotten and the discovery would form the basis for the next mini epic to discover just who Steve Rogers is but Thomas left the series pretty quickly with the result that over three writers (Thomas, Don Glut and Steve Gerber) the book got into a mess retconning Steve into being from a traditional nuclear family in small town Maryland and adding elements to his wartime past such as taking part in the Captain America film serial and having an additional adventure before he was frozen to explain how Avengers #4 said a man could fall off a missile over the English Channel and land off Newfoundland (rather than "he had just been unfrozen and was confused about geography"). It's a chaotic mess that was generally forgotten with the small town past retconned away as implants by Roger Stern and John Byrne in their all too short run.
ReplyDeleteTim, I had no idea that Roy started the ball rolling toward Cap's memory implant ret-con! All I ever knew was that Steve Gerber was involved somehow, and that Byrne and Stern cleaned it up. I looked at that issue years ago, here.
DeleteI wonder if Thomas really intended it to go that far? From what I've read of his work, he generally seemed to respect established continuity, weaving his changed around and through it, rather than bulldozing it away.
Given the timing I wonder if it had anything to do with the Captain America TV movies. Apparently those split Cap in two - the WW2 hero and his son taking up the mantle in the modern day - so making Cap's father a figure in his life might have been a clunky attempt to bring the comic closer to what potential new readers might be expecting. Alternatively it could be someone thinking Cap needs to be "relatable" (or whatever the buzzword for that concept was back then) from small town America rather than a product of the big cities.
DeleteI don’t think we saw the original Cap on-screen in those TV movies. Steve Rogers was an artist who sketched up the lousy costume that he (as new Cap) wore in the first one, though, and I believe the comics you’re referencing are where the character’s artistic talent/ambitions were established, so… maybe. I wouldn’t imagine Marvel had any kind of pride in what aired or belief that viewers would be driven to the source material, but they were definitely quick to promote any such media adaptations.
Delete
ReplyDeleteI want so badly for there to be a lost tale where a deathly ill Asbestos Lady comes out of retirement to confront Hobie Brown for ripping off her costume.
Off all the issues from the latter half of this series, I think I remember this one the best. The whole of the retcon/expansion of Toro’s origin is interesting stuff, yeah, but I find Professor Horton’s reaction to the return of his creation so poignant that the story’s worth reading for that single panel alone.
Blam, I somehow never noticed the resemblance between Asbestos Lady and the Prowler, but now I totally see it!
Delete
DeleteThe Prowler is one of those fourth-banana superheroes we’ve been talking about. Or at least he was to me, back when I first encountered him in the mid ’70s.
I did praise the (Marvel) Crusaders’ surprisingly nice costumes, but I’m also enamored of those who get by with understandably generic outfits — in-story, based on their own resources, and real-world, given the dubious wisdom of putting one-and-done (or at least few-and-through) characters in cool, memorable threads. Prowler’s costume looked homemade, because it was, the distinguishing features being the gadgets he invented.
When Prowler showed up in the Sons of the Tiger strips you were reviewing, by the way, I thought of the fairly obscure pulp-style character of the same name created by Tim Truman and published by Eclipse in the mid to late ’80s. You might enjoy it, based on some of the stuff you’ve looked at in your non-Marvel/DC review series, and the material appears to have been collected in a couple of TPBs about ten years back.
Thanks, Blam! I just Googled, and Truman's Prowler looks like it might be right up my alley. I love that sort of pulp-inspired stuff. I may just check it out.
DeleteFor whatever reason, just the other day, I found myself reading (or I suppose, re-reading, since I already did it once years ago when I looked at THE ROCKETEER) about all the "indie" publishers that sprang up in the eighties. As a kid, I was totally mainstream -- just Marvel, and maybe the occasional DC or Archie, for me. Oh, and Gladstone's Disney comics.
So it's fascinating to learn about all these other companies that were producing content during my formative comic-reading years, but which I was totally oblivious to.
ReplyDeleteLately I’ve been reading great stuff in DC’s supernatural titles that I totally passed by as a kid. The best part is seeing the ads, trade dress, etc. from my personal Golden Age of Comics wrapped around what’s mostly new material to me. I’ve picked up horror and mystery titles from Marvel and Charlton over the years as well. There were so many excellent artists working mainly or exclusively in those genres that I denied myself for too long.
My personal Silver Age of Comics, as I think I’ve said here before, is around when those indie publishers you’ve mentioned sprang up. While still not venturing outside the superhero genre all that much, I was drawn into the likes of Alien Worlds and, just at the tail end thanks to coming across the original reprint volumes in bookstores, ElfQuest. The bridge was high-quality stuff that was at least superhero-adjacent like Zot!, Concrete, and Rocketeer.