Daily Archives: April 5, 2007

The Human Torch #4 [1975]

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This issue reprints the 13-page Kirby/Ayers Torch story from STRANGE TALES #104 [1963], “The Human Torch Meets Paste-Pot Pete”. Yes, Paste-Pot Pete, the villain whose name is three kinds of stupid (the Paste-Pot nonsense, giving your real name in your villain identity and the annoying alliteration).

Johnny first runs into Pete at a bank, where he’s unable to act openly for fear of revealing his identity. Yes, this was when he briefly tried to keep a secret identity. He does manage to send out a flame-double of himself to follow Pete, not a power (creating doubles that apparently can act with some independence) that you see him use much later. Clearly there were still feeling out the character at the time.

HumanTorchThe41975.jpg

The Torch eventually catches up with Pete as he’s moved on quickly from bank robbery to theft of experimental military missiles. The Torch is briefly pasted to one as his flame fails, but escapes. Pete manages to escape before being captured, left to ponder where he went wrong. Surprisingly it would take a while before he figures out that his name is one of the place.

The early Torch solo stories are all over the map, and this is one of the weaker ones in terms of the story, but the Kirby/Ayers artwork is, by contrast, excellent stuff.

Published 1975

-Link- Kirby in British art magazine

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Posted in Links.

Nick comments on the previous post:

While browsing the magazine rack today, out of the corner of my eye I noticed a Kirby/Shores Cap figure surrounded by images by George Grosz and Dieter Roth. I picked up the magazine entitled Tate Etc. with the sub heading “The Art Magazine that RESPECTS your intelligence!” (couldn’t pass up a joke!). It’s a British publication and Inside there is an article by John Carlin entitled “The Real Comic Book Heroes”. I have not read it yet but it is accompanied by a nice full page of the Original Art that appears on the over (cover to Captain America # 108). It’s always nice to see Kirby represented in fine art magazines, not the first time I’ve seen him there and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Of course, we all know Kirby is Art with a capital A. I’m glad the rest of the world is discovering this as well.

You can see the cover and article here. The Kirby mention in the article is fairly brief, but interesting. In part it reads:

Echoes of [William Blake’s] flattened muscular style reverberate throughout the comic’s heroic phase, particularly by artists such as Jack Kirby (1917–1994), creator of Captain America, The Hulk, X-Men and the overall look of Marvel Comics. One of Kirby’s characters, The Thing (one of the Fantastic Four) on the title page of This Man, This Monster, resembles Blake figures such as Lucifer from his illustrations for Dante’s Divine Comedy.

Additional Kirby artwork included is the great double page splash from DEVIL DINOSAUR #4.

http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue9/realcomicbookheroes.htm