{"id":499,"date":"2005-09-23T20:20:00","date_gmt":"2005-09-23T20:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/2005\/09\/23\/human-torch-2-prisoner-of-the-wizard\/"},"modified":"2005-09-23T20:20:00","modified_gmt":"2005-09-23T20:20:00","slug":"human-torch-2-prisoner-of-the-wizard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/archives\/499","title":{"rendered":"The Human Torch #2 [1974] &#8211; Prisoner of the Wizard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A Kirby\/Ayers reprint from STRANGE TALES #102 (1962) in this issue, the second solo Torch story, where we meet the Wizard, a brilliant inventor who for some reason decides that defeating the Human Torch will be his greatest triumph. Just because he&#8217;s a genius, doesn&#8217;t mean he&#8217;s not stupid&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>He fakes an accident that only the Torch can rescue him from, and then lures the Torch to his futuristic home and douses the Torch&#8217;s flame (this is during that brief period when Johnny had a secret identity, so the flames on his head conveniently stay).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2005\/09\/ht2.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter  wp-image-2802\" alt=\"ht2\" src=\"\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2005\/09\/ht2-696x1024.jpg\" width=\"448\" height=\"659\" srcset=\"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2005\/09\/ht2-696x1024.jpg 696w, https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2005\/09\/ht2-204x300.jpg 204w, https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2005\/09\/ht2-624x917.jpg 624w, https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/8\/2005\/09\/ht2.jpg 800w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 448px) 100vw, 448px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Wizard then duplicates the Torch&#8217;s powers and goes on a crime spree to frame our hero. Fortunately Johnny gets free and then does what he does best, goes running to his big sister for help (and it&#8217;s just sad when you get a solo feature and have to go to your sister for help on the second story).<\/p>\n<p>One interesting thing in this story is the depiction of the Wizard&#8217;s escape artist routine, which could be dropped in panel-for-panel in a Mister Miracle story from a decade later.<\/p>\n<p>Dick Ayers inks the 13-page story.<\/p>\n<p>Published 1974<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A Kirby\/Ayers reprint from STRANGE TALES #102 (1962) in this issue, the second solo Torch story, where we meet the Wizard, a brilliant inventor who for some reason decides that defeating the Human Torch will be his greatest triumph. Just because he&#8217;s a genius, doesn&#8217;t mean he&#8217;s not stupid&#8230; He fakes an accident that only [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-genre","category-superhero"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/499\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kirbymuseum.org\/blogs\/kirby\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}