Spider Man Human Torch: 1st Marvels
Superman and Bat Man- well, Tonto and the Lone Ranger- heck, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid- friendship's always been part of the appeal of our classic heroes. Even Wolverine benefits from someone on his Six, storywise. Now I want to focus on early Marvel- I was fascinated by the way they built a storyverse, with guest stars and shared villains and footnotes connecting your earlier Marvels to the one in your hands.
The Hulk/ Thing rivalry kicked off the very same month (in Fantastic Four #12) that Spider-Man visited and antagonized the Fantastic Four for the first time in Amazing Spider-Man #1 (his second appearance, of course). With Spidey, they had an apparent hit on their hands, so why not mix him up with the teen member of their flagship title, the Fantastic Four? While trying to build their nascent - I'm going to use my own term, Heroverse- they repurposed their weird/mystery/UFO/monster titles as vehicles for the new characters. Torch got three years as the cover featured half of Strange Tales, a magazine which had already run about ten years when he got there.
by comparison to Amazing Spider-Man, Torch’s half strip gave us many less compelling and lasting villains than Spidey’s full-length monthly tales with Steve Ditko aboard, drawing and dreaming with Stan.
Now, one difference in the strips is Supporting Cast, and having maybe eleven or twelve pages a month doesn’t leave much space, though it’s entirely possible, but Silver Age Support Casts were not never more complicated than Spider-Man Fan and Peter Parker Bully Flash Thompson, and that lion of publishing, J. Jonah Jameson. And by Lion, I mean he’s scary even when he’s asleep..
So, check it out.
Here's my favorite Silver Age Torch/ Spidey team-up, from Amazing Spider-Man #17-19, 1965.
Cecil @Creating Marvels
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