Human Torch

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Powers and Abilities

The Human Torch, who possesses the mental ability to control ambient heat energy, can transform his body into living flame upon command. His mental control is extremely good with years of experience behind him. Common stunts include:

• Blinding flashes or smoke production.
• The formation of flame objects, such as fire walls or flame cages, or even flame duplicates of himself.
• Flight.
• Expelling bolts of fire in varying degrees of intensity, up to a super-charged nova-blast.

His uniform and clothing consist of unstable molecules, enabling him to “flame on” without damaging them in any way.

The years have given Johnny well-honed combat instincts, and he’s capable of taking down larger hoodlums without even using his powers.

Always having had an attraction to fast cars, his hobby is car driving, which he excels at, and his knowledge extends well from basic mechanics to advanced electronics. In fact, he’s good enough to once having built an anti-aging ray at the verbal instructions of Reed.

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History

Jonathan Storm, the second of two children born to a physician and his wife, grew up comfortably on Long Island. In high school, he developed an attraction to fast cars and beautiful girls.

But a trip to California to visit his sister — Susan, an aspiring actress — forever shattered Johnny’s small-town status quo. It also offered him the opportunity to experience the ultimate thrill ride.

Sue’s fiancé and longtime sweetheart, aeronautical engineer Reed Richards, had designed and fabricated an experimental starship capable of interstellar travel. When the government threatened to cut off its partial funding of the project, he chose to make an immediate test flight with best friend Ben Grimm as his pilot. Rounding out the 4-person crew were Sue and Johnny.

Mystery in space

In space, the starship unexpectedly encountered intense radiation, causing Johnny and company to abort the flight. After surviving a crash-landing, all four discovered that the cosmic rays had mutagenically altered their bodies.

Sue could turn invisible at will, while Johnny gained the ability to envelop his body is fiery plasma. Ben’s transformation was perhaps the most shocking: He had become an orange-colored, thick-skinned, heavily muscled, superhumanly strong “thing.”

Newly elasticized, Reed convinced his friends that they should use their unique powers for humanity’s benefit. Under Mr. Fantastic’s leadership, the Human Torch, Invisible Woman and the Thing continue to challenge the unknown as the greatest team of adventurers ever assembled: the Fantastic Four.

Following the freak accident that granted him his powers, Johnny and his sister attempted to return to their quiet life on Long Island. Johnny tried to finish high school, hoping no one in the community would realize he was the Human Torch. This soon proved impossible to conceal from the townspeople.

Upon graduation, he moved to the Fantastic Four’s Baxter Building headquarters in New York City.

Like any family, the members of the FF have endured their share of squabbles. However, they always manage to right the ship.

Never was this fact more evident than when Johnny began a romantic relationship with Ben’s former girlfriend, the blind sculptress Alicia Masters; the two even married. Though this act strained his relationship with Ben, the teammates were able to salvage their friendship.

Later, “Alicia” was revealed to be Lyja, one of the alien race of shapeshifting Skrulls. Pregnant with Johnny’s child, she claimed to have fallen in love with him. But Johnny felt betrayed, and he was unable to face her.

During a mission to rescue the true Alicia from the Skrull homeworld, Lyja apparently was killed. Johnny and the Fantastic Four returned to Earth, where he has continued his adventures as one of the most eligible bachelors of the superhuman set.

History in the MC2 future

See our Spider-Girl (May “Mayday” Parker) for more about the MC2 future.

John Storm is the younger brother of Susan Storm-Richards and the only son of Dr. Franklin and Mary Storm. His mother Mary died in a car crash when John was very young and his father was imprisoned for murder although John was told that he had died and wouldn’t learn otherwise until shortly before Dr. Storm’s actual death many years later.

Despite how his mother had died John developed a love of automobiles and racing. Spending most of his free time with garage mechanics, he quickly learned how to repair cars and modify them to improve their performance.

At 16, John went out to Central City, California, to visit his sister. When he learned of the unauthorized maiden flight of Reed Richard’s starship, John insisted on coming along. After the creation of the FF, John and Sue returned to Long Island.

There he managed to graduate from high school while simultaneously learning to be a super hero. After graduation, John attended Metro College for a year before dropping out and moving into the Baxter Building with the others.

John had a series of romantic flings with various women through the years in his youth. Former girlfriends include Dorrie Evans, Crystal, Lorrie Melton, Frankie Raye, Julie Angel, and Sharon Selleck. He met his wife Lyja when she replaced Alicia Masters, then the Thing’s girlfriend, in order to spy on the Fantastic Four for the Skrull military.

They soon fell in love with each other and married but separated after her true identity was discovered. At some murky point in the past they reconciled and the team expanded to become the Fantastic Five. They now a young son named Torus.

Hyperstorm showdown

Approximately 10 years before MC2 time, shortly before Torus’ birth, the Fantastic Five had their final battle with Hyperstorm who was opening a rift between the Negative Zone and Earth. Reed, Sue, Ben, John, and Franklin traveled into the Negative Zone only to be stymied by Hyperstorm’s rocky constructs.

Franklin launched a massive psionic assault against his son from an alternate future and was himself attacked on every conceivable plane of existence. After a lengthy battle with the rest of the FF standing by watching Franklin was able to destroy Hyperstorm’s mind although at the cost of most of his Gawd-like abilities.

At this point Mr. Fantastic noticed that Hyperstorm’s machine had begun opening the fatal rift. Unable to shut it down in time Richards instead set it to over load. His wife Sue rushed next to him to use her invisible force field to protect them both but to no avail.

Guessing that the radiation would pass through the force field just as light does Reed wrapped his malleable body around Sue and saved her from harm by taking the brunt of it himself and was crippled.

While the rift had stopped growing it hadn’t shut and still threatened all life on Earth so Sue once again used her force field to plug the rift. Unable to drop her force field for even an instant Sue was forced to remain in the Negative Zone. Reed remained with her and built a suspended animation tank for her that would automatically maintain her force field while she remained in stasis.

Eventually an entire space station was build around Sue to protect her and allow Reed to work on closing the rift inch by tortuous inch. The public was told nothing of what happened to Reed and Sue.

With Reed and Sue incapacitated John was forced to finally grow up. He assumed the leadership of the Fantastic Five has since shown himself to be mature and capable in both that role and as a father.

After several months, Reed modified the designs for HERBIE to create a robotic surrogate that he could use to interact with the world and participate in the FF’s adventures. Named Big Brain, the public was allowed to believe that this shell contained Reed’s actual brain and that Sue was dead.

The purpose of this deception was to prevent anyone from looking for Reed and Sue because if they found the Fantastistation and disrupted the equipment of Sue’s chamber it would be the Earth’s doom.

Even so, this has almost happened on at least one occasion. The Wingless Wizard penetrated the deception surrounding Big Brain and managed to get himself and a lackey inside the Fantastistation. He was stopped by the security system and placed in suspended animation. Recently Reed has adopted a humaniform design for Big Brain V2.0.

Description

Johnny Storm is a slenderly built, blond, young male often seen in a suit or in the blue FF-uniform. These are made of unstable molecules like many of his ordinary clothes, and thus won’t burn up from the use of his powers.

As the Human Torch he resembles a fully burning humanoid in reddish flames with his features only slightly visible. When much less experienced with his powers his flame form was much less focused and changed between yellow, orange and red fire colors.

Personality

Usually the first to dive into battle or try to right wrongs, Johnny Storm is the adventuresome spirit of the Fantastic Four. His brash and impulsive nature has earned him the nickname “Hothead”. Always seeking to be the center of attention, he is known for flashy maneuvers in combat and his battle cry, “Flame on!”.

Johnny normally has good control over his powers, but if someone he loves is threatened or killed, he may lose his temper and lash out. Anyone who dares to harm one of the other FF members, especially his sister Sue, is likely to get the Torch flaming mad (pun intended).

His hobbies includes flying around the city, dating women, flirting, attending various public events, jesting around and tormenting the Thing and driving really fast hotrods. Despite his many romantic setbacks over the years, Johnny believes in true love, and he pursues this goal with considerable zeal.

Quotes

“Flame on!”

DC Universe History

Marvel’s “First Family” works best as an original group, of course, and if added to the DCU, should be kept as close to their “native” history and prominence as possible— see the “FF & Superman timelines” articles in WORG for examples.

If, however, only Johnny is desired, then young Johnny Storm stowed away on astronaut Hank Henshaw’s fateful mission that turned him into the Cyborg. Johnny survived the crash, though only barely, but quickly recovered and discovered that he had developed powerful flame-based abilities.

His power and courage easily won him an early spot with the Teen Titans, but he broke with them a few short years later over an argument with visiting Russian hero Starfire (later known as Red Star). Johnny spent several years in solo adventures, only to return to the Titans at the request of former teammate Roy Harper, once known as Speedy, and now known as Arsenal.

Harper needed to keep the team together in the transition to government operation, and felt that Johnny was well-suited to the environment (the Human Torch replaces Green Lantern’s appearances during this time).

Since the disbanding of that group of Titans, Johnny has once again gone solo. The loss of his wife (a white Martian spy, who accidentally died, the first time he activated his powers in her presence) has made him more serious. There is some speculation that he may have actually become Earth’s latest Fire Elemental.

By Dr. Peter S Piispanen.

Source of Character: FF Comics, Marvel.

Helper(s): Jay Myers (author of the MC2 part of the writeup), Michael Davis, Jackson, Roy Cowan, John Colagioia, Gareth Lewis, Paul ’Z‘ Ewande, Sébastien Andrivet (master of the destructo-droids), www.marvel.com, Marvel Saga Fantastic Four Roster Book. DCA stats by Pawsplay.