Publication History
Following his debut in the hit Marvel Comics #1, the Human Torch proved popular enough that he soon became one of the first superheroes to headline a solo title. Through the 1940s, the Torch starred or was featured in Marvel Mystery Comics (the book's title beginning with issue #2), The Human Torch (premiering with issue #2, Fall 1940, having taken over the numbering of the defunct Red Raven Comics), and Captain America Comics #19, 21-67, 69, 76-77, as well as appearing in several issues of All Select Comics, All Winners Comics, Daring Comics, Mystic Comics, and Young Allies Comics.
Seeing a natural "fire and water" theme, Timely was responsible for comic books' first major crossover, with a two-issue battle between the Human Torch and the Sub-Mariner that spanned Marvel Mystery Comics #8-9—telling the same story from the two characters' different perspectives.
Marvel Mystery Comics ended its run with #92 (June 1949), and The Human Torch with #35 (March 1949), as superheroes in general faded in popularity. Timely Comics publisher Martin Goodman—who by the early 1950s had transitioned the company to its next iteration, as Atlas Comics—attempted to revive superheroes with the anthology comic Young Men #24-28 (Dec. 1953 - June 1954), starring the Human Torch (art by Syd Shores and Dick Ayers, variously, with covers and initially some panels featuring the Torch redrawn by Burgos for style consistency), along with the Sub-Mariner and Captain America. The solo title The Human Torch returned for issues #36-38 (April-Aug. 1954) before again being canceled. The Torch also appeared in stories in the briefly revived Captain America Comics and Sub-Mariner Comics, and in the anthology Men's Adventures #28 (July 1954).
The original Human Torch debuted in present-day Marvel Comics continuity in Fantastic Four Annual #4 (Nov. 1966).
Read more about this topic: Human Torch (android)
Famous quotes containing the words publication and/or history:
“I would rather have as my patron a host of anonymous citizens digging into their own pockets for the price of a book or a magazine than a small body of enlightened and responsible men administering public funds. I would rather chance my personal vision of truth striking home here and there in the chaos of publication that exists than attempt to filter it through a few sets of official, honorably public-spirited scruples.”
—John Updike (b. 1932)
“There is nothing truer than myth: history, in its attempt to “realize” myth, distorts it, stops halfway; when history claims to have “succeeded” this is nothing but humbug and mystification. Everything we dream is “realizable.” Reality does not have to be: it is simply what it is.”
—Eugène Ionesco (b. 1912)