The reason you came, and some weird fish-guy is here, too.
The Human Torch's first self-titled comic, which originally began life as the Old Shame, Red Raven Comics, but was quickly retooled into something more marketable. The first issue (titled #2) features stories involving the titular Torch, Namor, the Fiery Mask, Mantor the Magician, the Golden Age Falcon, and Microman (who was just a little boy who never called himself that). This new version of the magazine was a success, and continued until 1954.
Tropes included in Human Torch and its short-lived predecessor, Red Raven Comics:
- Be Careful What You Wish For: Comes up in Jimmy Everett's story, titled "A Wish Come True". The wish in question was to become tiny, as Jimmy thought it'd be a fun time. It wasn't.
- Brainwashed and Crazy: The Torch is briefly brainwashed by Namor with some drugged food and sent to attack the surface world.
- The Butler Did It: Mantor's first foes are literally a malicious butler and gardener, trying to kill a young heiress for her family's fortune.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome:
- Even though his first story assured his that he would appear again in the next issue, Jimmy Everett never showed up again.
- Every single character from Red Raven Comics was absent from the new version. Even Mercury was repurposed as "Hurricane" when he next appeared in Captain America Comics.
- Crossover: Famously had one with Marvel Mystery Comics in its fifth issue (the one where the Human Torch battles Namor). There were also many stories in the second issue that ended with characters or narration telling the reader "Go buy Marvel (Mystery) Comics!"
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Fan Nickname: The duplicate fifth issue is often labeled by re-sellers and online as "Human Torch 5a". - Hilarious in Hindsight: Jimmy Everett muses that he'd like to be as small as an ant, and gets his wish after drinking a scientist's shrinking serum. Hmm...
- Kid Sidekick: Human Torch #2 featured the debut of Toro, the Flaming Kid!
- Lady Macbeth: Rathia serves this role for Namor in the second issue 5, convincing him he should Take Over the World.
- Names The Same:
- This Falcon has no relation to any future characters in Marvel with that name.
- Likewise, the Golden Age Ka-Zar should not be confused with the later Ka-Zar of the modern age.
- The Tubby from Tubby an' Tack is not the same Tubby from Young Allies.
- For some reason, this series had two issues labeled 5.
- Old Shame: Marvel has a very low opinion of Red Raven Comics #1, and any retrospective you'll find about it labels as an unmitigated disaster that crashed and burned and they couldn't wait to get away from it.
- "Scooby-Doo" Hoax: Mantor is attacked by two ghosts in a mansion, who turn out to be the mansion's butler and its gardener in disguise.
- Shout-Out: Often did these to its sister publication, Marvel Mystery Comics. A train in Toro's debut story is even called the "Marvel Special".
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: The Human Torch basically usurped this magazine away from Red Raven because Red Raven Comics sold that badly.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Mantor was the third attempt by Timely Comics to create a Mandrake-like hero of their own, after Daring Mystery Comics' Monako and Red Raven Comics' Magar.
- Those Wacky Nazis: A recurring foe of any wartime comic, including this one.
- Tuckerization: The Human Torch and Namor's creators were respectively Carl Burgos and Bill Everett. Human Torch #2 introduces characters named Carl Burgess and Jimmy Everett (The Falcon and Microman, respectively).
- Un-Installment: There was no fourth issue of Human Torch, just two fifth issues. As for the first issue, it's just Red Raven Comics #1.
