I’ve never been a big fan of the Human Torch, or the Fantastic Four either, for that matter. Their adventures always seemed a little too cosmic for my tastes. I didn’t buy into the FF actually defeating Galactus, though I did like Uatu the Watcher.

I found the Human Torch addition of Marvel Masterworks when I searched to see if our local library carried the Black Panther edition (it didn’t), so I ended up checking this one out. This edition includes about twenty Human Torch stories first published starting in 1962 in Strange Tales.

Volume 1 includes several mostly forgettable villains – the only top-flight one of the bunch is Namor the Sub-Mariner. The only one of the other villains that made any impression on me at all was a guy called Paste-Pot Pete. Other than his odd name, he didn’t have much else going for him. He changed his name later on to The Trapster, but apparently Stan Lee was very proud of creating Paste-Pot Pete.

Given a choice, I’d prefer reading The Avengers or X-Men instead, but Human Torch was still an enjoyable read.

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