Strange Tales #102
Prisoner of the Wizard
The Wizard, a famous inventor and escape artist, is finding his popularity is waning. With the Human Torch's adventures making headlines, the Wizard blames the Torch for his loss in popularity and so plans to ruin the Torch's reputation.
Planning a stunt which involves drilling deep into the Earth, the Wizard plans to get trapped in order to earn the Torch's trust. Being "rescued" by the Torch, the Wizard invites the Torch to his state-of-the-art home. Trapping the Torch in a room and dousing him with water.
The Wizard dons a suit that allows him to mimic the Torch's abilities and goes on a crime spree in order to ruin the Torch's reputation.
Johnny manages to escape and when the Wizard gets home, he offers the Torch a challenge: Having taken pictures of himself putting on the suit that mimicked the Torch's powers, the Wizard will fight him, one-on-one with no powers for the photos. However, the Torch refuses to play the Wizard's game. When the Wizard is about to burn the pictures, they suddenly float out of the air and into the Torch's hands.
With the evidence in hand, the Torch has the Wizard arrested after proving the Wizard's guilt. After all is said and done, Johnny's sister Sue turns visible, revealing that she was the cause of the pictures flying out of the Wizard's hand.
Recurring Characters
Human Torch, Invisible Girl, The Wizard
Continuity Notes
This story recounts Johnny’s battle with the Destroyer from last issue.
The fact that the audience is watching the footage as part of a newsreel at a movie theater should be considered a topical reference per the sliding timescale of Earth-616. In the 1960s newsreels were still a common method of broadcasting the news before network television eventually rendered it a novelty, then obsolete. Likewise all Cold War references made in the present tense in this story should be considered topical as well.
This story states that Johnny's public identity is secret. This was a pretense that the Torch put up for himself as revealed in Human Torch (vol. 2) #1 Johnny did this to cover his bruised ego when nobody in Glenville initially believed he was the Human Torch. The Fantastic Four publicly revealed themselves just prior to Fantastic Four #3 as explained in Fantastic Four #543, how the Wizard couldn't know the Torch's public identity in this story seems unlikely, or at least the product of his own vain ignorance to those he deems below him. Strange Tales #106 reveals that everyone knew about Johnny's "double identity" and were just humouring him.
