Issue #4

Sorry that it's been a couple days, today I'll be covering issue 4, which came out May 1st, 1962. 

When we last left off, Torch had just left the F4, but based on this cover, he came back. This is likely because Sue (his sister) gets in danger. We also see that the villain is most powerful underwater, so it'll be curious to see how they handle someone like that. 

So, we start off with the remainder of the F4 trying to figure out where Torch is, Thing doesn’t want to find him, while Sue and Reed do, and say that the Thing is going to help. Thing threatens to hurt Torch when they find him, which Reed promises Sue is not going to happen. 

The three of them separate in the Fantasticar to find Torch, Sue searches popular teen areas, Reed interrogates cyclists, but it’s the Thing of all people that proves he knows him the best, finding him in a small shed working on hot rods with his friends. Thing immediately moves to beat the Torch up, telling him he can’t afford to flame on because there is gasoline around him that could hurt his friends. Torch flames off, telling Thing not to hurt anyone. Thing responds by saying he’s going to “teach Torch who’s boss.” Just as he has Torch cornered, Thing temporarily turns into a human, he gets so excited, he lets Torch fly off, and immediately turns back to the Thing. 

Torch flies off and decides to stay at an unsupposing motel, where he starts to read about a guy named the Sub-Mariner, strongest underwater and the potential strength of ten men. The guy next to him tells Torch they have someone there that is about that strength, and tells an unassuming old guy to tear a phonebook in half. The old guy says no, and the phonebook guy hits him to try to get him to do it. The old guy knocks him back, which gets the whole motel in an uproar to beat the old man up. The old man beats up all of them, and then Torch breaks it up. He shaves the old guy's beard off, to find he is the Sub-Mariner. 

Once again, we cut to Sue and Reed searching the city for him, and Sue gets so close but misses him walking with Sub-mariner, who has forgotten who he is. Torch throws him into a lake, saying that if he really is the Sub-Mariner then his memory will come back to him, if not, the Torch will rescue him. Sub-Mariner (who we now find out goes by the name Namor, who was the villain in the Black Panther: Wakanda Forever movie) remembers who he is and says that he has a kingdom to get back to, only to find it destroyed. Namor realizes that it was the human atomic testing that destroyed the kingdom, scattering the people within. He decides that he needs to destroy the whole human race, and comes back to Torch to tell him this. Namor leaves, and Torch uses his emergency F4 flare to alert his former team, who finds him so he can explain who he is. 

We cut to Namor awakening the biggest beast in the ocean, the huge Giganto. He awakens the beast with a horn that has been passed down from generation to generation. A boat seeing the big creature alerts the city of New York, which gives the order to evacuate as the military is brought in. Giganto tanks their missiles with no problem, but Reed slows it down with a smokescreen, to which Torch flames on to help. This doesn’t go well, as Giganto has a spout that he uses to spray Torch, turning his flame off. Luckily, Reed catches him and brings him down to the Fantasticar. Giganto, following Namor's horn, crashes into the city, instantly destroying several buildings. Thing comes up with an idea: strap a nuclear bomb on his back and charge the giant creature. Thing walks the bomb directly into its mouth, and Thing drops off the bomb as he runs through the creature's mouth, barely making it. It works perfectly, killing the giant creature, but also knocking the Thing unconscious. Reed and Torch grab Thing and get him out of there, to which he comes. Namor brags to the F4 that he can summon any giant sea creature with that horn, to which Sue, who’s now invisible, grabs it and runs. Namor catches her, and when she turns visible, he instantly falls for her, offering her a chance to be his bride so that he will have mercy on the human race. The rest of the F4 arrive before the choice is made though, and a fight breaks out. Namor can take on all three men of the F4 with ease, it appears nothing can stop him. Torch then has an idea: he flies up thousands of feet, and creates a tornado around Namor, carrying him deep into the ocean, where he loses his horn but remains alive. He swears he will return and kill the human race, but for now, they are safe. 

Overall, there was a lot of great stuff in here, Torch hiding from his family, and accidently recreating a supervillain, it’s the first time that we’ve seen a hero give themselves up as a bride to a villain, which becomes fairly common. Namor was a solid villain, although a little underwhelming in the final fight, I’ll give this a:

8/10