Human Torch #10
And in the End...
Johnny walks into Reed's lab at the Baxter Building and is suddenly bombarded by questions that are beyond his comprehension. Then he is berated by his sister Sue for not watching the children like he said he was going to do. Lastly the Thing makes him carry a heavy canister of radioactive material. As Johnny struggles with the weight they all begin berating him for not being responsible enough....
.... This all turns out to be a vivid nightmare brought on by the spider venom he was tricked into drinking. Johnny comes to in a massive spider web with his colleague Jian Feeta and their ally Hugo Novick. They are prisoners of the Knights of the Locust, whose leader Shlya murdered her father and now rules the micro-city that he created and they are subsequently trapped in. Johnny snaps out of it and uses his flame powers to free himself, fight off the spiders and free the others. He then gets them up to speed on Shyla's treachery that led to the murder of her father. As they try to find their way to the size-changing device they suddenly come into a tunnel where they see people living in slavery under Shyla's rule.
When Johnny tries to free the slaves he is attacked by the Knights of the Locust. However, Johnny has the advantage this time and easily fights them off. When Hugo gets to close to the bars the people of his village grab out of him as they blame him for putting them in this position. Johnny and Jian pull him away and try to explain to people that Hugo didn't know that this would happen. When Johnny doesn't know where to go from their present location, Hugo tells them that he knows his way through the entire castle. When Jian asks Johnny to help lead the people he pulls her inside a nearby shack to talk one-on-one. It's here that he confesses that he can't do it for fear that people will get hurt because he's not up to the task. Jian points out that these people would rather die trying to get free than to stay in slavery and convinces him to do something about their plight.
Johnny then leads the people to the size-changing device as a storm begins to approach. He then doubles back to the castle to get revenge against Shyla and her Knights. His attack creates enough of a distraction to allow the locals to be restored to their normal height. It soon begins to rain snuffing out Johnny's flame. At the mercy of Shyla, Johnny is restored to size when the people begin trashing the castle, allowing Shyla and her loyal followers to escape. Meanwhile, Hugo drops a rock on the size-changing device but the resulting explosion kills him. Over the next few days Hugo is buried into on a hill overlooking the town. As Johnny and Jian pay their respects to him, Johnny tells her that his search for the surviving members of the Locust Project have disappeared without a trace. As Johnny expresses his fear that Shlya might rebuild her father's device and use it to shrink people down to size. As the two try to make sense of their recent adventure, Jian takes a pause and swears that Johnny looks a little taller than usual.
Recurring Characters
Human Torch, Jian Feeta
Continuity Notes
Hugo mentions the reign of communism, lawlessness and wars in his region. He is likely referring to living under the communist rule of Yugoslavia until the country the country collapsed in 1991 which led to the various Yugoslav Wars which carried on for a decade thereafter. Although these references are vague these events, particularly that they happened relatively recently, should be considered topical references per the Sliding Timescale.
