Human Torch Comics #38
The World's End
Some mysterious force is causing all the oxygen on Earth to disappear, threatening to destroy all life on Earth. Also effected are the Human Torch and Toro who do not have enough oxygen to full flame on. Falling out of the sky, the pair land in the harbor and swim to shore. There they spot two men wearing breathing masks who are witness the slow suffocation of the city. The pair overhear how they wonder why their master sucks the air away slowly, and attack the two men. They easily subdue them and remove their oxygen masks and learn that they are under the employ of Professor Marko who is trying to remove all the air from the Earth.
Taking the men's oxygen tanks and using them to provide enough oxygen to flame on, the Torch and Toro head to the professors lab where they spot a giant vacuum sucking in all the air around it. Flying in the vacuum's path, their flames are snuffed out and they are sucked into the massive device. They land inside the lab of Professor Marko and his ally a Communist spy named Gorodok. With the lab filled with oxygen, the pair are able to flame on again and fend off Gorodok's bullets, but Professor Marko manages to douse them with a fire hose and they are knocked out.
The flaming duo are placed in glass tubes with just enough oxygen to allow them to live, but not flame on. Professor Marko explains that he is trying to deprive the world of oxygen in revenge for his daughter being crippled so that he can make her queen of the world. However, Marko's daughter has no wish to follow her father's mad dreams and uses a fire axe to free the Torch and Toro. Gorodok attempts to escape outside in an oxygen mask, but the Torch follows after him and knocks him back into the lab, there Gorodok shoots Professor Marko dead as he himself dies from his injuries from the fall.
With the world on the brink of global extinction, the Professor's daughter surprises everyone when she suddenly gets out of her wheelchair to run to the controls and reverse the flow of oxygen. However the Torch pulls the switch first, restoring the world's oxygen supply. Stella thanks the Torch and Toro for their help and the two heroes fly off.
Recurring Characters
Human Torch
Toro
In Korea
When an American general and his daughter are captured in Korea, the Human Torch is dispatched to the war-torn country to try and rescue him. Attacking Korean forces, the Human Torch makes short work of their weapons, but his overconfidence comes back at him when he melts through an artillery cannon that is really a trap. Beneath is a pit of water and his flames are doused and shackles placed on his feet, trapping him. However, the Torch manages to get a single finger out of the water and uses it to shoot a flaming call to help to his partner Toro.
The flaming message is spotted on American radar and Toro is called to action. Toro arrives in Korea in mere moments and uses his flame powers to reignite the Torch and push him out of the water. The pair then make short work of the Korean soldiers and locate the hideout where the general is being kept prisoner. The general tells them that his daughter is being kept prisoner behind a steel door, but when they go looking behind it they are sealed in and water begins to rain down on them from sprinklers preventing the Torch and Toro from flaming on. However, the pair are still able to generate enough heat to cause the water to steam and the resulting pressure causes the door to burst open.
They flame on and chase after the general as he races off in a jeep. They track him to a nearby cliff and witness in horror as the general tosses his own daughter off the cliff. The Torch and Toro go to the girl's rescue and she tells them that the man who betrayed them is not her father but a red spy named Kung who is impersonating her father after he learned the Torch and Toro were coming to save him. Learning that the general is being kept at a nearby cave, the two heroes streak off to rescue him. They decimate an entire army of Chinese jets, tanks and soldiers and then spot Colonel Kung making a break to the cave with the general's daughter as his prisoner again. They light his pants on fire, forcing him to surrender and rescue the general and his daughter.
Recurring Characters
Human Torch
Toro
The Octopus-Men!
Exploring the bottom of the Atlantic, the Sub-Mariner comes across a undersea canyon that he did not know existed and decides to swim in for a closer look. While exploring he is suddenly attacked by the Octopus-Men, humanoids octopi. Their leader believes Namor to be a spy for the surface world as they are planning on setting off bombs under Europe in retaliation for the nuclear bomb testing that is done underwater that the Octopus Men believe are deliberate attacks.
The Sub-Mariner breaks free and goes to the surface and tries to warn one of Europe's governments about the threat of the Octopus Men, however the government official he speaks to does not believe him. Furious, Namor leaves when suddenly the Octopus Men launch their attacks, seeing off explosions that decimate an entire city. A soldier comes to Namor and asks him to help, but he refuses. The undersea monarch changes his tone when the soldier tells him that his government still refuses to believe in the existence of the Octopus Men and have been convinced by Communist countries that the attack was launched by the United States, threatening a potential global war.
Namor goes out to sea and heads toward the lair of the Octopus Men, dodging naval depth charges along the way. He attacks the Octopus Men and easily tangles them up in their own tentacles then pulls them to the surface and delivers them to the European navy, proving his claims and averting a nuclear holocaust.
Recurring Characters
Sub-Mariner
Flame On!
The Human Torch and Toro spot an American fighter plane heading for a crash landing toward the city and flame on to stop it. Seeing that the engine is out of fuel, the Torch flies into the afterburner of the plane and provides his flame to restore the plane's functions so it can land.
The question the pilot, a man named Captain Jory who is distraught that he is not allowed to marry Lotty, the girl he loves, because her father is the Colonel at the base and he thinks that Jory is a coward. The Torch convinces Jory that he can prove that he isn't a coward, and goes back with him to base while Toro flies back home.
At the base, the Torch and Jory overhear that the colonel is being roughed up by communist spies who want to know government secrets. Jory charges in with the Human Torch telling Jory that he will help. Jory believes that the Torch is invisibly helping him fight off the communist spies. Freeing the colonel, Jory learns that the spies are after a new super-jet being developed by the military. Jory rushes off to the airfield thinking that the Torch is still invisibly following him but the spies manage to get away in their jet.
The real Human Torch offers to help Jory capture them by lending his flame powers to give his own fighter plane an added boost to catch up to the highly advanced fighter plane. Catching up to the super-jet, Jory ejects from his own plane and boards the new advanced fighter and subdues the spy inside and returns it to base -- once more thinking that the Torch is invisibly assisting him. He lands the plane back at the airfield where both Lotty and her father are waiting for him and are proud of his displays of courage. Suddenly another communist spy appears and threatens to shoot the colonel in the back. Jory easily knocks him out, but then confesses that the Human Torch had been invisibly assisting him the whole time. However the Torch appears and tells Jory that he didn't help at all, Jory merely used his own courage in face of a major crisis.
Recurring Characters
Human Torch
Toro
