Marvel Mystery Comics #4 - pt. 1

The Human Torch has apparently stayed in Texas since last issue, as he's just coming back to New York now. New York is under martial law because of the attack of the green flames. The green flames are said to be goblin-like creatures with ice-cold green flame all around them. Their cold flame paralyzes and kills, but real heat kills them quickly. It's almost a shame that the "green flames" are actually just hoodlums in chemically treated asbestos suits that become surrounded by the green flame.

The Torch makes up the alias Jim Hamond (initially spelled with one m) in this story.  He also uses some now-familiar powers -- Wreck at Range, Leap II (he clears at least 60' vertically), and -- of course -- wrecking things (by melting).

The Torch is aided by Johnson -- an undercover cop who has helped the Torch before -- and a lady undercover cop named Mazie. Mazie worked undercover with Dr. Manyac, the creator of the green flame. Dr. Manyac only seems to have a gang of six, none tougher than gangsters, which hardly seems like it would be threatening enough to force the temporary evacuation of New York City -- yet somehow hysteria spread to the point where it did.

The Torch gets doused in water and doesn't get his flame extinguished in this story.  Evidence that he should get to save vs. plot for all possible vulnerabilities?

The Torch demonstrates a power again where he can hit someone with a fireball from far away. This time, though, he's shown to have so much control over the fireball that it can go around one target to hit another. That seems a lot like Magic Missile to me...

The Angel's story opens in a kitchen...well, not that kitchen, exactly, but a slummy area of Manhattan here called "The Devil's Playground." Avoiding real life place names allows the writer some latitude for swapping out the poverty that really defined the Clinton neighborhood and replacing it with mob corruption.

The mob has a new enforcer named Butch, a giant (from panel to panel his height seems to vary between 8'-12') that appears to be bulletproof. Now, my first thought was to stat Butch as an ogre and bullets just can't get past his decent Armor Class; but later, when armed militias start patrolling the streets searching for him and meet Butch, they throw "machines guns, revolvers, rifles, and grenades" at him with no effect. That means Butch has to be an evil superhero with some major defensive-buffing powers, possibly as good as Invulnerability. For some reason, though, the Angel's punches make Butch fail a morale save and flee. Is Butch confused, as the narrator says, or is he aware that the duration is about to end on his buffing power?

Somehow, Butch's mob is raking in $5 million a day, though we're given no explanation as to how that's possible.

Butch dies when he plows through an exterior wall on an upper floor and falls, perhaps no more than 40'.

In the Sub-Mariner's story, Namor draws a line -- he's fine with war and killing, but won't abide any nation preventing the delivery of food or medicine to other nations. To show the world how much that bothers him, he's going back to Antarctica to summon an army of sub-mariners and wipe out all the warring countries.

So Namor swims back -- that's over 8,300 miles from New York City, or over 9,000 miles from the English Channel, depending on where he actually was last issue. That's a lot of stamina, or another example of the Teleport through Focus power.

In Antarctica, we see more of the Sub-Mariner's kindgom, The palace is carved out from an anchored iceberg. The realm is ruled -- not by a king, but by an emperor. The emperor has a "court of three," who could themselves be king-vassals of the emperor, and perhaps one of them is brother to Namor's mother. The emperor is held to be a holy figure.

The mermen who are not half-human like Namor and Dorma have large saucer eyes and catfish mustaches, They appear to be blue-skinned, but Namor is colored blue when underwater too.

What power does Namor have over the Emperor? Intervening in the wars of the surface world is apparently against the rules of the empire, yet the Emperor breaks the law and gives Namor carte blanche to do just that. In a week, he has a fleet of "hundreds" of submarines that can also fly via steam jets, and fire steam weapons (instead of direct hits, the weapons create hot clouds of steam and the victims are driven into the clouds).  The metal of their hulls has a "repellent quality", whatever that means. Magnetic repulsion? Probably means a low AC for the planes.

Namor, normally happy to parade around in trunks, wears a full-dress uniform while commander-in-chief of his naval air force.

The narrator makes some rather hard-to-believe assertions, like the aerial-subs move at the "speed of light" and Namor can telepathically communicate with the other ships (is it that hard to use a radio?).

"Great sharks!" is Namor's next colorful exclamation.

(Read at Marvel Unlimited.)