Amazing Spider-Man #407 is always gonna be with you.

Well, better than the one-stroke penalty you get when you hit your ball into Hydro-Man.

I was reading The Complete Ben Reilly Epic, volume 2 (available at all finer booksellers now, from the good people at Marvel's Trades Department), and the lead issue, 1996's Amazing Spider-Man #407, really grabbed me.  The issue centres around the people of New York City (and specifically, the Human Torch, Silver Sable, and the Sandman) getting used to new Spider-Man Ben Reilly, and around Ben Reilly getting used to his new job in a coffeehouse (because 1996).  It's not the best thing DeFalco's ever written or the best thing Bagley's ever drawn, but it made me smile in that goofy "oh, comics" way that Tom DeFalco does so well.  Specifically, it made me smile three times.

80 Page Christmas: The Sandman.

I recently bought a horrible, horrible condition copy of Marvel Team-Up #1. This issue featured the Human Torch and Spider-Man and of course the villain was THE SANDMAN!

This issue (which was drawn by Ross Andru and written by Roy Thomas) is important because it was the first comic to show the Sandman's potential as a nice guy -- or at least not a completely evil guy. The issue is mostly a chase, with Human Torch and Spidey chasing through the city after the Sandman. But when they found him? Well, it turned out he was visiting his sickly mother for Christmas! Awww!!

Hunka hunka burnin' Hitler

Originally, I learned much of what I know about the ins and outs of comic book continuity by perusing quarter bin-scavenged issues of  Who's Who and The Official Handbook of the Marvel Universe. One tidbit that always stood out to me was something included in the entry for Jim Hammond, the original Human Torch (an artificial human from the 1940s, not the doofus on the Fantastic Four with the horrible sense of fashion). His write-up established that, at least in the Marvel universe, the Human Torch had been the one responsible for killing Adolf Hitler.

I'd always assumed that this fact was made up for a later story involving the character, maybe something that Roy Thomas (self-established champion of "Golden Age" characters, for better or worse) had done. But a year or two back, I picked up The Golden Age of Marvel Comics, a trade paperback reprinting a bunch of '40s and '50s Marvel superhero stories - and there, in the middle of 1953's "The Return of the Human Torch", I was greeted by this surprise.

The Flaming Hitlers would be a great terrible
band name. (Art by Russ Heath.)

So... huh. The original Human Torch really did kill Hitler in a Golden Age story. I was not expecting that. You'd think that would earn him an award, maybe a statuette or something. But, so far as I know, fans mostly know of him for the confusing history he shares with the Vision, a character whose only appearance I care about was the side-scrolling Avengers arcade game. (Also, that portrayal of the Torch's origin on this page is pretty crazy, even for 1953).

In summation: Jim Hammond, the man robot ambiguous artificial life form for all your Hitler-barbecuing needs.

More Unstable Molecules

So, scanner's busted.  That means no Nightwatch for a little while.  It also means that my content will have to be from Marvel's digital comics, which I can make screen captures of - and today, that means more Unstable Molecules!  Today's installment comes from 1975's Fantastic Four #164, written by Roy Thomas, with pencils by George Perez, inks by Joe Sinnott, and colours by Petra Goldberg.  Johnny Storm's off on a date, and he's wearing this, possibly because Annihilus punched him in the head too many times:

You can't talk about "winning combos" ever again, Johnny..

Ben Grimm: Jerk

Hey, Ben Grimm - what do you say to your friend when you find out that his wife's been replaced by a Skrull?

(Fantastic Four #357, written by Tom DeFalco, art by Paul Ryan and Danny Bulanadi)

Yeah, uh...not that.

Given that the guy standing next to Ben there is noted evil mind-controller the Puppet Master, Johnny takes this about as well as you'd expect.  They spend the next five pages beating the crap out of each other; at no point does Ben dispel the notion that he's being mind-controlled, nor does he tell Johnny what the hell is going on.  Honestly, I think he just wanted an excuse to smack the Torch around for stealing his woman.