I guess when you’re a hot shot like Johnny Storm, pyrokinesis seems a little on the nose. But when you’re dealing with cosmic radiation, sometimes you just have to play with the cards you’re dealt with. At the age of 16, Johnny went along with his sister Susan as a member of the crew for Reed Richards’ experimental interstellar ship. Of course the ship was bombarded by cosmic radiation which altered the genetics of the four people inside. As a direct result, Johnny developed the ability to ignite himself and generate fire. Though in high school, he took the name of The Human Torch in honor of the World War II hero and Invaders member Jim Hammond. He became a founding member of the Fantastic Four alongside his sister, Reed Richards, and Ben Grimm. Among their earlier adventures, the group battle Doctor Doom, Namor, and the Mole Man. It was around the time he enrolled in college that he and the rest of the FF encountered the Silver Surfer and his master, Galactus.

Among his adventures with the team, Johnny has also had many storied romances. The first woman he had ever truly loved though was the Inhuman princess Crystal. Johnny had helped her in overthrowing Inhuman prince Maximus. She dated Johnny for a short time in which she also joined the Fantastic Four. Johnny was crushed when she left him to return to Attilan, the Inhuman capital. Following the original Secret War, Johnny was seduced by Alicia Masters who was the love interest of one of Johnny’s FF teammates, the Thing. However, they later discovered that Alicia had been kidnapped and had been replaced by Lyja, a member of the shape-shifting alien race known as the Skrulls. As a result of the Stamford Incident, public opinion of superheroes greatly dwindled. It was during this time that Johnny was attacked outside of a nightclub by an angry mob. When he awoke in the hospital, he found that the Civil War had gripped the United States. Following the death of Bill Foster, he and his sister joined Captain America’s renegade Anti-Registration forces.

With a name like the Human Torch, it’s a little obvious what Johnny Storm’s powers are. The cosmic radiation that bombarded Reed’s ship mutated Johnny allowing him to ignite his entire body in flames. Offensively he can use this flame to create a flamethrower effect from his hands as well as create fireballs. He can also manipulate his fire into various basic shapes. Along with generating fire, Johnny is capable of controlling any external flame that is in his line of sight. His most powerful effect is something he calls the Nova Flame which blasts heat and fire in all directions and can reach temperatures up to a million degrees Fahrenheit. His flame form also serves as strong defensive protection as Johnny has been able to generate enough heat to instantly vaporize objects as big as a steel girder. While in his flame form, Johnny is capable of flying with his maximum speeds going beyond the speed of sound.

Johnny has been featured as both a playable and non-playable character in a handful of different video games. During the original Marvel Ultimate Alliance, he was a strong ranged character with the added benefits of flight. His fiery abilities were incredibly versatile for attacks as he could generate a flaming geyser that would pop enemies up into the air. His fireballs were a quick way of dealing damage at a low cost of energy. Mostly though, I was a big fan of the flamethrower attack. Even though it had shorter range that the fireballs, it still looked pretty damn cool. My personal favourite attack was to combine the pop-up melee attack with the flamethrower. With your basic thug knocked into the air, the flamethrower would essentially hold in place and continued to do damage for as long as I could sustain the attack. Just watching it was hilarious because it looked like the target was caught in a flaming rotisserie. With Fusion due in a month or so, I expect Johnny to retain the majority of these maneuvers. If that is indeed the case, I think he’ll be one of the more powerful characters in the game.