The first tale from Strange Tales that I am going to review is “Prisoner Of the PlantMan!” The Human Torch feature of that issue. This tale is a follow-up to Strange Tales #113 where we first seen plant-man, but never fear, the first page gives a good recap for those whom have not been reading all along.  so without much  more of an introduction, let’s get on with the comic book review:

Artwork

I feel that the artwork of this story was quite fair,  there was good depth to the human torch, and plant-mans new costume was top-notch.  but overall the artwork was much closer to average for what I would expect of a comic book of the day, doing a good job at telling the story without going above and beyond what was needed.

Originality & Continuity

This story does fit well in with Strange Tales #113; the most reliant prior issue to this tale, but what it does not do  is take into account some of the strong lessons the torch has learned lately about fighting alone when he can get the support of the Fantastic Four, but I will get into that more below.

This tale also seems to work good with originality, not falling into the trap of being  too much like Plantman’s first appearance; or overly emulating any given adventure so far.

Characters & Development

As i touched on just above; I take issue with how easy the human torch gets the Fantastic Four to “Stay out” of this adventure and let him handle it himself.  I find it better when there is a good reason for the lack of the other hero’s then just  letting him try to play solo hero. Likely trying to show off for Doris, even though she has shown us in the past to dislike johnny showing off.

Story

Despite its problems, I still found the story enjoyable, and good to the spirit of the human torch features. This is a tale for any human torch fan; that is worth reading.