Strange Tales #120 - The Torch Meets the Iceman

After drawing seven of the first nine solo Human Torch stories in STRANGE TALES, Kirby returned for three issues (including an Annual), all of which featured crossovers with other characters. The last was #120, which had the Iceman of the X-Men showing up, when that book was only at its fifth issue.

Bit of a light story, as it opens with the Torch (with the rest of the FF, giving Kirby a chance to draw another of Reed's crazy devices) reading one of those convienient front page headline stories about the X-Men and wondering about this Iceman guy who papers are calling "a frozen version of the Human Torch". As luck would have it, he goes on a cruise with his girlfriend Doris Evans, the same cruise that Bobby (Iceman) Drake goes on when Professor X suggests he goes out. And wouldn't you know it, the ship gets boarded by pirates (pirates seem to be unusually common in the 1960s Marvel Universe).



The Marvel formula was obviously still in its infancy at the time, so they don't do the traditional fight and then team-up before taking on the pirates (although Iceman does quietly freeze the Torch's soda).

Dick Ayers inks the story, while George Roussos inks the cover.

Published 1964