The last time we saw Frankie Ray she stood in front of Johnny Storm and took off her bathrobe. This is what lies underneath.
So what, right? But there's more to this than meets the eye: That yellow costume disappears when Frankie puts on anything else and reappears when she takes everything off. Now that's weird. Frankie tells her story.
Then suddenly.
So, a girl Human Torch. Quite a coincidence. I remember the golden age of comics when sidekicks were the norm. Remember the original Human Torch and Toro? For Bronze Age comics, well, heck, okay, let's go. it will be fun to have a female Torch. But more importantly she says she remembers something related to what is happening to her and I'm dying to find out. Anyway, the pair of them are wonderful to look at.
It's easy to to take the Torches' ability to fly for granted but here he makes me realize that it is a skill that has to be learned
I did just mention the original Human Torch didn't I? Oh, I love this, Frankie Ray's stepfather was Phineas Horton, the creator of the original Human Torch! One day she was helping her Dad out and she got doused by chemicals . . .
. . . changing her into the fiery being we see before us.
If you're in the pages of the Fantastic Four and you develop this kind of power - or any other for that matter - it is inevitable that at one point you'll see Reed Richards' lab rat.
And here's the result.
Ha! Look at Ben's face.
Hey, want to see Aunt Petunia? Hahaha.
Two weeks after Frankie Raye's revelation Reed Richards has a revelation of his own.
For a moment we see Ben Grimm.
But something goes wrong!
And the original Thing is back.
I'm thinking about Reed right now. It can't be helped everytime somebody takes a risk to succeed they also take a risk to fail. I'm expecting Ben to be really mad at Reed next issue. Blast it Richards couldn't you have ensured that your machine wouldn't short out at such a critical juncture?
