Strange Tales #103

 "Guess again, Zemu! I have a lot of powers you don't know about..."

These Human Torch stories seem to be very simple, formulaic and reek of Saturday morning cartoons... and this is no exception. Interesting that the Torch still seems to be of school age, but otherwise there's little of wider relevance here. Oh, and it is, of course, utterly bonkers.

A load of new houses are sinking, but not from something like running sand. Indeed, there seem to be rumours of "swamp demons". Johnny investigates... and, yep, it's aliens from the Fifth Dimension, no less, whose generic dictator Zemu wants to invade the Earth, because that's what alien baddies do.

Not much really happens- the Torch is captured and placed in a liquid tank, but in a bloody jammy stroke of luck he's freed by rebels, and is able to take the fight to Zemu by using a series of obscure powers he has which are highly convenient to the plot. Oh, and he incites a rebellion by sky writing... they read English in the Fifth Dimension then? But let us not open the "how come these aliens all speak English" can of worms.

So... yeah, thirteen formulaic and eminently skippable pages that I'm blogging only for the sake of completeness.