Marvel Team-Up (1972 series) #29

Human Torch arrives in Detroit in answer to a summons from Tony Stark and he is met by Iron Man. But Shellhead was expecting the entire Fantastic Four and is disappointed to get only the “half-grown teenager.” They manage to suppress a fight before it happens and Iron Man escorts Torch to the Stark Building and has him wait for Tony to arrive. He then dashes around the back, drops off the armor, and greets Johnny in a more welcoming tone than he used as Iron Man. Getting down to business, Tony shows Johnny a film about the “Techno-Murders” wherein people have been killed by ordinary devices, including a cement mixer, a washing machine, and a steamroller, with evidence that these accidents were deliberate. Surveillance footage from the plant yesterday shows a green-clad intruder firing a heat gun at a huge vat of chemicals near Tony Stark whose life was saved by a technician named Rodgers, pulling him away before the vat exploded. Under cover of smoke, Tony donned his armor and Iron Man pursued the interloper. The villain fired the heat gun at Shellhead, knocking him out of the air and he fled but not before announcing himself to be Infinitus, the reincarnated king of Egypt, Anememhet III, returned to destroy his ancient enemies. Then Rodgers stops by the office and Johnny detects the room beginning to vibrate and he grabs Stark and Rodgers and leaps out of the window as the room explodes. Torch sets out after the villain and spots him nearby on the ground. Infinitus fires his gun over Johnny’s head, causing part of the building’s façade to collapse on the hero’s head, knocking him out. Iron Man arrives and rescues Johnny who is still angry about Shellhead’s earlier disrespect while Iron Man is annoyed that Johnny is angry. So Johnny takes off, challenging Iron Man to follow his own methods and see who catches up with Infinitus first….

Human Torch visits psychiatrist Francis William Maxwell to talk about delusions that can lead to an identity crisis, Johnny then heads to the library….

Meanwhile at his lab, Tony Stark researches matters and if Infinitus really believes he is a reincarnated Egyptian king killing off his enemies, there’s no way to prove him wrong. The big issue is how to catch him so Stark modifies an electromagnetic tracking device and sets out. The device leads him to a factory where he is shot down by the heat ray….

Johnny goes to the public library and spends a long day reading every book they own on Egyptian history. He gives the hot young librarian a kiss and asks her to look him up if she’s ever in New York. Johnny returns to the Stark plant to find Rodgers, informing him that Infinitus got the details of his history wrong and asks Rodgers if he has any enemies….

Torch arrives on the scene to catch the falling Iron Man; he leaves him with Rodgers to fill him in on the whole story. Torch crashes through the wall to confront Infinitus who tries to shoot the Human Torch with a heat ray (ineffectively), distracting him so Iron Man can bop him on the head. Infinitus starts to crack up, screaming about Rodgers so Torch burns a hole in the floor beneath him and he falls through, being knocked unconscious. Johnny reveals he had deduced that Infinitus, Michael Rodgers, committed the murders as a smokescreen to hide a specific murder—that of his brother, whom he has hated for years. Torch takes off, having bested Iron Man, which was Tony’s intention all along, using a little applied psychology….