Marvel Mystery Comics #48 (1943)

A high ranking general is visited by Herman Smith, a legless millionaire who has begin a charity campaign to raise money for other handicapped people and keep them from begging. At around this time, the general also gets a death threat from someone calling himself the Masked Terror. The general dismisses this and makes a contribution. Just as Smith is leaving someone attacks and kills the general. When other soldiers enter the room they find the curtains ablaze and believe the only person capable of killing the general and disappearing without a trace is the Human Torch. Smith does not believe this and tries to confess the heroes innocence but the soldiers will not listen to him. When the story hits the presses and a few more deaths, the Human Torch and Toro decide to pay the war department a visit to clear their good names. When they arrive they witness flaming hands killing another high ranking military official. Chasing the attacker into the main hallway they find soldiers there waiting for them to take them away. When the Torch and Toro flee, Herman Smith -- who is also there for his charity -- tells the two heroes that he still thinks they are innocent. As the two flaming heroes try to escape capture they are chased by Air Force fighter planes. In order to lose them, they fly higher than the planes can go. However, the lack of oxygen at that high an altitude causes their flames to go out and sends the heroes falling. However, the Torch manages to reignite his flame and save himself and Toro from a fatal fall. With the entire country believing them to be criminals they seek the aid of Herman, who agrees to hide them in his home while he attempts to clear their names. However, while autopsies on the deceased show that they died of electrocution and not fire, the Torch and Toro's names are cleared. While Smith learns this from military officials and the press he tells the Torch and Toro quite that the authorities are still looking for them. However, Herman trips up when he takes a nap one day and neglects to put the newspaper out of sight. When the Torch and Toro read about how their names were cleared, they realize that Herman had been stringing them along. Examining Herman's wheelchair they find a hidden mechanism that fires two electrically charged hands and realize he had been the one killing the military brass. Confronting Herman in his room, he admits to everything and reveals that he is really a Nazi spy. Before they can apprehend him, Herman's folding bed flips up into the wall allowing Herman to escape via a secret passage. The Torch and Toro follow after him. However, they are led into a chamber filled with liquid asbestos that snuffs out their flames. With a the room not entirely filled, they are able to surface their face and hands out of the asbestos fluid and use their hands to burn through the ceiling of the room. Returning to the main floor of the house they chase Herman through the building and prevent him from setting off some explosives. Ironically, a brick from a wall the two heroes were melting through managed to strike the firing mechanisms in Herman's wheelchair and the spy is killed by his own lethal weapons.