Jonathan Storm
Occupation: Adventurer
Base of Operations: Pier Four, New York City
Height: 5'10"
Weight: 170

Jonathan Storm, the second of two children born to a physician and his wife, grew up comfortably on Long Island. Despite the fact his mother died in a car crash when he was nine, Storm developed an interest in automobiles at an early age. Storm passed much of his leisure time in the company of automobile mechanics and enthusiasts, and learned to totally overhaul a car's transmission before he was fifteen years old. For his sixteenth birthday, his father bought him his first "hot rod."

Storm went to California to visit his sister, Susan, who had moved there hoping to become an actress and there become engaged to marry aeronautical engineer Reed Richards. Richards was working on a starship of his own design that would make possible travel to other solar systems through hyperspace. When the United States government threatened to cut off its partial funding for the project, Richards decided to make an immediate test flight. He himself would ride in the starship, with his friend Benjamin Grimm acting as pilot. Susan and Johnny Storm insisted on going along as well. Sneaking onto the launch site and into the starship, the four launched themselves into space. The starship encountered unexpected intense radiation, which proved to be too much for the ship's shielding to block out. (It has been theorized that this was the result of a reduction in the extent of Earth's magnetosphere brought on by a solar flare.) As a result, the four people in the ship were exposed to intense cosmic ray bombardment. Aborting the test flight, the four returned to Earth.

Upon landing, Johnny Storm discovered that the cosmic rays had mutagenically altered his entire body, enabling him to create fiery plasma all about his body without harm to himself. Storm called himself the Human Torch, the same name used by the android hero of the 1940's. Storm agreed to join Richards' proposed team of champions, the Fantastic Four.

For a time Johnny Storm tried to live quietly on Long Island with his sister, trying to finish high school while hoping that no one in the community would realize that he was the Human Torch, a fact that proved impossible to conceal from the townspeople. After graduation, Johnny moved into the Fantastic Four's Baxter Building headquarters in New York City.