Werthem was right? In its "50 Years Ago" column, the Franklin County (Ala.) Times looks back at a June 11, 1954, fire in Chicago that took the lives of seven locals. The blaze was set by an 11-year-old boy, "who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day and drinks 100 proof whiskey":

"The young arsonist told police he got the idea of setting the fire from a comic book entitled The Human Torch. He was place in segregation at a children’s home.

"Police found a stack of lurid comic books along with five empty whiskey bottles in the boy’s bureau drawer."