Pyro can just manipulate the flame, and the Torch is still a human being at the center. It's like saying, "Couldn't Pyro control the sun?" The sun may have lots of fire and such, but, in the center, it's not fire. He could maybe generate a few solar flares, but not much else.
Of course, this is assuming Pyro could get close enough to the sun and would have the magnitude of power required to "control" the sun.
Which would never happen.
WOW great question, never realy fought of that till now.
I think he could control him to a certain degree but the torch could go human form and beat the crap outta him. There wouldnt be any need for pyro to have a flamethrower or lighter as he could just use johnny, but hitting him with fireballs and stuff wouldnt realy hurt him 😬
Maybe he could take all the fire away from him so he couldnt turn into the human torch? not sure, i wouldnt mind never's opinion either. ✅
why does he need a lighter. Because he cant generate his own fire. He could take the flame from the human torch, but... he cant control the human... remember, the human is inside, hed just use him as a lighter, he could take the flame off him, but thats it.
Now, if a being was PURE fire, no human at all, Hed be able to do whatever he wanted to it, But all hed be doing is controlling the human torches TORCH, not the human.
I found some interesting information...
Ordinarily, when aflame, the Human Torch is enveloped by a low intensity flame of low level plasma (reddish, approximately 780 Fahrenheit), which ranges from 1 to 5 inches from his body. He can, however, generate much higher levels and flames about himself. The Torch refers to his highest, hottest levels of plasma that he can create as his "nova flame." The exact temperatures that his "nova flame" can attain are not known.
Plasma, eh? Not true fire, but plasma. WAH!
Anyway, better and more pertinent information here:
The original Human Torch can telekinetically control not only flames and flame objects that he himself creates, but also flames he did not create.
And that's the end of that chapter.