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measuringbliss · 1 year

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Spider-Man Read-Through 007: Doc Ock Strikes Again! (P1)

MASTERPOST

Annual 4 + ASM 53-61 this time!

A very long post, but there's fun storylines!

So the Human Torch is running amok and unsurprisingly (comics writing), Spider-Man fights him for a bit without asking for an explanation (and the Torch doesn't give him one either) until a movie director intervenes - he was filming a movie! Spider-Man goes away, complaining that Johnny's too good of an actor - but I think the director could have hired him as well. The Torch and the Spider would sure bring people to the movies. And it's actually a plot point of the story (see next screenshots).

In the opening scene, the narrator challenges the readers to figure out who pencilled this issue, and I regret to inform that I'm utterly baffled. Peter has the pretty face of John Romita Sr, but the flat ass of... did Peter ever have a flat ass? I ranted about his inconsistent ass (literally) already, but sounds like it downright downgraded here! ...Still handsome as ever, though.

So yeah, Peter is called on a film set and two characters are conspiring in the shadows and I am intrigued! So they're shooting the movie and Peter's spider-sense keeps warning him and I'm even more intrigued!

I feel like the penciller is Steve Ditko (the previous one) trying to imitate John Romita Sr's style, but maybe it's a newcomer that's promoted through this issue. Through my quick Google Search, I learned (or rather, re-learned) that 1973 and 1974 were drawn by Ross Andru and not John Romita Sr, which does make sense considering how it *is* similar to what I remember, yet a bit different too.

The Torch has gone mad and at this point, I'm starting to wonder if he's actually the Chameleon. And it appears there is truly an impostor, as Johnny's resting in his trailer.

AND SUDDENLY...

It makes sense! The actor background!!!!! Aaaaaaah I'm so hyped, didn't expect to see him!!!!! And who's that other guy?

First, thank you for the fanservice, there's never enough men in tight undershirt and underwear. Legs!!!!

But who's this Wizard?

The helpful wikia indicates that prior to his first appearance in Spider-Man comics (this very one), he was in Strange Tales (later Dr Strange) which makes sense, and also in Fantastic Four. This crossover definitely makes sense! Meanwhile Mysterio has already appeared, but it's still very nice to see him again.

YES! Especially in a 40-pages issue. Let the art speak for itself.

Case in point! These comics had a tendency to be *too* talkative, and it's part of the pacing of the usual 20 pages issue, but still.

Overall, I think it's a great issue! Well-paced, entertaining, surprising, fun! There's a few more pages after that.

Notably this spread.

I don't think they exactly knew they were still gonna be read 60 years later, but it's fun to read this in 2023. Harry calls me out, Peter looks swell as always (VERY swell), Fu Manchu and Woody Allen are here (what a time piece!) and Anna and May are acting like their usual lesbian selves. Once again, good for them!

*swoons*

And they mention how much the artists have to deal with perspective! Nice.

AND...!!!!

YES, YESSSS, YEEEEEEEEEESSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!

Yes, close your closet, Peter. Wouldn't want Harry to barge right in, would ya? *snickers* Closet jokes are always fun when you're gay.

What a stellar final page. And we learn the penciller was Larry Lieber, who returns one year later for ~the truth about Peter's parents"! I've watched The Amazing Spider-Man movies, folks, I don't think I can be surprised, but stay tuned! Oh, by the way, about Larry Lieber...

Okay, that's what I figured. I thought it could be a family member.

Now then, onto the main course!

We see Octopus again, yay. Peter is notably angrier than he was in Annual 4, which makes sense if you ignore it happened, considering what happened in the previous issues.

Harry's also quite annoyed, unsurprisingly. He loves his roommate, but Peter does have a tendency to be absent... Harry's irritability is similar to earlier issues, where Peter never went out with him and everybody else and seemed quite aloof. Was Spider-Man No More a return to basics?

But Peter is much more interested in bringing Gwen to a science expo, and Warren is overjoyed to see her. Oh boy...

Now kiss.

At the science expo, Octopus intervenes and he still sports the worst haircut ever known to mankind. I wonder if he's stealing the nullifier to sell it to the highest bidder... Could it be Hammerhead? Or the Kingpin?

Stan Lee obviously had something against me, but we're on Tumblr, and modesty shall not prevail! Who could ever think Octopus retconning "If This Be My Destiny" is more important that ogling at Peter?

So yes, Octopus does want to sell the nullifier to another nation.

More importantly, everybody recreates the coffee bar double spread from Annual 4. May and Anna are looking for a third for some nice granny baking time.

PLOT TWIST!!! Look how goofy Octopus is. What a goofball.

This issue was fairly enjoyable, it had more soap than fights, which I'm all for. Dear readers, I am enthralled.

I'm thirsting and also showing the humorous situation. Marivaux would be proud!

Also: more Parksborn domestic love! Yeah Peter, don't let Harry see you mixing fluid... or the content of your closet!

MJ is still incredibly mean to Gwen and this is both outrageously funny but also a bit sad. Aside from this, two gays are jealous of Peter.

And this is iconic. Peter's shocked face, Octopus holding the tea cup like Queen Elizabeth, "I dabble a bit in science myself"...

So Aunt May dies and Peter's understandably angry and I'm HOOKED. Two great issues.

The right panel speaks for itself, Harry is a great comedic character.

The action takes place at Stark Industries, but Tony wasn't paid enough to do a cameo so he lets Spidey will with this mess. And the mess gets worse, as the nullifier makes Peter lose his memories...! My jaw dropped.

This is stupid, but I'm curious to see where this is going.

However, Harry keeps being annoyed at Peter and this is sad because I thought we were over this. But I wonder if it's leading to a big plot point, like Peter's friends giving up on him for a few issues.

But then.

Oh. Oh no. I know where this is going.

This arc highlights once more how full of silent rage Peter really is. He's frustrated. A much more compelling character than Insomniac's Peter.

And it ends with a Peter who's quite affected. I didn't expect Peter's amnesia to stick for this long though! This is very compelling stuff.

Aaaand I've gotta stop here because I can only put 30 pictures in posts. Next time: a relatable guy!

#spider-man #comics #parksborn #long post #dr octopus #domestic parksborn

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traincat · 3 years

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I know that everyone is pretty sure that the FF movie will mean that Johnny will now never be officialy let out of the closet but personally I feel like since the FF are so unpopular and ppl have been bugging Marvel and Disney for an actual canon & 'important' gay character that they may just? Use him? I'm absolutely losing it and its not going to happen (and if it does, good god, its going to be handled so badly) but imagine. Tho as long as they dont bring lyja in im ill count the movie as Ok

So I am going to go Full Conspiracy Theorist out here for a minute because when I and a couple others I personally know have been kind of saying “Johnny’s never coming out now” it refers to a very specific recent incident that we were kind of side eyeing for Possible Movie Interference even before this announcement. Saying up front that I don’t know that this is true, and even if Someone Did Change The Script it’s just as likely to be comic editorial pulling the plug than Kevin Feige coming down from on high to stuff Johnny back in the closet like he’s the Plant Man and it’s the ‘60s:

And then they never let him out of there again. (Strange Tales #121)

So here’s the deal: we know that there are several creators involved with Marvel who hold the belief that Johnny Storm is not the bastion of heterosexuality he’s very often been pushed as. Marjorie Liu (and most likely Daniel Way but we only have Marjorie Liu’s word on this last time I checked) intentionally wrote the relationship between him and Daken in Dark Wolverine as sexual. When I reviewed Marvels Snapshot: Fantastic Four for Women Write About Comics I received some very nice commentary from the creators and a retweet from Kurt Busiek, who is in charge of the Snapshot collection -- and I spend the majority of that review pretty openly talking about the subtext of Johnny’s sexuality and the history that has. So like, this is out there, it goes beyond fandom circles. People know, and you can tell, because a lot of the time multiple creators don’t spend decades making jokes about a character being gay if they don’t kind of think that character is gay. (I am looking at you, John Byrne.) But anyway, fast forward. It’s 2018 and the Fantastic Four are back on the shelves after their Film Rights Mandated Banishment (that Jonathan Hickman leaked as being a Real Thing and not another conspiracy theory). And while I have some significant problems with the 2018 run so far, I have to say, that first issue starts off strong, not in the least because it also featured the return of Wyatt Wingfoot, Johnny’s best friend and former roommate. Turned current roommate again, since apparently they were living together. They were also touching a lot.

Like a lot lot. Love a boyfriend leash. (Fantastic Four v6 #1) And like, look, longtime Johnny readers can tell you all about his long relationship with Wyatt Wingfoot and the subtext you can read into it, but a lot of casual readers noticed this too. People were talking about it. It was noticed. It was pretty obviously paralleled against Ben and Alicia, who were getting engaged at the same time.

Fast forward a couple of issues, all of which Wyatt sticks around for -- he was pretty obviously living with the Fantastic Four after their return for a couple of issues there -- to Ben’s bachelor party, where he and Johnny have this particular conversation:

“When you know -- and you’ll know -- take that leap. Don’t wait fer stronger shielding. Be brave, Johnny Storm.” (FF v6 #5) There’s a lot to unpack here in general, but the “be brave, Johnny Storm” sentiment continually sticks out to me, along with how ungendered this speech is -- not when you meet the right woman, blah blah blah. It’s not a big jump to imagine this as leading out to a coming out narrative, and that’s before we factor in this solicit for Fantastic Four #7:

“Plus a strange new development in the life of the Human Torch.” If you’ve read the issue, however, you know literally nothing of note happens to Johnny in it, let alone anything you could consider a new development, strange or not. It seems pretty clear, if you pull the clues, that there was originally some kind of plot involving Johnny -- and likely his romantic future -- in the original plans but then at some point that plot got pulled and likely replaced by the current Sky soulmate plot that has literally left Johnny shackled by heterosexuality. So it’s clear that at some point in early 2019 something shifted and this Johnny plot got pulled, for whatever reason. And I have no proof beyond all this circumstantial evidence that they were lining up anything that was actually going to concretely within the actual Fantastic Four book address his sexuality, but I think given the circumstantial evidence it is a valid theory. I don’t know if I specifically believe that the reasoning behind whatever this plot getting pulled was MCU interference, but it’s likely that the Fantastic Four project was seriously in development by that point to be able to announce it now, and if, by whatever chance, my “Johnny was going to come out” theory was true, we also know that the MCU has a serious problem with actually handling queer representation within their universe -- see Tessa Thompson’s bisexual Valkyrie scene getting cut, the entire Gay Joe Russo incident. They’re, what, 20+ movies in now and there are no actual queer main characters, right? I know Eternals is apparently changing that, but Eternals is not out yet, and also has significantly less name recognition than Fantastic Four. It’s not a great record, and while I would like to think that maybe that could change either with the Fantastic Four or by the time a Fantastic Four movie rolls out, I just don’t have that kind of faith. But if I’m wrong I’ll totally donate double the cost of the ticket and large popcorn to a charity that actually deserves it.

So there’s my conspiracy theory! Some people do this with celebrities, I do it with Johnny Storm. It’s probably equally unrewarding either way.

#johnny storm #traincat talks comics #*replies #Anonymous

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lamujerarana · 6 years

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so I'm watching Corman's FF and it's bad, but I love it and I think it's my fave FF movie and I wanted to know what you think of it?

I also love it a lot! There are so many things to love! Thank you for giving me an excuse to rewatch it, lol.

I would recommend the 1990s FF animated show if you liked that! I actually think the show’s better once you get past the first season. There are some really terrific episodes.

Some thoughts:

Reed and Victor being actual friends in college who cared about each other is good! There’s SOME justification for this in 616 canon – specifically the flashbacks in Claremont’s Fantastic Four vs. the X-Men, although other writers have seen things differently.

Why Ben, a jock, is sitting in on Reed’s advanced astrophysics class I do not understand. Was he just taking it to keep his boyfriend Reed company?

The Storm boardinghouse, run by Johnny and Sue’s mother! Which makes zero sense in 616 canon where Franklin Storm was a rich neurosurgeon until his wife Mary Storm died in a car accident, but there are certain 616 writers who didn’t get the memo (RAS – that was just…careless and sloppy on his part, but clearly he was basing it on this film).

Oh, my god, the opening scenes featuring teeny tiny Johnny with Ben and Reed are just INCREDIBLY cute. I wish 616 comics actually for once showed us how Johnny met them! How has no writer ever bothered showing us this?!!!

Cut for length.

I still hate Byrne’s ReedSue origin and am glad it is no longer canon because it never should have been.

No, but, really, tiny Johnny is the cutest, can he be in everything?

Okay, but Harmony from BTVS as little Sue is cute too.

Victor and Reed just mad sciencing and freaking everyone out.

I love how Ben sees weird scifi lightning in the sky and immediately knows it’s Reed who is responsible. And then, of course, runs TOWARDS the creepy lightning like a not very sensible person because he’s afraid Reed is/will be injured.

I honestly like Reed’s involvement in Doom’s accident! It makes everything between them seem so much more personal and real than just, “Victor’s colossal ego cannot stand the fact that there is someone else in the world as brilliant as he is.”

Reed’s horror and concern for Victor as Victor’s being electrocuted, Ben saving Victor’s life! Victor’s (supposed) death! Which Reed feels responsible for! And cries over! Ben hugging Reed gently as he cries about Victor’s death! This Reed just has so many things to feel guilty about. It’s so Reed.

“Hi, Mrs. Storm! Can Johnny and Susan go to outer space with us?” Reed needs a crew for his spaceship…so Ben talks him into showing up out of the blue and asking two people he knew ten years ago when they were little kids and who have zero experience as astronauts. How could this go wrong?

…I still find this ReedSue origin VERY unsettling.

Mrs. Storm randomly giving them their future team name pre-spaceflight is…A Choice.

I generally enjoy the Mole Man but I do not enjoy this Mole Man.

Ben falling in love with Alicia the second he sees her! Lifting her in the air like that! Reed teasing Ben about it! It’s cute! I approve.

The whole spaceflight mission being in honor of Victor!

…Reed really talks about Victor as though he’s his ex…

Doom actually looks like Doom which is a plus.

I don’t know how much I like the spaceflight accident being the result of deliberate sabotage. I think it works better in the original. Here there’s just…very little for Reed to feel guilty about, while in the 616 version, well, he wrongly calculated that the ship’s shielding was enough to keep the cosmic rays from affecting them. He put his faith in the numbers, and he learned too late that they can sometimes be wrong and that some things cannot be predicted or accounted for. In this film, he never learns that lesson.

THANK YOU FOR ACTUALLY DEPICTING THE CRASH AS A TERRIBLE TRAGEDY THAT THE FF ARE LUCKY TO HAVE SURVIVED, WRITERS, AND ALL OF THEM AS FREAKING OUT OVER HAVING THEIR BODIES ALTERED IN TERRIFYING WAYS WITHOUT THEIR CONSENT.

I like that Reed immediately picks up on the fact that there’s something off about the fact that they’re all in one piece despite crashing all the way from space. Really, they should not have survived this. Also that the FF are stranded alone in the middle of nowhere for days after the crash before they’re found by anyone.

I do like that they gave Alicia a fairly major role, even if I like what they did with her significantly less. I truly loathe the “Powerful man kidnaps and tries to coerce woman into being his bride!” trope because it’s really just saying that the man wants to rape the woman without actually saying it, and can the story arcs of less female characters be about rape – explicit or implicit, please?

The little montage where Dr. Hauptmann’s trying to take blood samples from them and growing increasingly anxious and terrified is pretty funny. Johnny freaking out EVERY SINGLE TIME he flames on is especially hilarious.

Victor…really likes creepily groping people’s faces.

Dr. Hauptmann’s inclusion is a nice nod to 616 Doom’s pet Nazi scientist.

It takes Reed far too long to piece together the fact that there’s something fishy about the people who rescued them.

I like that they have Reed do the little chin stroking thing that he always does in the comics.

I like that Reed tells Ben to knock out the prison guards with a single look and Ben immediately knows what he means.

I don’t really like Ben immediately settling on his “It’s clobberin’ time!” catchphrase -- in the comics, it was several issues before he came up with it.

....there’s....no explanation for how the FF got back to the U.S. from Latveria...did they get on a flight?

The FF’s uniforms being one-piece leotards is...an odd choice. I actually don’t know how much I like Sue making them their uniforms so soon because that happened only after a few issues in the comics -- they weren’t planning on using them initially, and from what I’ve read Lee/Kirby weren’t necessarily planning on ever giving them uniforms at all.

There also just doesn’t seem to be any discussion about them becoming superheroes here -- Sue just makes the costumes -- with a ‘4,′ btw, despite the fact that Ben had, apparently, left them -- without talking about it first. I like that the FF all jointly DECIDED to become heroes in the comics -- they didn’t necessarily have to go down that route.

Doom using a regular gun is just...odd.

Victor and his creepy face-touching make a reappearance. Poor Alicia. Apparently, she’s just in this movie to be creeped on by creepy men.

Someone needs to explain to the actor who plays Doom that less is more when it comes to hand-acting. Seriously, every syllable he says, he accompanies with some kind of gesture.

Sue and Reed confessing they love each other in front of Ben and Johnny and then being interrupted by Johnny, perennial third wheel, is hilarious.

Reed freeing himself and the others from the forcefield prisons Victor put them in by literally kicking the generator over is also hilarious.

“It’s nice to meet you” in much-too-pleased, even turned-on tone from Alicia, right after she feels Ben’s rocky skin the first time. Oh, Alicia, you and your thing for uniquely textured men. (I just got to Byrne’s run in my FF readthrough, and he’s really going hard on the “Alicia loves the Thing, not Ben” theory, which has certain implications I’m not totally sure he considered.)

The special effects -- especially for Johnny -- in this film are very hokey and very 1990s.

How is Johnny flying in space? No, really, there’s no oxygen. Never in 616 canon has he been able to fly in space.

Reed and Sue’s wedding! I love their wedding.

#asks #Anonymous

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traincat · 4 years

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I want to read the negative zone comics, but I'm not sure what I should look up for that (on the marvel app) or what I should read up on before hand. Do you have any tips or smth?

I got you, no worries. I’m assuming by the Negative Zone comics you’re referring to the part of Hickman’s Fantastic Four run where Johnny dies/is trapped in the Negative Zone -- the Negative Zone itself is an entity in comics that has existed since 1966 and factored into a number of comic plots, not all Fantastic Four related, although it remains mostly a Fantastic Four phenomenon and they’ve traveled to it on multiple occasions before and after Johnny’s death. You don’t really need to know anything else about the Negative Zone’s previous appearances to enjoy Hickman’s run, but if you want additional recs I have some that are Fantastic Four-focused here.

So the easiest thing to do here might be to start with the beginning of Hickman’s Fantastic Four run, which is Fantastic Four #570. I’m fairly sure that Marvel Unlimited has this -- or at least, they did when I last had access to it. Hickman’s run from its beginning until Johnny’s return is basically one big cohesive story, so for the full effect start at the beginning and follow it through. (This gets slightly complicated after F4 #588, when the book becomes FF (just the initials) #1 for about 12 issues, and then picks back up with F4 #600, at which point F4 and FF are meant to be read consecutively. It’s confusing, I know. Blame Hickman.) Hickman’s run is fairly self-contained -- a storyline at the beginning of it is used to kind of trample over a lot of stuff from Millar’s run, which was the run immediately before Hickman’s. And it’s like. It’s pretty stupid stuff it’s trampling over but I don’t actually think Hickman improved any of it, at all, with his decisions. So it’s not really necessary to understand it because honestly it’s just not good in either Hickman or Millar’s run. If you feel like skimming, I would totally understand.

If you wanted to skip straight to Johnny’s involvement in the Negative Zone, though, I would start with Fantastic Four #578, which introduces the concept of the Negative Zone death cult and Johnny’s initial brush with it. FF #584 introduces Ben’s “Thing” cure, which grants him one week as human Ben Grimm per year and sets up the circumstances that lead to Johnny’s death. FF #585-587 feature the Negative Zone’s attack against the Baxter Building, which leads to Johnny ending up on the wrong side of the gate. FF #588 focuses on everyone’s reactions to Johnny’s death. FF #600 contains Whatever Happened to Johnny Storm?, which focuses on Johnny’s experiences in the Negative Zone.

(FF #600)

After that, FF #601-604 focus on Johnny’s return and the ensuing battle against the Negative Zone. Annihilation Scourge: Fantastic Four also goes into a fair amount of detail about Johnny’s experiences in the Negative Zone, including some of his lingering trauma, but that’s pretty much that on that front. I hope that helps out!

#johnny storm #marvel comics #comic recs #*replies #aceofdorks

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traincat · 5 years

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I'm super invested in the idea of the virgin johnny fic. I know you can't give a date or anything but have you made any progress since you last mentioned it, or have you been busy with the commisions/life?

I have made some progress! Honestly the framework for the fic is done, I just have to fill in a couple of conversations, iron out the plot which involves rereading a couple of Fantastic Four issues for the pertinent details, and then write the actual smut. So just the hard parts, really. But I was surprised when I looked at it again how much of the actual bones of it I had assembled.

Vaguely nsfw snip (I mean the subject matter of the whole fic should tip you off but) under the cut:

Theguy thing – it wasn’t a big deal in Peter’s book. So what if Johnny preferredmen? Maybe back in high school Peter would have had a problem with it, alwaysfeeling the pressure of being puny Parker, surrounded by the jocks of theworld, but then he’d gone and grown up and done a bunch of differentself-discovery, in a whole bunch of different ways, challenged by the world andhimself and that one time Gwen had been teasing and trying to push his limits.

Wouldyou do this. Would you do that. Would you ever sleep with another man?

Peterhad looked into those big eyes of hers and said yes.

Hehadn’t actually done it until a couple of months after she’d died. He’d beentrying to figure out how to slip out of the club Mary Jane had dragged him downto without her trying to stop him when he’d spotted a guy he’d shared someclasses with a year or two ago, and something about the way he’d looked in theshining lights had hit Peter just right.

Onething had led to another and next thing Peter knew he was getting blown byJason from organic chemistry in Jason’s Midtown apartment.

They’dgone out a few times, but Jason hadn’t been looking for anything serious, andPeter hadn’t been looking for another heartbreak. A couple more flings here andthere, mostly just having fun – and despite what Peter’s friends said, he didknow how to have fun sometimes –, and then there had been Mary Jane and thenthe affair with Betty. So it had never been anything to write home about.

Whichhe hadn’t. Written home about it. It wasn’t that he thought May wouldn’t stilllove him the same as she always had, it was just that he’d never found a goodway to slide it into the conversation – “Hey, May, pass the peas, bythe way I’ve had a couple flings with other men, and that’s not the biggestsecret I’ve hidden from you.”

So itstayed in closet with the costume.

Butthat was just him, he thought, piling a life threatening amount of frozendinners for one into his basket and trying not to think about how just theother week, he’d had Betty too cook for him, not to mention Betty soft and warmin his bed, Betty’s wedding ring conveniently hidden away so he didn’t have tothink too hard about it. Just plain, ordinary Peter Parker. What was stoppingJohnny Storm, with all his money and his fame, from just doing whatever hewanted, and screw what everyone else thought?

Themagazine rack by the checkout counter brought him up short. Johnny was on thecover of one of them – Johnny was almost always on the cover of something –smiling cockily for the camera with his perfect hair and his perfect teeth,lounging against some sleek sports car.

Thegirl in front of him was running her fingers over the tops of the magazines.When she got to Johnny’s, she rolled her eyes, scoffed, and moved onto theregister with a toss of her hair.

Johnnyhad a lot to lose. Peter owed him an apology.

Hejust had to get through it without thinking too hard about how Johnny hadlooked in his dream.

#myfic #*replies #losers who deserve each other #Anonymous

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traincat · 5 years

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i'm admitedly not as good at continuities as i'd like but i always wondered about the timeline of the American Son fight 'cuz i feel like it would massively mess up Jhonny if he ever found out he dated Daken AFTER he used his freaky pheromones on Pete to hand him over to Norman for torturing, even if he never found out about the whole Skip Westcott bit of awful

I’m going to teach you my trick for lining up continuities. It’s not perfect, especially currently when Marvel is doing this thing where it’s publishing content out of order – ie, an event will still be going on, but we’ll know how it basically ends because the solo titles will have moved ahead of it, THIS IS NOT GREAT, MARVEL – so sometimes you have to fiddle with it a bit, but it generally works okay. Google your issue number of choice – in my case here I did Amazing Spider-Man #597, the issue where Peter and Daken fight – and bring up its page on the Marvel wiki. Underneath the cover image, you’re going to see some dates:

You want released, not published. Click on that and it’ll give you every comic published by Marvel in that week/month. Published first doesn’t always mean happened first, but it’s a good starting point.

Now we go to Dark Wolverine #75, which is the first issue where Daken makes contact with the Fantastic Four:

So these two events – Daken and Peter’s fight in Avengers Tower during American Son, and Daken making contact with the Fantastic Four – happen very close together, regardless of which one comes first on the actual timeline. I could probably piece it together with a little comprehensive Dark Reign rereading but I don’t have time for that because I’ve taken on eighteen other different rereads.

I do want to clarify a couple of things, though. While I think the Daken vs Peter fight is an interesting one due to the combination of their skill sets, and while Daken’s pheromone abilities often take on a sexual connotation with their use, that’s not what’s happening in the Daken vs Peter fight. Daken specifically is using his powers in the context of this fight to throw off Peter’s depth perception and visual acuity, which means Peter’s hits – and let’s remember Peter has the superior strength – don’t land:

Nothing about Daken’s powers sounds like something pheromones can do in real life, but this is a comic book about a guy who got bit by a radioactive spider and can lift trucks as a result, so whatever. So there isn’t any sexual coercion component to this fight. Daken doesn’t even flirt or use innuendo during it, like he does in matches with, for example, Gambit and Ben Grimm. This is purely a professional battle on his part. Peter also, I should note, wipes the floor with him as soon as he figures out how to get through the fight without relying on his vision. I’m sure if Daken had won he would have handed him off to Norman for the gold star sticker and extra Dark Avengers points, but he doesn’t personally get that opportunity. And if we’re going to talk sexual innuendo, it’s actually Peter-disguised-as-Mac-Gargan who casts aspersions on Daken, telling Norman that they fought because Daken was “after” Harry and “pulled him from his bed.” Peter ends up being tortured after Bullseye shoots him through the legs – and after Norman shoots him in the head. (He had a special mask made by Reed so it wasn’t that big a deal, sans the torture.) Daken is out cold on the ground at this point.

(Amazing Spider-Man #597)

But even without that Dark Reign reread, the fact that these two events happen very close together actually works in the favor of providing Johnny with an explanation he could accept over Daken fighting Spider-Man. Johnny knows Daken’s on the Dark Avengers. Daken specifically comes to the Fantastic Four in Dark Wolverine #75-77 seeking a secret alliance with them against Norman Osborn – one that ends with the Fantastic Four feeling in debt to Daken. If this fight between Peter and Daken came to Johnny’s attention, it’s easy enough for Daken to explain away that he was working to keep Norman from suspecting he might be anything but a good little Dark Avenger. Also, like I said – there’s no sexual manipulation in the Daken vs Peter fight. It’s a regular ol’ superpowered battle. There is, however, a sexual manipulation note used against Ben when Daken taunts him into beating him into the ground in Dark Wolverine #76, which was a move engineered to gain the sympathy of the Four towards Daken, and one that worked really well on Johnny.

(Dark Wolverine #76) Daken’s a good chess player, is the thing surrounding his interactions with the Fantastic Four. I think there’s quite a bit about this setup that, if Johnny knew, would have messed him up incredibly – after all, the entire interaction starts when Daken shoots Johnny in the leg with an arrow and then frames someone else for the deed. (Johnny never finds out it was Daken, btw.) Then there’s the faked kidnapping attempt on Franklin in Daken #4, where Daken appears to “save” Franklin from an intruder – but really orchestrated the entire attack himself. Finally, there’s the incident Johnny very much does know about because he was there for it at the end of Daken’s solo in Daken #22-23, when Daken drugs Reed and attempts to kill him by throwing him off a building. That incident alone I think would be enough for Johnny to look back on the relationship with some regrets.

Marjorie Liu confirmed on twitter that Daken and Johnny had a sexual relationship, but mapping the timeline of that takes a little poking around with the canon. They almost definitely had no sexual contact during Dark Wolverine #75-77 – which takes place either concurrently with or after Peter and Daken’s fight – because there’s just no time to account for it within the book. Daken definitely engenders Johnny’s sympathies and some affection for him during this period, though, which leads me to place the period where the sexual contact took place as between Dark Wolverine #77 and Daken #1, during which Daken has a bit of a charged phone call with Johnny that suggests a certain closeness. Shortly after this, Daken fakes his death, which Johnny takes very hard. They most likely had a last sexual encounter in Dark Wolverine #4, based on this staging:

Daken doing up his belt, Johnny on the bed with his legs spread – it doesn’t take a genius to read this scene as something of an aftermath. After this, Daken and Johnny don’t see each other until Daken #21. Note that Johnny’s stint in the Negative Zone was between these two things.

I mean, if Daken had used his pheromone powers on Peter to mess with him in a sexual manner, and Johnny found out about it after he’d slept with Daken, I do think it would upset him incredibly, but that’s not what happened in the Daken vs Peter American Son fight, and the laundry list of Things Johnny Would Be Upset About If He Knew Daken Did That is so long that I can’t see what is a fairly straightforward superhero vs villain fight (that Peter won) ending up particularly high on the list. On the other hand, I do think Peter would have a total fit if/when he found out Johnny had slept with Daken, but that it would be more on the “sleeping with a dude Peter’s fought/Wolverine’s 70yo son” side of things at least initially.

#johnny storm #daken akihiro #peter parker #marvel comics #*replies #long post/#traincat talks comics #dakenjohnny #tangentially

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traincat · 5 years

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I know you've already sort of discussed this but could you please explain the marvel 2 in 1 ending... what I'm getting is that the gist of it is that Reed and Sue are just like 'lol whoops I guess we sorta forgot about u'... which is really kinda anticlimactic and abrupt. Did I read it wrong or something? All that build up and angst just for it to go down the drain... is there something more to it that I'm missing that you know of?

I can explain it, but the answer’s not going to satisfy you, because it doesn’t satisfy me. Long story short: there were implications there was something more to the story than Marvel Two-In-One’s final two issues said, but Fantastic Four hasn’t followed up on that like, at all, and shows no signs that they’re going to anytime soon.

In the interests of putting all of the pieces together, I’m going to lay out everything that happened between the cancellation of the Fantastic Four title and now, because there are a lot of fuzzy periods. The Fantastic Four disappeared from the Marvel universe and from the shelves back in 2015, following Jonathan Hickman’s Secret Wars event. In Secret Wars, the multiverse has been destroyed and cobbled back together into Battleworld, a realm where Doctor Doom rules as god king, with Sue as his wife, Ben transformed into a huge wall, and Johnny as Battleworld’s artificial sun. It’s a real fractured fairy tale. At the end of Secret Wars, Reed defeats Doom and reunites his family. Using Franklin’s mutant ability to create entire universes and the Molecule Man’s powers, Reed, Sue, and the children of the Future Foundation set out to recreate the multiverse. Ben and Johnny are sent back to their own Earth with comment that “their stories aren’t done yet.” Doom is also sent back with his scarred face restored.

The cancellation of the Fantastic Four at this point heralds the first time Marvel had been without a Fantastic Four book on the shelves since 1961. We know – partially because it was painfully obvious, and partially because Jonathan Hickman spilled the beans – that the Fantastic Four comics were cancelled because of a film rights dispute; aka, Marvel Studios and Disney didn’t have the film rights, and Ike Perlmutter threw a fit about it. Instead of doing their best to put out a good book that would draw in comics audiences, Marvel instead cancelled Fantastic Four, citing low readership. Marvel has denied this, but the truth is pretty obvious, especially with how the Fantastic Four’s return to comics just so happened to coincide exactly with when it became extremely clear that the Disney-Fox merger was going through. So right from the start we had this very inorganic reason as to why the Fantastic Four were hung up. Reed, Sue, and the kids were retired out of universe under the excuse that they were rebuilding the multiverse – which, to be fair, does work as a pretty good excuse. Johnny and Ben, on the hand, were kept in-universe and distributed to other properties, probably because of Ben – who, let’s be honest, is the most popular of the Fantastic Four and the moneymaker here – and because it made more sense to keep Johnny and Ben than just Ben.

Immediately post-Secret Wars, there was an eight month (iirc) timeskip in the main Marvel universe, meaning that books that picked up after the events of Secret Wars picked up significantly after it; we see very little of the Secret Wars fallout. Here’s what we do know concerning the Fantastic Four: Reed, Sue, and the kids were largely believed to be dead, although Johnny in particular initially refused to believe that. Sometime during this timeskip, Johnny and Ben had some kind of fight. We don’t know what it was about. Honestly, at this point, we’re unlikely to ever know what it was about. Whatever it was, it was bad enough that Ben and Johnny severed all communication and Ben left the planet to join the Guardians of the Galaxy. What followed was the longest separation between Ben and Johnny that we’ve ever seen in canon. Johnny and Ben are famous for squabbling, but their fights rarely last longer than a few days at most; they’re extremely close, to the point that when Ben was presumed dead, Johnny’s coping mechanism mirrored Ben’s long time love and current wife Alicia’s. This post-Secret Wars separation between them lasted longer than when Ben thought Johnny had gotten together with said longtime love Alicia (it was a Skrull in disguise, but nobody would know that for like 80 issues). This separation between them is completely unprecedented, and like I said, we have no idea what caused it.

This scene from Infamous Iron Man #9 is the closest I’ve gotten to determining a root of the fight – note Johnny says “my family”, all handily bolded for emphasis. Not “our family”, “my family.” Ben is the only member of the Fantastic Four not related by either marriage or blood to any of the others, which has been a very occasional sore spot in the past. But even this scene doesn’t quite make sense – it’s hard to imagine Ben and Johnny having a months long separation over this alone, and to make matters more confusing, before Infamous Iron Man #9, Johnny had tried to get in contact with Ben only to be rebuffed. In Infamous Iron Man #9, Ben gets in contact with Johnny only for Johnny to practically run away from him. Already the new dynamic here feels like it needed more attention in the narrative than it actually got.

I think part of the problem with this whole return of the Fantastic Four storyline – the actual return especially, but even the lead-up – is that it was never established what was keeping Reed and Sue from coming back. On top of that, if they had the power to send Johnny and Ben back, why weren’t they able to send them back with some sort of memory or guarantee that Reed, Sue, and the kids were okay? It would have been very easy to say “well, a supervillain did it!” You know, the easiest comic book plot excuse of all time. But they didn’t do that. And that creates a problem when it’s a well-established fact that Johnny in particular tends to fall into a deep depression and displays signs of self-harm when the team isn’t together. (Fantastic Four #191-193, Robinson’s Fantastic Four run, Ben’s death in Waid’s run.) Which is exactly what happened this time, too, both during the timeskip and in the lead-up to Marvel Two-In-One (2017).

Marvel Two-In-One (2017) was essentially the test run for the return of the Fantastic Four. The original Two-In-One was to Ben Grimm what Marvel Team Up was to Peter Parker: essentially a team up book that revolved around one character. So it made sense to relaunch it starring Ben and Johnny. In Two-In-One, Ben discovers Johnny at the end of his rope, pulling life-threatening stunts in his grief and depression, and, willed a multidimensional travel device by Reed, decides to – to the best of his knowledge at the time – lie to Johnny and say that Reed and Sue might still be alive. Learning that they’re both losing their powers and will continue to do so unless they’re reunited with Reed and Sue, as their powers depend on the four of them being in the same universe (an interesting concept, though not one we’ve seen before), Ben and Johnny set off, with a worryingly helpful Doctor Doom on their heels, on a multiversal roadtrip to find their family – one Ben thinks will fail from the start because, as far as he knows, Reed and Sue are dead. It’s a really good concept, and a great concept that starts to fall apart as soon as the notion that Reed and Sue aren’t dead starts to float to the surface. In Two-In-One #9, stranded powerless with Ben in the desert in another universe and facing death, Sue appears to Johnny.

(Marvel Two-In-One #10) This brief contact is apparently enough to reignite Ben and Johnny’s powers to full strength. Sue says that her and Reed’s powers were gone, which does seem to track with the plot – except Johnny and Ben lost their powers over a prolonged period of time, not all at once. If Reed had realized he and Sue were losing their powers, he should have come to that conclusion far before this point in time. You can say the times don’t add up because different universes (which the “you haven’t met the Zaklons yet” line would seem to imply), but with no explanation about how Sue was able to contact Johnny – however briefly – at this point, it does make it seem like Reed and Sue could’ve made contact with Ben and Johnny at any point… and simply chose, for whatever reason, not to. Which is, ultimately, the story Two-In-One goes with.

(Marvel Two-In-One #11) In the very next issue, Reed’s reasoning for why they didn’t take Ben and Johnny with them is that… they would’ve been bored by the science aspect of it all. Which is, I’m going to go ahead say, very out of character and not in the spirit of the Fantastic Four. They’re explorers, and they explore together. This seems like a weirdly brusque excuse to write off the absence so they can get back to the status quo as quickly as possible, using Reed’s science-obsessed image to make him the fall guy. Additionally, in this issue (which I have to say, I overall like – I wrote a whole Doom/Reed fic based off of it), Reed also offers another reason why the world had to believe he and Sue were dead:

In Marvel Two-In-One #11, Reed and Ben visit an alternate universe Doom who exists in a universe where his own Reed is dead. This Doom is a pretty okay dude at the moment – in fact, he and Reed had become, through Reed’s private multiversal travel, close friends. Using this (pretty flawed) logic of “Reed dead = Doom good??”, Reed deduced that if his own Doom thought Reed was dead, he… too would be good? Look, I don’t hate this. I’m a big Doom/Reed fan and the whole thing is pretty shippy and it also depends on Reed having an enormous attachment to Doom and an enormous desire for his own Doom to be like this other Doom, who is his friend. But as far as “why did Reed and Sue stay away as long as they did” explanations go, “Reed was kind of bonkers in love with Doom” is not the direction I expected things to go. Besides, it doesn’t really work, and it doesn’t really work for one big reason: Fantastic Four (2018) #1, the actual return of the Fantastic Four, was published before this, and Fantastic Four (2018) #1 implies a hugely different story.

Fantastic Four (2018) #1 sees Johnny and Ben returned to their home universe after the events of Marvel Two-In-One #10. The reader has no idea how they got there or what they’ve been doing since they got back, or even how long it’s been since they’ve been back. Despite the Sue sighting, at the very end of the issue, Johnny becomes convinced all over again that Reed and Sue are dead, up until…

(Fantastic Four v6 #1) The staging here is important – Reed and Sue’s battle-ripped uniforms, and the cryptic lines between them, like Sue’s “what you plan to do… seems impossible.” This is compounded by dialogue between Franklin and Val in the next Fantastic Four issue:

“You think you can boost that signal enough… to reach Earth?” “Home? I’m good, but there’s no way I’m that good.” This would definitely seem to imply that, for some reason, Reed, Sue, and the kids can’t contact their home universe, or Ben and Johnny at all. I’m admittedly biased in favor of this version: the more time went by without Reed and Sue contacting Johnny and Ben and leaving them on their own, the more obvious it became that this was the best solution, to create some comic book reason why Reed and Sue simply couldn’t return home. But Fantastic Four (2018) #3 and #4 never really explore this more, and the subject gets dropped altogether, which makes for a very unsatisfying read. The Fantastic Four simply return home together and, some frankly too quickly brushed off anger and resentment from Johnny in Marvel Two-in-One’s closing issue aside, this gets swept under the rug in favor of the Fantastic Four just being back now! Hurrah! Pay no attention to the film rights hungry Mouse behind the curtain!

If I wanted to, I could make the explanations presented in Fantastic Four (2018) and Marvel Two-in-One (2017) mesh – Reed has massive guilt issues stemming back to the accident that granted the Fantastic Four his powers. He has a bad habit of taking responsibility that isn’t necessarily his, and of not being 100% truthful in situations because he feels it’s for the best for everyone. (The massive amount of time he takes to reveal his powers are failing during Fraction’s Fantastic Four run, or in the two instances during Waid’s run where Reed uses cruel words to distract both Ben and Sue from his plans to sacrifice himself for them.) Reed might have chosen to take the blame on himself – come up with a story he knows will anger Ben, say that he thought he and Johnny would have been bored, because he felt it was somehow easier than admitting that he and Sue found themselves in some kind of situation where they simply couldn’t get back, and couldn’t contact Ben or Johnny. It’s a way of taking 100% of the blame on himself, which would be a very Reed thing to do. But that would be me doing the book’s work for it; this is absolutely not established within the actual canon as of the time of my writing this.

Honestly, I don’t think we’re likely to see this explored more any time imminently – the Fantastic Four were banished from the stands because of film rights. They came back because for three years dedicated fans asked where the Fantastic Four were, yes, but also because of those same film rights. Now that they’re back, there seems to be this huge rush to pretend it never happened: the Four are back together, and that’s that. It’s very unsatisfying, but it’s clear Marvel cared more about pushing the Fantastic Four back together as quickly as possible than writing a coherent, satisfying story that put together all the pieces of their in-universe disappearance.

#foil-in-a-thunderstorm #*replies #traincat talks comics #long post/

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