Fantastic Four Returns

[CaptCleghorn]

As a kid I read at the same time the first part of the Lee-Kirby run and the issues from the Bronze Age (I mean after 1973 I guess). And I must confess that if I have collected in the past few years all the issues that I missed back then (Omnibus, MMW, Essentials..) I still have to read them...

Shame on me!

What I'm trying to say is that I never read an issue of the FF where Johnny and Crystal were together...

I have to... I know... I will...

About The Great American Novel, I love that site. What an incredible work!

Crimz, I you haven't visit it yet, do it. But be aware that you coukd read there some troubling theories about Sue! You are warned...

The first issue of FF I ever read was issue 85. Reed, Ben, Johnny and Crystal were in Latveria without Sue. Being eight at the time and only having seen the cartoon, I was confused and wondered why they were calling Sue "Crys". Didn't take long or many other issues to catch up, but that's why i don't have a lot of sympathy for the "but the movies are different" complaint. I was eight., there was no internet and I caught on.

And those are fan theories on the website. Not an actual suggestion by the site's author.

[Iron Maiden]

I read the story of their love back when it happened. I was young, early teens, but I really liked their story.

My view as Romeo/Juliet is definitely informed by Tolworthy and the Great American site. I think he really propels and convinces this notion.

I certainly agree Sue/Reed is a worthy love of the MU. Ben/Alicia is more of the pathos - tragic love, and worthy too.

But to me as teens or very young adults, Crys and Johnny fulfill the quotient of a romeo/Juliet, with the families angst or antagonism over their 'ship and how they were pulled apart.

Quicksilver ending up with Crys, to me, is bad housekeeping, in order to never restart that ship. But that was decades ago and you're right how neither Crystal or Johnny have had any love like theirs together....

As much as I would like Ben/Alicia and Johnny/Crystal to have a nice long courtship I keep thinking that the fact that Reed and Sue are the married couple of the group limits their chance at the same bit of domestication. I don't think I ever saw any interviews about why Stan and Roy decided to pull Crystal away from the title and then paired her off with Quicksilver. But I suspect that might be part of it. They were thinking of their target audience and wanted to keep Johnny as the character to bring in younger readers.

[Oberon]

I certainly don't take all that stuff so seriously. He is obviously against the compressed time line, but so are a lot of others, well, maybe some others. In the '70s I read some fan publication about the same thing.

The basic difference or maybe detail to take away is that 'time compression' takes away meaningful actual life changes.

So in a sense that is why Crystal and Johnny would never marry (but why not her and QS, hmmmmmm) because for that character, Johnny, those things would demand a change in his character, maturity, etc.

Not so with QS who is by and large mostly unchanged over decades. Still arrogant - which some people find adorable, but even the weirdness of House/M, the Terrigin isotopes or whatever, did not really change him overall.

Even his marriage to Crystal didn't change him; which is why it was natural to get them divorced.

I don't take everything in Great American Novel as gospel, but it is very provocative and gives lots of room for thought and speculation.

[Oberon]

Crys' departure from the comic was, pretty sure, after Stan was done writing it. I also think or remember that the revelation that Pietro had landed in the Inhumans' city and been nursed back to health actually came out of left field. There was no foreshadowing or hints; just sorta fell out.

So I think it was an editor or writer giving direction towards this move.

As a child of 8 or so, I had read the early Strange Tales that Johnny co-starred in. The art was moody and to a child, kinda creepy. Especially the way the Wizard was drawn; quite scary for my little mind.

I recall better my first real issue, which started me on a lifetime of reading the FF, around 12 isn, with the issue # 64, The Coming of Ronan. So I missed (but later was able to catch up) on the initial Inhuman stories, Medusa in the Frightful Four, Beware the Hidden Land and all the stories that established Crystal and her and Johnny's infatuation and eventually true love for each other.

But # 64 was a good starting point and as a 12 year old I quickly grasped that Crystal was a sort of partner or assistant to the FF, besides being Johnny's girlfriend.

The whole thing with Quicksilver, several years after that, truly seemed right out of left field and I never really accepted or wanted to accept it - but there wasn't anything I could do...

Fun fact about Oberon: As a 20 year old or thereabouts I began writing fan letters - yes! - snail mail to the FF and other comics. My first letter ever was published in #220, which was a retelling of their origin and had a red-tinged cover. I bought 5 copies, which are still sealed in some plastic bags down in my basement!

[Iron Maiden]

That is really cool that you had a letter published in the comic. I did write to Bill Mantlo when he was writing Super-Villain Team UP but it never got published. He did send me a handwritten postcard saying the usual appreciation hearing from you, which I kept for a while when I was a kid. Over the years, I lost it and I wish I had kept it especially after reading about the bad accident he had later in life.

I felt the same way you did about Quicksilver suddenly becoming engaged to Crystal. There was some foreshadowing though when Stan and Jack did the story where Crystal became ill due to the polluted atmosphere (and people think Marvel suddenly swerved to a liberal point of view these days!) Crystal leaves in issue #105, which is soon after Jack Kirby's last issue. The first issue of the Fantastic Four I read was pretty monumental IMO...FF#39. After that my brother and I asked Dad to pick up this comic every month, along with Spider-Man and the Avengers.

[Oberon]

I believe I had a total of 3 letters published, mostly in the '70s to early early 1980s. One was in the classic Defenders, another comic that rocked my world.

I eventually did read FF # 39 - that's Battle of the Baxter Building or in that arc, right? The whole nuke making them lose their powers and having Daredevil assist to retake their building back from Doom.

That was such an awesome story! And Sue saved them all again with her force field, even though she was unconscious (the second significant time she did that, the other being during her and Reed's time with the Avengers when Nanny and Orphan Maker came a calling to kidnap Franklin. Sue save Reed and herself from certain death, though she was asleep/unconscious).

Yes, the break-up was foreshadowed, but in my mind, it always might have been resolved with their reunion. It was a bit of time before the denouement with Quicksilver came. That was pretty heart breaking for me too.

[Triniking1234]

I never read FF #39 so my first exposure to it was the animated adaptation (And Lo A Blind Man Shall Lead Them) which was also my first exposure to Daredevil. The second season of that show really played on Johnny and Crystal relationship. Blind Man leads to the Inhuman Saga and after that the show focuses on them for the rest of the season rather than Ben and Alicia.

[Great O.G.U.F.O.O.L.]

To be honest both the break-up of Johnny and Crystal in FF #95, and their reunion in #99, felt kinda hasty to me. It felt like Lee and Kirby didn't know what to do with their relationship in the long run so they split them, and after that it feels as if Stan Lee got some negative mail about it and said: "OK let's bring them back together". Still, at the end of their run, in FF #101, they're still a happy couple.

[Oberon]

I love that season of the cartoon. They did many stories quite the justice.

[Zero Hunter]

Not so with QS who is by and large mostly unchanged over decades. Still arrogant - which some people find adorable, but even the weirdness of House/M, the Terrigin isotopes or whatever, did not really change him overall.

Even his marriage to Crystal didn't change him; which is why it was natural to get them divorced.

I think that kinda goes back to what they said about Quicksilver in the therapy issue of X-Factor. No matter what he does he still see the rest of the world in slow motion all of the time and it makes him crazy. No matter how happy he might be after a while it still gets to him and he gets pissy again.

[CaptCleghorn]

I think that kinda goes back to what they said about Quicksilver in the therapy issue of X-Factor. No matter what he does he still see the rest of the world in slow motion all of the time and it makes him crazy. No matter how happy he might be after a while it still gets to him and he gets pissy again.

That was an excellent addition to Pietro's character by PAD.

[Michael Watkins]

I think that kinda goes back to what they said about Quicksilver in the therapy issue of X-Factor. No matter what he does he still see the rest of the world in slow motion all of the time and it makes him crazy. No matter how happy he might be after a while it still gets to him and he gets pissy again.

is there a speedster dating site in the marvel universe. he should look into it. it might take some of the pressure off.

[Oberon]

Either way, personality wise he is about the same to me. I do know that PAD really worked on him a lot, but I kinda bailed on the X-universe in/before/during that time (since early '90s).

So I could / am pretty out of the loop and most recent things. I do recall hearing the everything is in slow mo to him.

[Brian B]

"The Great American Novel" is completely bonkers.

According to the guy, Sue is way older than she claims and Johnny is actually her son, resulting from an affair she had with Namor when she was 15 years old.

No wonder the same guy believes that Johnny/Crystal is the best love story ever told.

Amen! Preach it! That said, I am glad Tolworthy was a Fantastic fanatic enough to build that site. One day I’ll get around to reading all of it and ‘The Case For Kirby.’ But yeah, “bonkers” is right. Also there’s the obvious thing — it was a comic series, not a novel.

[Brian B]

Crys' departure from the comic was, pretty sure, after Stan was done writing it. I also think or remember that the revelation that Pietro had landed in the Inhumans' city and been nursed back to health actually came out of left field. There was no foreshadowing or hints; just sorta fell out.

So I think it was an editor or writer giving direction towards this move.

As a child of 8 or so, I had read the early Strange Tales that Johnny co-starred in. The art was moody and to a child, kinda creepy. Especially the way the Wizard was drawn; quite scary for my little mind.

I recall better my first real issue, which started me on a lifetime of reading the FF, around 12 isn, with the issue # 64, The Coming of Ronan. So I missed (but later was able to catch up) on the initial Inhuman stories, Medusa in the Frightful Four, Beware the Hidden Land and all the stories that established Crystal and her and Johnny's infatuation and eventually true love for each other.

But # 64 was a good starting point and as a 12 year old I quickly grasped that Crystal was a sort of partner or assistant to the FF, besides being Johnny's girlfriend.

The whole thing with Quicksilver, several years after that, truly seemed right out of left field and I never really accepted or wanted to accept it - but there wasn't anything I could do...

Fun fact about Oberon: As a 20 year old or thereabouts I began writing fan letters - yes! - snail mail to the FF and other comics. My first letter ever was published in #220, which was a retelling of their origin and had a red-tinged cover. I bought 5 copies, which are still sealed in some plastic bags down in my basement!

I was fine with Johnny and Crys breaking up, though I read it in reprints. But you’re being too nice about the other half of the later ending. Crys and Quicksilver made no sense whatsoever, not one iota. That whole thing stunk! I’m glad Marvel broke them up.

That’s cool about the letters. And if I’m not mistaken, wasn’t FF #220 the first FF Byrne wrote, too? His acclaimed 2nd run on the book was a year away at that point, but I thought he wrote 220 and 221. Anyway, that’s very cool about your letters.