I know it's still a few days until Valentine's Day but since I don't know if I will have the time to do a special post on that date - and I want to keep things interesting on the blog after three Sal Buscema / Joe Sinnott HULK post in a row - we have another special with the Fantastic Four and this time we are back with Johnny Storm a.k.a. The Human Torch.
Speaking about my Sal Buscema / Joe Sinnot HULK posts, attentive blog visitors may have noticed that the second one - with Hulk and She Hulk going up against the killer cyborg Arsenal was flagged by blogger as NSFW again and there is nothing that I can do about it for the moment.
Because I have no idea what the problem was as it got flagged as NSFW before I had a chance to include my usual cult siren paraphernalia which can be quite risky. So there were only the pages of a comicbook that has already been approved by the Comics Code Authority way back in 1983 and I don't know what could be in those pages to make blogger slap an NSFW label on the post. Which means that at the moment I will work on one of the other unfinished and cross that bridge when we come to that.
So longtime followers of the blog might remember that I already did two Valentine's Day specials with the Fantastic Four, the first one was almost ten years ago in 2016 as we covered the worst break up in comic history.
It happened in issues 131 and 132 of FANTASTIC FOUR when Crystal broke up with Johnny Storm to be with Quicksilver and the only thing that can soften the blow - even if it is only in hindsight - is that that turned out to be one decision with catastrophic consequences of biblical proportions.
In a well deserved turn of events Quicksilver turned out to be one of the worst - if not the WORST EVER - husbands in the entire Marvel universe.
Two years layer I wrote my second Valentine's Day Special post with the Fantastic Four about another really bad break up and this time it was the turn of everybody's favourite blue eyed thing, the idol of millions Ben J. Grimm. As a quick recap : there was this little thing called SECRET WARS - Marvel Comics first mega crossover to sell toys - where all the heroes of earth ( or at least all the important ones ) where whisked away to a patchwork planet made out of parts from other planets by an omni - powerful being who called himself the Beyonder and pitted against a hand picked group of villains from Earth to understand human nature.
While that story was told on a monthly basis in a twelve issue maxi series in the regular series it took only a moment so in one issue the heroes vanished but in the next they were already back with a lot of radical changes because of what happened on Warworld. I mean Battleworld.
And to learn how these changes came about and what had happened to the heroes while they were away you had to read SECRET WARS. Now one team where there was a radical change when they returned to Earth was the Fantastic Four since the Thing didn't return from Battleworld at all - at least for a time - and the sensational She Hulk filled in for him.
I already explained the reasons why Ben Grimm remained on Battleworld in said Valentine's Day post as well as that when he came back to Earth to break up with Alicia Masters - he already had decided to take a break from their relationship before vanishing to Battleworld - he found his teammate the Human Torch already filling out Ben's spot there as well.
Even though Ben initially went to break up with Alicia he was not too thrilled about this revolting development and the usual hi - jinks ensued.
But you can read all that - and a lot more about the Fantastic Four's history in that post so the only thing I want to mention is that issue 277 where all of this takes place also ties in to our last post. You see, near the end of the issue Mephisto gets more and more powerful because the planet of the Dire Wraiths gets nearer and nearer to Earth and Mephisto can feed off their evil. And it is only thanks to the efforts of none other than Rom Spaceknight and his allies that the Dire Wraiths are defeated which in turn makes their planet vanish which leaves Franklin Richards to banish Mephisto - for a time. Because the real evil never truly dies.
Anyway, with the introduction out of the way Today is a continuation of all that as it is about the wedding of Johnny Storm and Alicia Masters.
This happened in issue 300 of FANTASTIC FOUR but I have also included material from issue 299 in which the Thing throws a temper tantrum because Johnny Storm had the nerve to ask him to be his best man.
To help him blow off steam She Hulk instigates a fight and once Ben has calmed down he realizes that Johnny didn't make this request to rub it in his face that he is with Ben's girl now but because Ben is Johnny's best friend - even with all the pranks Johnny plays Ben over the years - so it is only natural to ask him to be his best man at the most important day in his life. Another thing I like about issue 299 is the conversation Spider - Man has with the Human Torch who have had a special friendship over the decades being two of the few teenaged super heroes at that time.
In any case you can find these issues in the Epic Collection FANTASTIC FOUR - ALL IN THE FAMILY which was one of the very first Marvel Comics published which makes sense because the period right after John Byrne's departure from the book when John Buscema and Sal Buscema were the artists on THE FANTASTIC FOUR was skipped by most comicbook readers.
burn burn burn the ring of fire
fantastic stuff
fantastic links
fantastic videos
fantastic four
geheimer krieg
marriage in comicbooks
fantastic banner
fantastic quote of the day
