|
Post by codystarbuck on Jun 9, 2021 11:36:44 GMT -5
I hated the Johnny/Alicia thing as a kid, but when I reread the run as an adult it made a lot more sense to me.
But the marriage was probably a bad idea (I don't remember those issues at all.)
One of the (many) odd things about comic book fans is that they seem to demand that a character remains with whoever was the first love interest in the book. A handful of people marry their high school sweethearts but, for the vast majority of us, that is not how our significant relationships work. I think it is more that they become invested in the relationship, rather than it being the first love. Quite frankly, very few writers have successfully introduced a new love interest that was as interesting or developed the relationship well enough to erase the past. Sure, Spidey got MJ, but only after Gwen died.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 9, 2021 11:46:46 GMT -5
I hated the Johnny/Alicia thing as a kid, but when I reread the run as an adult it made a lot more sense to me.
But the marriage was probably a bad idea (I don't remember those issues at all.)
One of the (many) odd things about comic book fans is that they seem to demand that a character remains with whoever was the first love interest in the book. A handful of people marry their high school sweethearts but, for the vast majority of us, that is not how our significant relationships work. I feel like this should say superhero fans. The Johnny/Alicia thing just flies in the face of the way that real people act, so it's just super hard to accept. Not that it's impossible for the two of them to fall for each other. But there's simply no way after that that Ben and Johnny ever have anything to do with each other. Johnny Storm is a buddy-f@%& and should be shunned by all polite society.
|
|
|
Post by impulse on Jun 9, 2021 12:23:52 GMT -5
On the other hand, I know multiple people personally who are now happily married to people who previously seriously dated someone else in the friend group, and people are still friends. I guess it depends on the people involved and how it goes down.
Granted, I haven't read the Johnny/Alicia thing, so if it went down ugly, someone tell me so I don't embarrass myself.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 9, 2021 12:33:53 GMT -5
On the other hand, I know multiple people personally who are now happily married to people who previously seriously dated someone else in the friend group, and people are still friends. I guess it depends on the people involved and how it goes down. Granted, I haven't read the Johnny/Alicia thing, so if it went down ugly, someone tell me so I don't embarrass myself. As I recall, Johnny and Alicia hooked up while Ben was still on the Battle Planet (another stupid idea) after Secret Wars (a stupid mini-series). That's my understanding. I was reading The Thing at the time (I don't know why, but I was) but not FF. So, while his buddy was away, Johnny decided to screw him and horn in on his lady. Ben should have squashed him like a bug.
|
|
|
Post by impulse on Jun 9, 2021 12:38:38 GMT -5
Oh, yeah, that's not cool. Screw that guy.
|
|
|
Post by Hoosier X on Jun 9, 2021 12:40:58 GMT -5
One of the (many) odd things about comic book fans is that they seem to demand that a character remains with whoever was the first love interest in the book. A handful of people marry their high school sweethearts but, for the vast majority of us, that is not how our significant relationships work. I feel like this should say superhero fans. The Johnny/Alicia thing just flies in the face of the way that real people act, so it's just super hard to accept. Not that it's impossible for the two of them to fall for each other. But there's simply no way after that that Ben and Johnny ever have anything to do with each other. Johnny Storm is a buddy-f@%& and should be shunned by all polite society. It made no sense for either character, especially Alicia. You felt like you were reading about a different Fantastic Four. As if the writer got bored with the series he was writing and decided it should be about a totally different set of characters. Byrne should have left FF a lot earlier than he did.
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Jun 9, 2021 13:29:37 GMT -5
Was Alicia actually a Skrull? Or maybe she made a deal with Mephisto? 'Cause that doesn't sound like the one I remember from the 60s
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jun 9, 2021 13:36:28 GMT -5
Was Alicia actually a Skrull? Or maybe she made a deal with Mephisto? 'Cause that doesn't sound like the one I remember from the 60s No, the actual Alicia was never a Skrull. The Skrull storyline was subsequent to Byrne and undid things by saying it was never Alicia after all, but a Skrull replacement (who came just as Ben and the other heroes left for the Secret Wars) who ended up falling in love with Johnny. They later recover the actual Alicia who has been imprisoned the whole time by the Skrulls (and then there's a whole bunch of weirdness between Ben/Johnny/Alicia for awhile).
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 9, 2021 14:27:01 GMT -5
Was Alicia actually a Skrull? Or maybe she made a deal with Mephisto? 'Cause that doesn't sound like the one I remember from the 60s (...) The Skrull storyline was subsequent to Byrne and undid things by saying it was never Alicia after all, but a Skrull replacement (who came just as Ben and the other heroes left for the Secret Wars) who ended up falling in love with Johnny. (...) That was pretty funny in hindsight, because during the time she was married to Johnny, Alicia (the Skrull one, retroactively) got abducted... by Skrulls. Skrulls who had extremely sensitive Skrull-detecting devices that somehow failed to identify her as one (nor, in fact, could they identify any of the heroes replaced post facto by the events of Secret Invasion). Retcons make my head hurt, but ones that contradict a whole lot of issues do so even more. Regarding the Alicia-Johnny thing... The Torch didn't actually act as a cad, or at least not as much as the sentence "he slept with his best friend's girl" might suggest. The Thing rightfully suspected him of just moving in when Ben was away, but there was more to the relationship than that. After Ben essentially dumped Alicia so he could play space ranger on another planet and "find himself" or whatever, Johnny played the role of the helping friend offering a shoulder to cry on. He didn't seem to have any romantic intention whatsoever, at least as far as we readers were concerned (although obviously Byrne knew where he was going). Over the course of several issues, the two of them grew closer and ended up falling for each other, which made Johnny feel pretty sh***y... just in time for Ben to barge through the door! That earned the Thing a good tongue-lashing from Alicia who quite rightfully pointed out that this was no tawdry affair, and that he had no right to act all high and mighty without first saying hello and without considering that when people leave, they may not find things the way they left them upon their eventual return. Alicia sounded pretty mature in all of this, because her attitude was "look, Ben, I care for you but you can't just abandon me with no explanation and expect me to just put my life on hold hoping you'll return one day. Our relationship shouldn't just have been just about you and your needs". She didn't actually say that, of course, but that was the gist of her speech and she was darn right; the Thing had taken her for granted. I agree that this is the kind of thing that might have put a serious dent in the friendship between Ben and Johnny, but the Tnig always had a big heart despite his brusque manners.
|
|
|
Post by impulse on Jun 9, 2021 14:35:14 GMT -5
Ok, that makes sense, too. Yay nuance.
|
|
|
Post by Slam_Bradley on Jun 9, 2021 14:39:16 GMT -5
(...) The Skrull storyline was subsequent to Byrne and undid things by saying it was never Alicia after all, but a Skrull replacement (who came just as Ben and the other heroes left for the Secret Wars) who ended up falling in love with Johnny. (...) That was pretty funny in hindsight, because during the time she was married to Johnny, Alicia (the Skrull one, retroactively) got abducted... by Skrulls. Skrulls who had extremely sensitive Skrull-detecting devices that somehow failed to identify her as one (nor, in fact, could they identfy any of the heroes replaced post facto by the events of Secret Invasion). Retcons make my head hurt, but ones that contradict a whole lot of issues do so even more. Regarding the Alicia-Johnny thing... The Torch didn't actually act as a cad, or at least not as much as the sentence "he slept with his best friend's girl" might suggest. The Thing rightfully suspected him of just moving in when Ben was away, but there was more to the relationship than that. After Ben essentially dumped Alicia so he could play space ranger on another planet and "find himself" or whatever, Johnny played the role of the helping friend offering a shoulder to cry on. He didn't seem to have any romantic intention whatsoever, at least as far as we readers were concerned (although obviously Byrne knew where he was going). Over the course of several issues, the two of them grew closer and ended up falling for each other, which made Johnny feel pretty sh***y... just in time for Ben to barge through the door! That earned the Thing a good tongue-lashing from Alicia who quite rightfully pointed out that this was no tawdry affair, and that he had no right to act all high and mighty without first saying hello and without considering that when people leave, they may not find things the way they left them upon their eventual return. Alicia sounded pretty mature in all of this, because her attitude was "look, Ben, I care for you but you can't just abandon me with no explanation and expect me to just put my life on hold hoping you'll return one day. Our relationship shouldn't just have been just about you and your needs". She didn't actually say that, of course, but that was the gist of her speech and she was darn right; the Thing had taken her for granted. I agree that this is the kind of thing that might have put a serious dent in the friendship between Ben and Johnny, but the Tnig always had a big heart despite his brusque manners.
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Jun 9, 2021 14:51:07 GMT -5
Was Alicia actually a Skrull? Or maybe she made a deal with Mephisto? 'Cause that doesn't sound like the one I remember from the 60s No, the actual Alicia was never a Skrull. The Skrull storyline was subsequent to Byrne and undid things by saying it was never Alicia after all, but a Skrull replacement (who came just as Ben and the other heroes left for the Secret Wars) who ended up falling in love with Johnny. They later recover the actual Alicia who has been imprisoned the whole time by the Skrulls (and then there's a whole bunch of weirdness between Ben/Johnny/Alicia for awhile). Thanks for the info, supercat. I knew someone would know this. That I was really just trying to be ironic/ sarcastic/ satirical with those suggestions only proves how comics, like politics, have essentially killed all irony, sarcasm and satire. PS: Welcome to CCF, and keep up the great comments. I've enjoyed all of the ones I've seen!
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Jun 9, 2021 15:05:01 GMT -5
(...) The Skrull storyline was subsequent to Byrne and undid things by saying it was never Alicia after all, but a Skrull replacement (who came just as Ben and the other heroes left for the Secret Wars) who ended up falling in love with Johnny. (...) That was pretty funny in hindsight, because during the time she was married to Johnny, Alicia (the Skrull one, retroactively) got abducted... by Skrulls. Skrulls who had extremely sensitive Skrull-detecting devices that somehow failed to identify her as one (nor, in fact, could they identfy any of the heroes replaced post facto by the events of Secret Invasion). Retcons make my head hurt, but ones that contradict a whole lot of issues do so even more. Regarding the Alicia-Johnny thing... The Torch didn't actually act as a cad, or at least not as much as the sentence "he slept with his best friend's girl" might suggest. The Thing rightfully suspected him of just moving in when Ben was away, but there was more to the relationship than that. See my previous comment to supercat re the Skrulls. As for ben going off to play amongst the asteroids, see, to me, though admittedly I didn't follow the FF much past the early 70s, that doesn't sound like Ben Grimm. He revered Alicia back then, very like Quasimodo did Esmerelda, and I just don't see him gallivanting off and hurting her in the process. Perhaps that was one of the reasons the whole sorry mess was retconned?
|
|
|
Post by Roquefort Raider on Jun 9, 2021 15:09:04 GMT -5
That was pretty funny in hindsight, because during the time she was married to Johnny, Alicia (the Skrull one, retroactively) got abducted... by Skrulls. Skrulls who had extremely sensitive Skrull-detecting devices that somehow failed to identify her as one (nor, in fact, could they identfy any of the heroes replaced post facto by the events of Secret Invasion). Retcons make my head hurt, but ones that contradict a whole lot of issues do so even more. Regarding the Alicia-Johnny thing... The Torch didn't actually act as a cad, or at least not as much as the sentence "he slept with his best friend's girl" might suggest. The Thing rightfully suspected him of just moving in when Ben was away, but there was more to the relationship than that. See my previous comment to supercat re the Skrulls. As for ben going off to play amongst the asteroids, see, to me, though admittedly I didn't follow the FF much past the early 70s, that doesn't sound like Ben Grimm. He revered Alicia back then, very like Quasimodo did Esmerelda, and I just don't see him gallivanting off and hurting her in the process.Perhaps that was one of the reasons the whole sorry mess was retconned? Same here, but as Byrne was writing both Fantastic Four and the Thing, we got the Johnny-Alicia thing on Earth and Ben finding a new girlfriend (Tarianna) in space. (That one wasn't a Skrull, but turned out to be a psychic construct modeled on Grimm's "ideal" woman, who coincidentally had the same body as Sharon Ventura, the lady who eventually got to be his real girlfriend on Earth and eventually turned into the new Thing. Because continuity can never be messy enough!)
|
|
|
Post by Prince Hal on Jun 9, 2021 15:15:27 GMT -5
See my previous comment to supercat re the Skrulls. As for ben going off to play amongst the asteroids, see, to me, though admittedly I didn't follow the FF much past the early 70s, that doesn't sound like Ben Grimm. He revered Alicia back then, very like Quasimodo did Esmerelda, and I just don't see him gallivanting off and hurting her in the process.Perhaps that was one of the reasons the whole sorry mess was retconned? Same here, but as Byrne was writing both Fantastic Four and the Thing, we got the Johnny-Alicia thing on Earth and Ben finding a new girlfriend (Tarianna) in space. (That one wasn't a Skrull, but turned out to be a psychic construct modeled on Grimm's "ideal" woman, who coincidentally had the same body as Sharon Ventura, the lady who eventually got to be his real girlfriend on Earth and eventually turned into the new Thing. Because continuity can never be messy enough!) And people say Dickens is tough to follow.... Not that I really want to parse this too finely, but wouldn't Alicia have been Ben's perfect woman, or did Tarianna have Sharon Ventura's body and Alicia's intellect? Or, if I can go by everything I've read about Byrne's notorious Big Barda-Superman story, was Ben's blow-up doll, er, fembot, er "psychic construct" just his perfect physical woman?
|
|