Hey! Could you please explain when/why Johnny has a yellow and black uniform at times? I just started Peter Parker The Spectacular Spider-man and was a bit confused by Johnnys outfit? What Fantastic Four issues should i look to for all the explanation of that?
You won’t find the answer in Fantastic Four comics because the yellow and black costume is what Johnny’s been wearing while the Fantastic Four were presumed dead between the fallout of the Secret Wars (2015) event and, well, right now – between 2015 and this month, August of 2018, there was no Fantastic Four book published. Despite false claims that the Fantastic Four as a book doesn’t sell well and that they were “too old fashioned” for modern audiences (the number one line used by people who don’t read the Fantastic Four who want to disparage the Fantastic Four), the long held rumor that the Fantastic Four title was missing from the stands because Marvel chair Ike Perlmutter was throwing a hissy fit about film rights. This also explains the huge (and failed) push to replace the X-Men (film rights at the time also held by Fox) with the Inhumans (film rights comfortably Marvel Studios’, although considering how hard the television series bombed, maybe ‘comfortably’ is the wrong word). I don’t think that Disney’s purchase of Fox is the sole reason the Fantastic Four are coming back right now – I think the fan effort to try and amplify our voices and our demands for the return of the Fantastic Four was amazing, and the success of Marvel Two-In-One (2017), in which Ben and Johnny search for their family, can’t be ignored – but it’s hard to ignore it as a major motivating factor, and I’m not loving living in an age where movie studio feuds dictate what books are being published, and not the sales of those books or the fans of those properties. But that’s the out of universe explanation!
(Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #25)
In-universe, we know that at some point following the disappearance of Reed, Sue, their children Franklin and Valeria, and the members of their super school, the Future Foundation (see the Secret Wars (2015) main series for details), Ben and Johnny had a falling out. While Ben went to join the Guardians of the Galaxy in space, Johnny stuck around on Earth and became the liaison for the Inhumans, utilizing his close relationship with the royal family. (He was also having an affair with Inhuman queen Medusa at the time, but really, as is the case with a lot of Johnny’s relationships, especially in modern comics, it kind of doesn’t matter.) The yellow and gold costume’s design fits with a lot of the Inhuman uniforms at that point, so I’m assuming that’s where the costume came from.
Johnny’s no longer the Inhumans’ liaison following the events of Inhumans vs X-Men and his breakup with Medusa, but he wore the costume until Marvel Two-In-One (2017) #4, where Ben and Johnny start their search in brand new uniforms:
I love the jackets. I highly recommend reading Marvel Two-In-One (2017) if you want to catch up on where Johnny is in current canon – it’s also written by Chip Zdarsky, who penned those issues of Peter Parker: The Spectacular Spider-Man, and there’s a really good appearance from Peter in the first issue:
“When we hang out, he pretends he’s fine, but as soon as he thinks I’m not looking, he gets… morose. Dark.” Which means that all those cute lunch and movie dates Johnny and Peter were on in PPSSM? Johnny was horrifically depressed and missing his family to the point where Peter worries he’s going to hurt himself. Love it!
