Having most of Danny's rogues gallery be queer coded is a really fun way to bury the gays.

Fantastic Four Vol 1 #238

Tues May 05 2020 [02:04 AM] Wack'd: Have some Wolverine publicity

[02:05 AM] maxwellelvis: It BEGINS [02:06 AM] maxwellelvis: THERE's the John Byrne we know and... sigh because the guy who comes up with great covers like these is still the guy who sabotaged Jean Grey's spinoff attempt. [02:06 AM] Wack'd: John Bryne: fun dude but still a friggin dude [02:07 AM] Wack'd: So here we go. The secret story of Frankie Raye [02:08 AM] Wack'd: Turns out this is naturally what she looks like naked, plus a spiffy pair of elbow-length gold gloves

[02:08 AM] Bocaj: He didn't notice the gold gloves at any point? [02:08 AM] Wack'd: All this stuff just...vanishes when she puts clothes on [02:08 AM] Wack'd: Yeah no Johnny is like "I've seen you in a bikini" and she puts her robe back on and the gold clothes vanish [02:09 AM] Bocaj: "My terrible secret is that I'm a never nude" [02:09 AM] Bocaj: "There are dozens of us. Dozens" [02:09 AM] Wack'd: I understood that reference [02:09 AM] Wack'd: So anyway Frankie has been somehow psychologically conditioned to never notice that a superhero outfit appears on her whenever she's naked [02:10 AM] Wack'd: As well as not to think too hard about the fact that she has no memories before age 14 [02:10 AM] Bocaj: Uh. [02:10 AM] Bocaj: Well y'know what fair enough. I try not to think about that stretch of time either [02:11 AM] Wack'd: Her earliest memory is waking up in a dingy warehouse under an old labcoat [02:11 AM] Wack'd: She lived alone in a deserted apartment and got checks for a thousand bucks in the mail every week [02:11 AM] Wack'd: And was psychologically conditioned not to think about how off-spec that was for a teenager as well [02:12 AM] Wack'd: A lot of nonsense here resting on, essentially, a Somebody Else's Problem Field [02:12 AM] Wack'd: Whoever set all this up probably would've had a lot easier of a time if they just...gave her a normal life? [02:12 AM] Bocaj: I feel that however this explains her fear of fire from earlier on, this cannot have been what the original plan was even a little [02:13 AM] Wack'd: Anyway somehow meeting Johnny started to make the conditioning decay [02:13 AM] Wack'd: She freaked out when Johnny flamed on because it made her think too hard about things, but she was attracted to him in part because of that [02:14 AM] Bocaj: uh [02:14 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Johnny pushes her to explore this whole ordeal further, because she feels like the dam is finally about to break [02:14 AM] Bocaj: I have a dumb thought [02:14 AM] Wack'd: And break it does

[02:14 AM] Bocaj: She was completely naked in that- HOLY BEANS [02:15 AM] Bocaj: she was completely naked in that scene where she had the breakdown in that other issue and she didn't get the gold booties there [02:15 AM] Wack'd: She didn't but also because up until that point she was Somebody Else's Probemed into not seeing them, remember? [02:15 AM] Wack'd: And so we the audience didn't either [02:16 AM] maxwellelvis: Like the clown graffiti all over John's house [02:16 AM] Wack'd: Johnny uses his fire absorption powers to keep the building from burning down and gives chase [02:18 AM] Wack'd: He catches up to Frankie and gives her a crash course in steering and pacing herself before she and her new ecstasy for life burns down New York [02:18 AM] Wack'd: And she explains Frankie Backstory 2.0 [02:19 AM] Wack'd: She was raised by a simple repairman, a good man, who suddenly lost his friggin composure when the Fantastic Four arrived [02:19 AM] Wack'd: Ranting about how dare Johnny call himself the Human Torch, he dragged her to an old warehouse and began raving about old experiments [02:20 AM] Wack'd: Frankie humors him for a bit but while carrying an old oil drum it bursts into flames, leaving her miraculously unharmed [02:20 AM] Bocaj: Simple repairman has a point. Kind of rude, Johnny [02:20 AM] Bocaj: Jim was a war hero, ya dink [02:21 AM] Wack'd: And then dear old stepdad hypnotized her and abandoned her [02:21 AM] Bocaj: 😐 [02:22 AM] Wack'd: A year later a package arrived with a tape recorder and a gold costume. The tape recorder hypnotized her into putting on the costume and then erased her memories [02:22 AM] maxwellelvis: What a drip [02:22 AM] Wack'd: Anyway from all this Johnny deduces her stepdad was Phineas Horton [02:22 AM] Wack'd: But you guys already figured that out, I bet [02:23 AM] maxwellelvis: I forgot who he was. [02:23 AM] Wack'd: Jim Hammond's dad [02:23 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh [02:24 AM] Wack'd: Anyway Johnny decides to become her mentor and, after she tries to fly as high as possible and runs into that pesky atmosphere problem, takes her back to the Baxter to have Reed run some tests and figure out what her limits are [02:24 AM] Bocaj: I'm for once not sad that Ultron killed him after forcing him to turn the original human torch into the Vision [02:25 AM] Bocaj: Until Byrne retcons that to not be the case because dude loves him some jim hammond [02:26 AM] Wack'd: Anyway I misremembered what Frankie's deal was. I assumed android [02:26 AM] Wack'd: But Reed thinks that whatever was in that fateful oil drum was some sort of superscience chemical that mutated her [02:26 AM] Wack'd: Not sure what the point of her being a nevernude was [02:27 AM] Wack'd: Or why Phineas Horton brainwashed his fourteen year old daughter into wearing a strapless bathing suit at all times [02:28 AM] maxwellelvis: The guy labeled Jim a renegade when he showed the first signs of not being completely under his command [02:28 AM] Wack'd: It sure is a good thing this teenager with no parental guidance never did anything where that bathing suit might've become a problem! [02:28 AM] maxwellelvis: guy's a drip [02:29 AM] Wack'd: Reed has proven his hypothesis that biological sex determines how flame powers work I guess??!?!?

[02:29 AM] Wack'd: What sort of cis nonsense is this [02:30 AM] maxwellelvis: Johnny speaks for us all [02:30 AM] Wack'd: What all that means is "after a period of suitable training, we may be calling our friends at Marvel Comics and telling them to start publishing the Fantastic Five!" [02:31 AM] Bocaj: This is a thing that marvel does sometimes [02:31 AM] Wack'd: Good news for all those Spider-Girl fans I guess [02:31 AM] Bocaj: They've decided that Laura Kinney's foot claw is what girl wolverines be like [02:31 AM] Wack'd: *sigh* [02:33 AM] Bocaj: I'll say that Spider-Girl did it better by not saying, as far as I recall, that the difference was because man vs woman. [02:34 AM] Wack'd: Okay so we have another story in this issue [02:34 AM] Wack'd: Well, two, kind of [02:35 AM] Wack'd: First a brief interlude in which it is established at some point the Four will be going to the tiny town of Benson, Arizona to investigate cases of people being "frightened to death" [02:36 AM] maxwellelvis: @Wack'd My primary suspect is this man [02:37 AM] Bocaj: Put those tingles away [02:37 AM] Wack'd: Here's a Sue pinup which I'm mostly crossposting to see if I can wrangle a coherent set of interests out of her bookshelf

[02:38 AM] Wack'd: Pogo's on there. Sue has good taste in comics [02:38 AM] Bocaj: I was about to say [02:38 AM] Wack'd: And now on to our second feature [02:38 AM] maxwellelvis: She's got a copy of Shogun in there [02:39 AM] maxwellelvis: Dangerous Visions, a sci-fi anthology [02:39 AM] Wack'd: Meet Crow T. Rob--I mean, HERBIE 2.0

[02:40 AM] maxwellelvis: "You listen to me, 'Mr. Fantastic', you are NOT my real father!" [02:40 AM] Wack'd: "I want to decide who lives and who dies!" "So long as Franklin is in the 'lives' category I'm strangely okay with that" [02:41 AM] maxwellelvis: "Hey, Franklin, the secret word for today is 'booger'! Booger booger booger booger-AAAUGH!" [02:41 AM] Wack'd: Anyway this is not the only surprise Reed has in store today! [02:42 AM] Wack'd: He also has A Cure for Being the Thing Number Fucktillion [02:42 AM] Bocaj: Panel 2 Franklin does not look like a child [02:42 AM] Wack'd: He looks like a 1950s Western bit player [02:43 AM] maxwellelvis: "Oh great, another cure! How does this one work, and where can I hide when it backfires?" [02:43 AM] Wack'd: Ben is skeptical but as Reed points out science is always marching on [02:44 AM] Wack'd: He has more data than he's ever had [02:44 AM] Wack'd: Ben you've never asked her that before because it's literally never come up before. Fuck she's dated you while you were cured! Remember when you were riding around in that robot suit?

[02:45 AM] Wack'd: Anyway [02:45 AM] Wack'd: The machine blows up [02:46 AM] Wack'd: Welp

[02:47 AM] Bocaj: Could be worse [02:47 AM] Bocaj: At least its not pinecone grimm [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Oh that's coming [02:47 AM] Wack'd: Could be covered in bees. That'd be pretty bad [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Not for Ben it wouldn't. [02:47 AM] maxwellelvis: Unless they flew into his mouth. [02:47 AM] Bocaj: "Hahah sting you fuckers" [02:48 AM] Bocaj: "This time it is permanent!" Reed shut up [02:48 AM] Wack'd: Anyway this sure is weird nostalgia baiting [02:49 AM] Wack'd: Folks have done plenty of Lee/Kirby throwback stuff but was anyone nostalgic for this, like, at all [02:50 AM] Wack'd: Also like. C'mon Bryne, integrate your story developments naturally. You shouldn't need an entire issue where all that happens is status quo changes [02:50 AM] maxwellelvis: @Bocaj You might know, had Byrne ever written a comic book before his FF run? [02:51 AM] Wack'd: I guess Frankie was integrated a little naturally (even if she went from recent love interest to team member in no time flat) but the Ben is fairly hamfisted [02:51 AM] Wack'd: You can just check Marvel Wiki [02:51 AM] Bocaj: He co-plotted with Claremont I know [02:51 AM] Bocaj: And Claremont was big on the idea of co-plotting. [02:51 AM] maxwellelvis: But this would be his first, like, his first time flying solo? [02:52 AM] Wack'd: Dude has a lot of X-Men credits and some Captain Americas [02:52 AM] Bocaj: His first writing credit was on Iron Fist apparently [02:52 AM] Bocaj: at Marvel [02:54 AM] Bocaj: But from a skim of wikipedia fantastic four was his first extended solo writing thing