InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "He's my stalker."

Doop (xdoop) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-07-05 08:52:00

Entry tags:

char: human torch/johnny storm, char: invisible woman/susan storm, char: mr. fantastic/reed richards, char: nova/frankie raye, char: petunia grimm, char: the thing/ben grimm, creator: john byrne, group: fantastic four, publisher: marvel comics, title: fantastic four

Introducing Aunt Petunia!

This is from Fantastic Four #239. It's written and illustrated by John Byrne.

Does Byrne have a thing for May-December relationships or something?

And to see what happens with Petunia and the town, click here.

(Post a new comment)

	(Anonymous) 2009-07-05 03:09 pm UTC (link)
	Oh man, the look on Ben's face when he first sees her is absolutely ADORABLE. (Reply to this)

	foxhack 2009-07-05 03:33 pm UTC (link)
	In regards to the May/December thing, go a few entries back and look at the teenaged Lana Lang / mature Superman post. I think it was more of a "He married the student after his wife got killed" thing in this case, though. (Reply to this)

	jlroberson 2009-07-05 07:55 pm UTC (link)
	Byrne's FF is exactly right and what the series should be(if you can't have Lee/Kirby that is). Because his love of it is clear. (Reply to this) (Thread)

	volksjager 2009-07-06 02:57 am UTC (link)
	JB did say once there were only three people who "got" the FF. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-06 04:02 am UTC (link)
	Modest as always, I see. Sigh. But doesn't affect my opinion. Byrne can't take that away from me, dammit! (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	cmdr_zoom 2009-07-06 05:51 am UTC (link)
	Motto. Yes, he's an egotist and an ass, but he gets the FF. (Reply to this) (Parent)

	jarodrussell 2009-07-05 09:08 pm UTC (link)
	Benjamin J. Grimm: HIS PARENTS ARE DEAD! (Reply to this)

	queenrikki 2009-07-05 10:05 pm UTC (link)
	I really loved Byne's Fantastic Four. The first comic I ever read was from his run. He was a good storyteller, even if he didn't have a great variety of faces. Too bad he went into "crazy-old man land". (Reply to this) (Thread)

	tavella 2009-07-05 10:47 pm UTC (link)
	His dialogue is... not the best, though that's somewhat of the time. I.e., the doorman with the ultra cheesy fake irish, etc. But he did get the sense of the FF being a family, and they were &likeable*, which is something that I haven't seen in ages. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

jlroberson
2009-07-05 11:23 pm UTC (link)

And he takes what was always kind of a running throwaway line and actually makes something out of it. Much like what he did with the Skrull cows, which I loved.

A lot of people think Alan Moore over at DC was all about the darkening and throwing away everything before. No, and certainly Byrne wasn't here either, and they were in fact doing the same thing. It's just that what Byrne does is so obviously within the FF universe. But they actually were part of a similar movement, along with Miller, in that they were developing what they were working with, which often had been allowed to get to a certain stage and then stopped for a long time.(DD would be an excellent example of that) Nothing either creator did with pre-existing characters wasn't already implicate in their history.

(Except KILLING JOKE, an exception that proves the rule)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

	his_spiffyness 2009-07-05 11:56 pm UTC (link)
	Maybe next we need to do a compilation of all of Byrne's May/December relationships. (Reply to this)

	halloweenjack 2009-07-06 02:18 am UTC (link)
	Is that Stan the Man checking out Petunia's ass in the second panel after the splash? (Reply to this) (Thread)

	perletwo 2009-07-06 02:41 am UTC (link)
	Beat me to it. Yeah, Penny got back. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-06 04:02 am UTC (link)
	AILF. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	perletwo 2009-07-06 04:04 am UTC (link)
	Benjy's aunt has got it goin'...aught? (Reply to this) (Parent)

psychop_rex
2009-07-06 07:27 am UTC (link)

Assuming that Uncle Jake is around sixty-five here (he actually looks older than that, but he's been through a lot, and may have aged prematurely), and that Petunia is about forty, and the standard in-comics answer for how long any decades-old character or characters have been around is 'about ten years ago', that would mean that the two hooked up when Jake was fifty-five and Petunia was thirty. That's not all THAT impossible - my parents know a married couple whose respective ages are late fifties/early sixties (I'm not quite sure) for her, and 85 for him, and they've been together long enough to raise a couple of teenagers. Love is blind, as they say.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-06 09:45 am UTC (link)
	This is so. Petunia could easily be in her forties. Especially in the 80s--that would make her a boomer. They tried to stay young a looong time. But alas, gravity caught up to McCartney's face. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	psychop_rex 2009-07-06 08:08 pm UTC (link)
	If you're comparing him to Jake here, I can't honestly say that I see the resemblance. (Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

	jlroberson 2009-07-06 11:05 pm UTC (link)
	No, just a snarky side remark about the boomers' failure to hold back time. As I turned 40 this year, I'll get mine soon for that. (Reply to this) (Parent)