Over the weekend, I had some fun re-reading Lee/Kirby's FF #61-67 and Annual #5.  Among the many fun parts of these books is the romance between Johnny Storm and Crystal of the Inhumans.  I then got to thinking about the 70's when Crystal married Quicksilver and that I was I really sad that Johnny & Crystal's friendship ended.  Moving forward in time: in the 90's Johnny married Alicia Masters (while the Thing was off earth & She-Hulk was Ben's replacement).  Alicia later turned out to be Lyja Lazerfist, a skrull !  That was quite a mind-blower for Johnny!  Eventually Johnny and Lyja got a divorce (or separated, I think, I just can't remember which issue).  All this made me wonder about Marvel's current reasons for doing the Mephisto thing with Peter Parker and MJ instead of a divorce.  Apparently Marvel thinks a divorced Spider-Man would have a negative affect on their readership because divorce sends a bad message.  Honestly, I am having difficulty comprehending this when Johnny and others (Hank & Jan) have been divorced in the MU.

Questions:

1. Does anybody else miss the Johnny & Crystal romance?  What would you have preferred instead of the marriage to Quicksilver?  A marriage between Johnny & Crystal?  A forever dating relationship?  An eventual going their separate ways, but not the Quicksilver scenario?  Other?

2. What are your thoughts re: no divorce for Peter/MJ in light of other characters in the MU being divorced?

Johnny & Crystal from FF #64 !

I noticed when reading the Essentials of the FF how some subplots, like Johnny/Crystal or Matt Murdock/Karen Paige or Steve Rogers/Sharon Carter got extremely repetitive, in succession in the books. The monthly gap solved that problem, mostly.

The main thing about Johnny/Crystal was her involvement always kept the ultra-cool Inhumans as part of the FF's adventuring.

I still think the FF could involve the Inhumans more...I mean to the point where you'd get Triton/Human Torch team-ups or Karnak, Ben and Gorgon...I loved the stories where one or more of the FF went off on their own adventures in the title, teamed with outside elements like Wyatt Wingfoot.

Purely from the subplot standpoint, I liked Johnny and Crystal. They seemed like good kids in love, and Johnny never worked better as a character than with Crys. Steve Englehart brought her back in his run in the 1980s, but the relationship was tainted by the "adultification" of the two characters, who are both bitter divorcees at that point. Johnny and Crys needed to be teenagers forever.

extremely repetitive . . . .

Maybe because Stan Lee was writing all those stories?

ultra-cool Inhumans . . . .

:-)

teamed with outside elements like Wyatt Wingfoot.

Haven't seen Wyatt (if memory serves) since DeFalco and Ryan !

Johnny and Crys needed to be teenagers forever.

I liked Englehart's portrayal of Johnny & Crystal as you so accurately described above.  The reader could really feel the pain, tension and forbidden desire between those two !  I like the "teenagers forever" idea.  That's what I would have chosen !

Don't we all

I'd settle for my early-mid twenties ! ;-)

Well, now Crystal's engaged to Ronan the Accuser.

Really.  She is.

Assuming Kirby was driving the plots, I would deduce that the Johnny / Crystal pairing would be ultimately doomed. I point out the precedent of the Don Blake / Jane Foster romance and how, in the end, Jane turned out to be inadequate for Thor.

In the FF case, I would guess that Kirby would have intended Johnny to have turned out inadequate for Crystal.

Just speculation on my part.

You got me in the mood to revisit my FF Essentials.