Lindsey

on survival

Johnny Storm exists in the weirdest canon sexuality grey area known to mankind. Is he constantly referred to as gay? Yeah. Is there evidence that several high profile Marvel creators think he's queer? Yes. Marjorie Liu confirmed that the intent in her run in Dark Wolverine was that there was a sexual relationship between him and Akihiro. Kurt Busiek retweeted an article I wrote that explicitly discussed the homosexual subtext of Johnny's character. Dan Slott reportedly wanted to write Johnny and Wyatt in a romantic relationship, which is believable if you look at the beginning of his run, but was told no. (Slott's written gay relationships before in Amazing Spider-Man, so I wouldn't find this so surprising.) And John Byrne wrote this:

(FF #251) John Byrne I desperately want to study you in a lab.

But is Johnny canonically anything but 100% straight? No, not officially. Marvel, the conglomerate, officially views Johnny as heterosexual, and if the Dan Slott thing is true even recently blocked an attempt at having Johnny come out. If this is true, it's most likely because of the new movie, because let's be honest, corporate Marvel does not care about Johnny Storm on the same level it cares about Spider-Man or the Punisher or Iron Man.

Because let's be honest. This goes deep. And it's been going on a long time. The above John Byrne panel is not the only example. There is a long-running thread of homophobic comments targeting Johnny running through 616 canon.

(Hulk vs Thing: Hard Knocks #3) "Light in the loafers" is slang for a gay man, for anyone who doesn't know.

(Dark Reign: Zodiac #2. I don't recommend reading this, by the way, not even if you're going deep down the Johnny Sexuality Well, but for the record Johnny, despite not being canonically gay, literally gets gaybashed in this comic.)

(FF #151) Does it get more blatant than a character named "Mahkizmo" referring to Johnny as "an effeminate"? Someone get me Gerry Conway on the phone, I need to know what he was thinking when he wrote this. (I know what Gerry Conway was thinking because Gerry Conway is a very good and very intentional writer.)

Then there's Ben's repeated teasing about Johnny's "crush" on Spider-Man, referring to them as "love boids" and so on. This is friendlier than the above comments, but then, if we assume Johnny is queer, Ben would know about it. He certainly knew what was going on with Johnny and Akihiro.

(Daken: Dark Wolverine #4) "Got what he came for, right?" Real double entendre here, since "what he came for" is both a weapon from Reed and, clearly, sex with Johnny.

The posing here is not subtle, even before you factor in that Marjorie Liu, who co-wrote this series along with Daniel Way, confirmed on social media that the relationship was meant to be read as sexual. (So you can probably add Way to the list of writers who think Johnny is queer, too.)

In fact, I'd say that Liu and Way depict the whole family as knowing about Johnny's sexuality and about the relationship.

(Daken: Dark Wolverine #4)

So if Johnny is in the closet, the way this issue frames it, he's only in the closet to the public. He's not in the closet to his family.

(Deadline #1) "All right, Storm, who were you with last night: Britney? Christina? Eminem?" in reference to Johnny getting caught "with a bottle in one hand and a blonde in another." So he's not doing a great job on that front, either.

Then there's Johnny's tendency, despite the perception of him as a womanizer, to look incredibly uncomfortable when he's kissed by a woman -- even a woman he purportedly has romantic interests in. Take, for example, the following panels:

(FF #562) He certainly is just standing there while Psionics, his one-time bad girl fling, kisses him and invites him to come see her again. Which he doesn't do, by the way. The next time he sees Psionics, she'll kill his close family friend Alyssa Moy right in front of him. Great!

(FF #259) Literally running away from Sharon Selleck. Now, we can say that he just wasn't attracted to her, which is true -- he was very ardently pursuing her roommate, Julie DeAngelo. Except.

(FF #263) That's certainly some kind of posture when she kisses him, and of course as soon as she kisses him, he's "over her."

There's more examples of this, too, where Johnny has a pre-existing connection with a woman only for him to completely freeze up or lean away from her when he's kissed, with no follow through on his part. (This is part of the reason I personally headcanon him as gay and not bi, but that's besides the point.) And it's a totally separate issue from the other longrunning thread of him being kissed as a form of assault. Which also happens. Like a lot. "Johnny Storm" and "consent issues" are basically synonymous at this point, which again is really interesting if we're looking at this from the perspective of Johnny and sexuality, since most of these incidents involve women as the perpetrators.

(Most. Not all. Dark Reign: Zodiac definitely implies some things, and I think it's interesting that Akihiro initiates his connection to the Fantastic Four by shooting Johnny through the thigh with an arrow.)

I've mentioned this before, but again, for a character who has the reputation that Johnny has developed, both in and out of universe, it is deeply bizarre that he does not have sex scenes. He doesn't have them. Peter Parker has sex scenes. Kinky sex scenes! There is zero doubt in my mind that that Peter Parker is attracted to women. I can't even show you Johnny Storm having vanilla missionary honeymoon lovemaking that fades to black. Whenever they want to show you he's had sex, it is always in the aftermath, and he is rarely having a great time about it. What's up with that, Marvel! I know, but do you!

Then there's Unstable Molecules: Fantastic Four, which exists in a metatextual area -- it's a fictionalized account of the "real people" who inspired the Fantastic Four, the story of four people rapidly barreling towards a disastrous dinner party that would be witnessed by two comic book creators. And it's Johnny is definitely queer.

(Unstable Molecules #3) "Johnny, it is the fiery night, and you are a holy flaming flower." The extras for Unstable Molecules even include a love poem written by the beatnik who calls him "a holy flaming flower" that is definitely supposed to be about Johnny.

So that's the grey area. You have all of this content that either implies or occasionally outright states that Johnny is not straight. But according to Marvel, the actual publisher and company, Johnny is straight. Personally, I don't like saying things are canon if they aren't explicitly 100% confirmed canon, but the wealth of evidence here is so substantial that I make an exception. It's just a matter of when Marvel the actual company is going to admit it.

I was mostly focusing on 616 Johnny, with the exception of Unstable Molecules, which is an intentionally metafictional story so it kind of toes the line re: 616. I have mixed feelings about relying too heavily on other universes when discussing 616 (sometimes helpful, sometimes not, imho), but yeah, the Ultimate Jessica Drew stuff is worthy of a mention, especially combined with Ultimate Johnny's utter adoration of Peter.

Ehhh, won some lost some