As often happens around here, we saw the previous issue a couple months back, and we randomly found this one recently: From 2016, the Uncanny Inhumans #9, written by Charles Soule, pencils by Kev Walker, inks by Scott Hanna.
Having just discovered her sister was seeing her ex-boyfriend, Crystal is understandably upset; and learning Black Bolt and Gorgon knew before her isn't helping. Rather than the usual super-powered scuffle, Crystal tries to choke back her rage, but she, Johnny, and Medusa are suddenly teleported away by "the Tourneyman," an alien they had never met before but Johnny recognizes as a Grandmaster-type. Somewhat anticlimactically, the Tourneyman maybe shouldn't have given his villain spiel with his mouth full, as he chokes to death on a "buzzbug." His guards make for the escape teleporter, since the Tourneyman set his massive ship to fly into a star if he died; Johnny stops them before they can flee, and they begin transporting the captives out.
Crystal and Medusa have a moment to talk: while she had moved on from Johnny, she felt like Medusa took him just to show she could. (Crystal seems less hurt about Johnny, alternatingly seeing him as "a child," or "lost.") Medusa responds, even Crystal sees her as a queen before anything else, just like most everyone else, except Johnny. The moment is interrupted by the last of the guards, trying to fight their way out; and Medusa sends Crystal back first. Crystal is furious that they sent the guards back before themselves, and Medusa is cut off by the flames until Crystal sends cold water back through the portal so she could get through. (The transporter seemed like a Star Trek styled one before, then a two-way Boom Tube kind of set-up after!) Holding each other, Johnny and Medusa barely make it back, and Crystal hugs them both: everything might not be forgiven yet, but she still loved them both.
The Tourneyman was very much out of nowhere; but has Marvel used the Grandmaster lately? I know there was another, similar Elder, the Profiteer, used instead recently in Fantastic Four: Empyre. Well, I think they needed something to bring everyone together here; and the Grandmaster might've been a whole thing.
1 comment:
I know they like to keep Johnny as the eternal bachelor and all, but damn, it would've been nice had he been allowed to settle down with Crystal. I think not only were they really good together, but she kinda grounded him and helped him mature a bit. Englehart's really made the case for her more so than Lee I feel.
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