#we can have JIMMY HUDSON in 616 but not two johnny storms??

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in stormcast you mentioned that every other johnny is bi/pan but ults johnny is gay and also mentioned that you went through a lot of careful examination to come to that conclusion? is there anything that stands out about why ults johnny is clearly more boy leaning? (i really ought to start signing the, what, four anons ive asked about ults johnny as like ultimate anon or something im really just very desperate for people to actually talk about 1610)

Hi Ultimate Johnny anon! I’m more than happy to chat about 1610 with you – I think ultimately (badumpsh) we’re going to have to do a proper 1610 Johnny issue of Stormcast, when I can mention Ultimate Marvel without prompting the Yuuhy edition of “we need to delete 45 minutes of this.” So as per usual “careful examination” means “a lot of twitter conversation between your @johnnystormcast hosts and also @teenbrigade“ but yeah okay I’m about to scan the text waaaay too closely for a sec. Here’s my reasoning behind the headcanon:

So first off, while 616 Johnny has a truly disastrous love life, Ultimate Johnny has basically no love life. Two issues is a long relationship for him and he has no actual serious relationships. He expresses a lot of interest in girls initially within his story, but with one notable exception that I’m going to get to later, it’s entirely on the physical side. (Again, as opposed to 616 Johnny, who wants to Fall In True Love and Get Married. I have a lot of thoughts about 616 Johnny and the typical male superhero model but that is another post entirely.) As one of his girlfriends notes, “It’s like your afraid of your own feelings.”

But with guys? Ultimate Johnny pays a lot of attention to guys. He comments to Ben that his eyes are the same before and after the accident, which is notable because Johnny knew Ben for like five whole minutes before they were transformed, so he must have really been looking at his face in those five minutes. Later, when Ben is pursuing Liz Allan, who has fire powers in Ultimate Marvel, Johnny asks him if it’s not some sort of weird power transference thing and it’s not him Ben’s really in love with. When Ben molts his rocky shell, Johnny as well as Sue (who would propose marriage to Ben at the end of this story) gets touchy. (Ask me about how the Storms have similar taste in men, a totally different post altogether.)

And then there’s Peter. Ultimate Johnny adores Spider-Man like, from the first minute. At the bonfire on the beach in Ultimate Spider-Man #68 (a group date, which is Ultimate Johnny’s favorite kind of date, and I’m going to get to that), he says “I love that guy” when Spider-Man comes up in conversation. He’s awestruck and impressed by Spider-Man when they meet face-to-mask for the first time (which is specifically on Mary Jane’s suggestion that Peter should go cheer Johnny up). Peter is Johnny’s inspiration to use his powers to help other people. Later, after the mask comes off, he uses Peter as an excuse to get out of a date he doesn’t want to be on and generally seems to want to be around him, showing up at his school after a bad date and going to the beach with Peter’s group of friends.

After his father dies in the Ultimatum wave and the Fantastic Four break up, Johnny disappears for a while. When he makes his return (exhausted and beaten up, something that’s never explained) it’s to Peter’s house in Queens, not to his sister. Peter seems to give him a sense of security – he’d rather repeat high school and live with three other teenagers in Queens than go stay with Sue in her science tower.

Look at how cute this hug is.

In fact, the only girl 1610 Johnny displays 616 Johnny’s tendency to go “hi we just met but I LOVE YOU and we should GET MARRIED I’ve already named our 8 children which I will stay-at-home parent” is Ultimate Jessica Drew, who is not the 1610 counterpart of 616 Jessica Drew but instead a clone of Peter Parker.

Johnny doesn’t know she’s Peter’s clone but he does know she’s a spider-powered brunette and at one point asks Peter if she’s his cousin, so I think it’s fair to say the resemblance to Peter probably plays into things here.

After Peter’s death, instead of staying with May Parker (like Gwen does) or returning home, he goes with Bobby Drake (another resident of May Parker’s Home For Wayward Youths) to Kitty’s mutant underground in the Morlock tunnels, where his main connection is to Bobby. 

Ultimate Johnny also really, really, really likes double-dating. He mostly suggests it with Peter and Bobby, but he went on a double date early in Ultimate Fantastic Four with Ben&Alicia where Alicia set him up with one of her friends. He proceeded to be completely uninterested in Alicia’s friend. 

On the last double date we see him go on (which is almost certainly the last double date period, since after Peter’s death Bobby and Johnny join the mutant underground, ultimately leading to Johnny’s capture and imprisonment), he has this conversation with Bobby while walking home:

“But would you want to kiss a girl who only wanted to make out with you because you were Iceman?” is some pretty big character development for a guy who claimed to be a totally different celebrity to score a date with a girl at the beginning of Ultimate Fantastic Four. Notably at this point we don’t really see Johnny pay romantic attention to any girl. So I do headcanon that Ultimate Johnny used double dates as a way to go on a date with a guy he liked (primarily Peter and Bobby) without ever actually having to ask the guy out. 

I think a lot of Ultimate Johnny’s story is about him learning what he actually wants: his desire to be around people his own age (USM 68), his desire to be a superhero (USM 69), his desire to live with Peter and May Parker and to have a normal, stable life, and I think ultimately his desire to be romantically involved with a man. But also the Ultimate universe is dead now and Johnny was pretty much totally out of the picture by the end of it so. Jazz hands.