The John Black HTML FAQ Part 3

Version 2.9 May 30, 1999

By Dustin Cushman

John and Marlena Reunite, Kristen's Revenge is foiled

Kristen's hope that Marlena would eat the poisoned chocolate and die was ruined when Belle Black ate it instead. Roman found Belle past out on the floor of the penthouse and gave her a shot to counteract the penicillin, for Belle was just as allergic as her mother. Near Belle was an open bottle of Brady's pills and he thought that Belle had eaten them, mistaking them for candy. Roman rushed Belle to the hospital. It was when he saw Marlena and John by their daughter's side that he realized Marlena and John were meant to be together. Roman told Marlena that he wouldn't stand in her way and he wished her and John all the happiness in the world. Meanwhile, Susan felt something was wrong and she called Salem. Susan learned what had happened and realized Kristen had tried to kill Marlena. Susan sent Kristen one final note, which said her planned failed and that John and Marlena were once again engaged.

John and Hope's search for their pasts

John and Marlena vacationed in New Orleans to celebrate their re-engagement. While there, John went back to what was left of Maison Blanche. There he found an old burnt picture of Hope. Upon returning to Salem, John showed the picture to Hope. Hope was dressed in some fashions from the early 50s and was standing in front of a magnificent building. Vivian Alamain identified the cloths Hope was wearing and John called a professor friend to learn about the building. One possible location was Lugano, Switzerland. Hope had already sketched a replica of the painting 'Garden at Twilight by Paul Renee, who was from Lugano. Another clue was a silver comb, which had "Made in Lugano" engraved on it. Hope decided to go to Lugano and John went along because he feared she would get into trouble on her own. Upon arriving in Lugano, Hope and John questioned an antique store owner about the comb. The owner told them that the comb was part of a private collection that was stolen years ago. The shop keeper kept the comb and told them if they left he wouldn't have to call the police. John and Hope witnessed the shop owner give the comb to a woman and they followed her to an elegant house, which John recognized as the building Hope was standing in front of in the picture he found of her. Hope and John went in and met the house's owner, Ms. Faversham. Ms. Faversham looked carefully at Hope and called her "Princess Gina!" Ms. Faversham explained to Hope that she was Princess Gina, a member of a royal family who was very close friends with her, but she suddenly vanished from a ball one night about five years ago. John and Hope stayed in Lugano and investigated her past. They learned that Princess Gina and Ms. Faversham often went to art festivals and learned that Princess Gina loved Ms. Faversham's collection of Renet paintings. John and Hope learned about the grandson of Renet and went to question him about the auctioning off of the last Renet painting. The man had pictures, which Hope was in, but John was shocked to see himself in the pictures as well, sporting a beard and a priests outfit. Later, John would be recognized as Father Black by two Swiss nuns. Marlena would come to Lugano to surprise John, but the two would return to Salem when they learned Sami had been shot during an assassination attempt on her fiance Franco Kelly's life. Hope remained in Lugano and went aboard the Empress Express with Ms. Faversham to go to Count Olenska's art festival. Back in Salem, John learned that Stefano was also on his way there and he tried to warn Hope, but by time he contacted her, Stefano had already found her. Stefano and Hope returned to Salem, but neither Hope nor John would give up the search for their pasts, despite Stefano's warning that it would bring them nothing but unhappiness.

John and Hope meet Greta and learn about the real Princess Gina

When Bo returned to Salem from the Bayou he brought with him a young girl named Greta, aka the Swamp Girl. Stefano was on a manhunt for her because she new all his secrets. Stefano, who was involved with Ernesto Toscano, knew that Greta replaced Hope in the cage scene in which Hope was supposedly killed, then burnt in. Greta was the one who was burnt, Hope was never harmed. Greta recognized John as Father John, a priest friend of her mother, the real Princess Gina, who looked remarkably like Hope. Greta explained that her mother was from an exiled branch of Prussian royalty. Greta does not know who her father is, other than he is a prince who is supposedly dead. Princess Gina often went away on mysterious trips and Greta was placed in a boarding school in America, she later aspired to become an actress. Father John was not only Princess Gina's good friend, he was also a father figure to Greta. Greta promised John that she would do whatever she could to help her. John believed Greta was a good and honest person, but Marlena had doubts, especially after everyone found Greta in Stefano's arms. Greta had attempted to flee Salem and Stefano found her. He saved her from falling off of a cliff and she hugged him to thank him for saving her life, which is what everyone saw. Later, John made arrangements for Greta to have the scars on her face removed.

Stefano's involvement with John's Aunt Viv

Stefano became determined to get his art treasures back, which Jonsey had willed to his wife Vivian. Stefano's plan was to make Vivian appear to be insane and have her sign over power of attorney to him. Stefano implanted a device in Vivian's tooth which allowed him to control her moods. John became concerned about his aunt's erratic behavior. Vivian eventually began to believe she was dying from Dementia. Stefano convinced her to sign over power of attorney to him, but at the last moment she signed it over to John. John had his aunt committed when she became out of control, but Stefano broke her out of the asylum and secretly wed her, which voided John's power of attorney. By that time, Stefano had used his device too much and Vivian's health was rapidly declining. Convinced she was going to die, Vivian made out a new will, leaving all her treasures to Celeste, Ivan, and John. This angered Stefano, because underneath all the paintings Jonsey left to Vivian were his hidden collection of stolen Renets. In order to gain back control of his estate, Stefano married her. John tried to stop the wedding, but he was unable to when they married in a hot air balloon. After falling from the balloon, the receiver in Vivian's tooth was lodged loose and began to hurt. Vivian went to her old friend Doctor Wu, who pulled the microchip out of her tooth. After analyzing it he told Vivian that it was a mood control device. All the unexplainable mood swings Vivian had been experiencing over the last several months began to make sense, and she soon discovered Stefano's remote, and was forced to act her way through fake mood swings to keep Stefano from learning she had removed the receiver. Vivian, Celeste, and Ivan wondered why Stefano married her and went to such extreme lengths to control her, until they found an old will of Jonsey's which indicated that all of Jonsey's art treasures actually belonged to Stefano! Vivian deduced that the treasures were stolen, and decided to use the situation to her advantage to her advantage. First she changed her will, leaving everything to John, Celeste, and Ivan, and then convinced Lexie to tell Stefano that Vivian was dying and could go at any moment. Then after badgering Stefano for hours on end, Stefano gave in and signed his stocks in Titan over to her. However, he made her sign a contract which bequeft them back to him upon her death, figuring she would go at any moment. Vivian continued to play the dying wife, but Stefano soon became suspicious of her. Vivian and Bo teamed up to bring Stefano down. She would help him if he helped her. Vivian planned a going away party at which she would give away all her art treasures, and Bo made sure that Victor would attend the party. Vivian still wanted Victor's forgiveness, and love, and vowed to make him see what Kate was doing to Titan. During the planning phase of her party, Vivian's nephew Nicholas Alamain, now all grown up, returned to Salem to see his dying Aunt. Vivian eventually told Nikki that she wasn't dying and explained the situation to him.

John and Marlena, Re-Engaged, Again

On New Years 1999, John flew to New Orleans with Marlena and once again asked her to marry him. She accepted and John promised to marry her this year.

Princess Gina Returns to John's Life

When Vivian changed her will and left her treasures to John, Ivan, and Celeste, Stefano realized he had to act quickly to save them. Because Gina had created the original forgeries, the stolen Rennets were underneath them, Stefano decided to bring Gina back to create duplicates which Stefano could substitute in place of the ones in the townhouse. However, bringing Gina back was tricky. Dr. Rolfe uploaded all of Gina's memories into a satellite, which would then beam them down to a chip in Hope's brain, turning her into Gina. However, the complete process could only occur during a total lunar eclipse, which happened every four years and was approaching. As Rolfe uploaded the memories up to the satellite, Hope began to have memory flashes of Gina's life. Bo became a problem for Stefano because he wanted to take Hope far away from Salem. He feared that if Bo and Hope married and left town before he could turn Hope back into Gina, all his plans would be ruin. To slow their future plans down, Stefano had Shawn Douglas kidnapped. Bo and Hope both knew that Stefano was behind it. Stefano had arranged to save Shawn Douglas to ingratiate himself to Hope, but it blew up when Shawn D. tried to escape and plunged into the icy Salem River. Shawn D. was saved. The ordeal did buy Stefano time, but when the satellite was in position and everything was ready, a violent snowstorm hit Salem and Dr. Rolfe feared that it would block the satellite's transmission. Hope was driving at the time, trying to get home to Bo, when her car went off the road. She was rushed to the hospital, but seemed to be okay. Later, however, Hope went to see Stefano and fooled her creator into thinking that she was Hope! She told him that Gina was back and ready to pick up the pieces of her life. She wanted to return to Europe, but Stefano told her they couldn't leave until she completed forgeries of all the paintings in the townhouse. He also warned her to stay away from John and Greta, but Gina had no plans on doing that. Gina was determined to reunite with John and Greta, despite Stefano's wishes. Unfortunately, GIna found out that John had no memory of her, so she decided to jog it. She learned from Greta that Marlena was helping John remember his past, which included Gina. She learned that John had recalled Princess Gina teaching him how to dance, so she accepted a dinner invitation from John and Marlena and wore a similar dress to Tuscany, which triggered John's memory, but aroused Greta's suspicious. Greta began to believe that her mother was alive inside of Hope. When Stefano found Gina with John and Greta he flipped and scolded her, but she told him that she had no choice but to go out to dinner with them because they were becoming suspicious of "Hope." Gina continued to manipulate herself into John's life, constantly urging him to search for his past. She even planted doubts in his head that he was ever a priest. Unfortunately for Gina, her constant ignoring of Bo led him and Greta to go to the Hotel Capri and do some background searching on her. Gina quickly followed them and changed the hotel records so that the dates she stayed there did not coincide with any of the art thefts, and she also erased John's name from the computer so they couldn't connect the two. Later, Gina revealed herself to Lilly Faversham and moved out of the Horton house and in with Lilly to get away from Bo. She then stepped up her plans to win John back. She learned that Billie Reed had her compact, which was a gift from John and an item that she thought would trigger his memory. Unfortunately, John began to have terrible migraines and Stefano warned Gina that if John continued to research his past it could kill him. When she finally retrieved the compact from Billie, she was afraid to show it to John. John, however, saw the compact eventually, and it triggered all sorts of passionate memories for him about Gina. The two ended up kissing, but John vowed to forget about his past and concentrate on the woman he loved in the present, Marlena. When Gina learned of John's immediate plans to marry Marlena, she blackmailed Dr. Rolfe into deactivating the chip in John's brain in order to stop the wedding and get the old John back.

Stefano Reveals the Truth about John Black

Stefano told Dr. Rolfe the truth about John, he was never a priest! Stefano got to a very young Forrest Alamain early on and turned him into his pawn. John, like Hope, was implanted with a microchip that allowed Stefano to implant and erase his memory, but John's chip was much cruder than Hope's. John entered the seminary, but never took his vows. He posed as a priest and worked with Princess Gina, who was also under his control. Together they stole many priceless works of art from all over Europe. John used his reputation as a priest as a cover and Gina used her status as a Princess as her cover.

John and his women (emphasis on the plural!)