‘Fantastic Four’ — no more

Associated Press

It’s a Fantastic Four farewell with the revelation Tuesday of who among them has been selected to be written out of the superhero team.

Though Marvel Entertainment has made no secret that a member of the quartet, which was introduced in August 1961, would die, exactly who among the group would fall has been a closely held secret, until the release of issue No. 587.

It’s the Human Torch, leaving teammates Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman and the Thing to pick up the pieces and move on.

Fifty years after cosmic rays transformed him into a man ablaze, the Human Torch will burn no more as the pop-culture purveyor of superheroes and villains embarks on an ambitious story line that ends the Fantastic Four.

In the newest issue of one of the company’s longest-running comic books, Johnny Storm’s life is taken amid a massive battle that writer Jonathan Hickman has been scripting for more than a year. Illustrator Steve Epting did the art.

Hickman, along with his editor, Tom Brevoort, have been unsurprisingly mum on what the future may hold for the characters, but one thing is certain: The end is nigh for the Fantastic Four next month.

Indeed, death is not uncommon in comic books. DC killed Superman in the 1990s, only to bring him back.

At Marvel, Captain America was assassinated on the steps of a court house and returned, and Marvel’s mutant band of X-Men know death so well that the Grim Reaper is on speed dial.