We had seen a brief teaser for this a while ago at the Diamond Retailers Summit, but today Marvel and Newsarama confirmed that in September, the Fantastic Four are (probably?)l losing Sue Storm. Artist Steve Epting (of Captain America fame, lately) will be joining with writer Jonathan Hickman for the next big saga in Marvel’s First Family. For those currently reading, you’ll know that there are several different cities/civilizations that have been the focus of the previous arc, and at the end of it there was some trouble afoot. In “3”, the war between the cities will come to a head, and Hickman promises that one of the Fantastic Four will “breathe their last breath.” This arc will also mark the first appearance of Doctor Doom in Hickman’s book (even though at the end of Mark Millar’s run Doctor Doom said he was bored of the Fantastic Four and didn’t plan to fight them anymore (which Peter David later retconned in X-Factor)).
As Hickman says,
if I had to sum it up, it would simply be defined as the summation of everything we’ve done to this point, culminating with a tragic series of events whenever all of the pieces that we’ve put on the table so far start to fall apart. It’s a week in the life of the Fantastic Four. It takes place in New Atlantis and the Negative Zone, and some of it in the Abandoned City of the High Evolutionary, and some of it takes place on Nu-Earth, or Nu-World, as we’re calling it now. “Three” is a cosmic, star-spanning Fantastic Four story with consequences. It’s easy to start knocking that stuff down when you spend as much time as I have setting it up.
Now, the art would seem like Sue is the one that bites the dust considering the other three are there, but that also seems a tad bit too easy – and way too spoilery. I’d say that it’s anyone’s bet at this point, but just because Sue isn’t in the picture doesn’t mean she is the one that dies. Heck, it doesn’t mean that any member of the Fantastic Four dies, considering Hickman has been building a rather large supporting cast for quite some time now.
UPDATE: It turns out that there are actually a series of teasers, with several members of the Fantastic Four missing and not just Sue. There’s one without Ben Grimm, one without Johnny Storm, and one without Reed Richards as well.
It will also be very interesting to see where the book is at in September, and then go back and re-read the previously written issues to see where all the threads had been quietly hiding since Hickman took over the book. Either way, with Hickman at the helm – and considering how amazingly fantastic (no pun intended) the book has been since he started – it should be a very great read.
For the full interview with Hickman, check out Newsarama.
