Well, if you don't know that the Human Torch, long standing member of the Fantastic Four, made the supreme sacrifice in Fantastic Four #587, then either you aren't a follower of comic shop news or you have been in a coma and this blog was the first thing you read after you woke up.
One of the questions then, is what happens now? (Another question being, shouldn't you have other priorities if you just woke up out of a coma? Give your parents a call, already! Sheesh!) The author James Hickman is rumored to have no replacement in mind, in the traditional progression of this kind of story that has led to membership shake-ups in the past. This was how members like Scott "Ant-Man" Lang got onto the team, and to a certain extent, every replacement member from Luke Cage to She-Hulk to Sharon "Ms. Marvel" Ventura.
Here are some possibilities that range from the outrageous to the ludacrous. In other words, I started off seriously considering this question but it quickly degenerated from there!
First off, let's go in a different direction from Johnny Storm, a human torch, with a completely opposite powerset:
But maybe opposite doesn't have to mean with powers. What if we try a simply gender reversal:
Or you could combine the two approaches-- an opposite powerset (water, this time) with a new female member:
Technically, Namorita even helped Johnny form an erstwhile team of Four when the other members of the Fantastic were stuck in the Negative Zone dimension. Hey, they even were dating at the time. Of course, technically, Namorita is dead right now, unless you count her other-dimensional counterpart that was recently pulled into our universe by her previous boyfriend who was fighting off an invasion from the said dimension at the time. Sigh. Comics.
Oh, and also, Nova:
If you want to go with someone more similar to the Human Torch, you might consider Johnny's recent characterization as somewhat of a player, er, "playa?", and go with this guy:
But now we're just getting crazy, right? Hmmm:
Nah, that guy just joined X-Factor for some reason. In all seriously, you could go with someone who could replace the Torch with some good old-fashioned hot-headedness, and he's had a history with the Four in that his ex-wife was a member for a time...
But without Crystal nor Johnny around, maybe there wouldn't be a good foil to his character.
Lastly, a character I have always loved and would want to see more of, I suggest Monica Rambeau. However, she does lack a certain "FF-ness" that would be required of any replacement, and without some serious shoehornin', I doubt we see her stories intersecting with the Fantastics:
So, any other bright ideas out there?
There's always Hanna-Barbara's great idea, way back in the 70s:
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