(SPOILER ALERT for those who plan on reading the new issue.) In the 587 installment of the Fantastic Four comic books, Johnny “The Human Torch” Storm is going to die “amid a massive battle that writer Jonathan Hickman has been scripting for a year-and-half.” Famous superheros have kicked it before — usually in a few months they are resurrected, somehow (see: Superman, Captain America, Phoenix etc.) In the meantime, a Marvel executive says “588 is the final issue of the Fantastic Four. Beyond that, we’re not ready to say exactly what we’re doing. There won’t be an issue 589.” (Possibly because issue 589 will be called The Terrific Three?) Writer Hickman did give a quote about the future of the comic that would do the Bush administration and its known unknowns proud: The series “will converge in a new thing that will be exciting and different and yet, very familiar and very much the same.” [NYT]