(CBR) Though the news leaked out a bit early via an errant IGN post during New York Comic Con weekend, Marvel today made it official via USA Today: James Robinson and Leonard Kirk are helming the relaunch of Marvel Comics First Family for a storyline which involved the core group, old friends like Wyatt Wingfoot and Alicia Masters, and the ever-present villainy of Doctor Doom. And, of course, a little bit of conflict as the FF find themselves evicted from the Baxter Building, at odds with the Avengers and the Thing facing murder charges all while Franklin’s imagination and powers are creating a dangerous reality for Reed and Sue to face, especially while raising Val at the same time.
“We’re going to see the fragmentation of the family due to villainous outside forces that are slowing picking at them and eroding them,” Robinson told the paper. “The arc I’m going to be telling is basically the fall and the rise of the Fantastic Four, and especially the fall and rise of Johnny Storm.”
Johnny, whom Robinson describes as “Justin TImberlake times 100,” will be a particular focus of the writer’s story, a superhero celebrity who finds himself facing life without his powers. “That whole world of superstardom and falling prey to the temptations and the travails of it will be an aspect of it based upon things that happen to Johnny as the Human Torch. Both things tie in with each other and are a part of the nefarious bigger picture.”
And despite their newfound prominence in the Marvel Universe, the Inhumans, the central focus of Matt Fraction’s “Inhumanity” event, will not be appearing in the series which introduced them to comic readers — for now, at least. “I’m not sure how much I’ll be using them at the moment, mainly due to my not being sure quite what direction Matt Fraction is taking it.”