Marvel Comics has revealed which member of the Fantastic Four will die in the latest issue of the long-running comic series.

SPOILER ALERT: This story reveals who dies.

After announcing in December that one of the four was to fall in January, series writer Jonathan Hickman said Tuesday that Johnny Storm — The Human Torch — would be the casualty in issue no. 587. The issue, featuring art by illustrator Steve Epting, was released on Tuesday.

In an ongoing storyline titled The War of Four Cities, Storm sacrifices himself so that his niece, his nephew and his best friend and fellow superhero, The Thing, can escape a parallel universe known as the Negative Zone. The storyline has been under way for the last year and a half.

Issue No. 587 of the Fantastic Four is the promised issue that kills off one of the main characters of the fighting foursome. (Marvel Entertainment/Associated Press)His decision leaves teammates Mr. Fantastic, Invisible Woman and the Thing to pick up the pieces and move forward.

"I thought [Johnny's sacrifice] should be noble, self-sacrificing and most of all I thought it should be heroic. I think Johnny was most certainly all of those things," Hickman said.

Marvel also revealed that issue no. 588 will be finale issue of Fantastic Four, a comic franchise that has been around since 1961, when it was created by industry icons Stan Lee and Jack Kirby.

Like his teammates, Storm gained his superpowers after being bombarded with cosmic rays. The character has played a key role in the adventures of the quartet.

"Johnny was, in simplistic terms, the 'id' of the team," Hickman said in a statement.

"He represented the child-like, more innocent view of the world. He stood in direct contrast to the world 'as it really is.'"

Tom Brevoort, Marvel's senior vice president for publishing, said the subplots and threads that Hickman has created "will converge in a new thing that will be exciting and different and yet, very familiar and very much the same."

Comic books are notorious for killing off characters and resurrecting them in mysterious ways and Hickman is cagey about whether this will happen with the Human Torch.

"While I will never discount that a character can come back from the dead because it is one of the staples of comic book story telling, I'm not going to tell you if he will, or when he will and if he does, how he will, but I can assure you that it's going to be very, very interesting and not what anyone expects."

With files from The Associated Press