After a three-year hiatus, the Fantastic Four is set to return to their own comic book series this August. The promos for the new series show the four classic members of the Fantastic Four, namely Mister Fantastic, Invisible Woman, Thing and the Human Torch. However, artist Sara Pichelli did note about the upcoming series, “I can’t wait to draw a lot of the characters, but there’s one in particular I can’t reveal yet. You will know why they’re my favorite when you read the book!”

Likely, Pichelli is just talking about a new supporting cast member, but it's interesting to note that the Fantastic Four has a long history of mixing and matching with precisely who the four members of the team are. It is not always the original four in the team's roster (although, the vast majority of Fantastic Four issues have included those four characters as the lineup). So let's take a look at the Fantastic Four's history of different lineups.

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In Fantastic Four #1 (by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby), we met the original members of the Fantastic Four. Pilot Ben Grimm is convinced by his best friend, scientist Reed Richards, to steal a spaceship that Reed had been working on, in part because Reed's girlfriend, Sue Storm, essentially called Ben a coward who didn't care that the "Commies" might beat us to the stars. If there's one thing that we know about Ben Grimm, it is that he hates Communists. So he was on board with Reed's whole "two guys steal a spaceship and this somehow makes sense to me" idea. Plus, Reed had missed out on his previous date night with Sue, so he had to agree to let her go with them on their "steal a spaceship" night out. Sue took care of her teenage brother, Johnny Storm, so they all figured, "Hey, if we're already stealing a spaceship and bringing your girlfriend with us for no reason, why not also bring a teenager along?" Shockingly, their plan did not do well and the shielding on the space ship was not, as Reed thought, strong enough to withstand the cosmic rays that penetrated the ship. So their ship crashes and they are all transformed by the cosmic rays. Reed can not stretch his body, Sue can turn invisible, Johnny can become some sort of human torch and Ben transformed into some monstrous thing. They all decide to use their powers to help mankind as the Fantastic Four, with Johnny becoming the Human Torch, Sue becoming the Invisible Girl, Ben becoming the Thing and Reed becoming Mister Fantastic...

Within a couple of issues, they debuted their classic costumes...

This lineup remained the same for seven years. However, once Sue (now Sue Richards, as she and Reed got married) became pregnant with her and Reed's first child, the team realized that Sue probably needed to take a break from being a superhero. So she took some time off and in Fantastic Four #81 (by Jack Kirby, Stan Lee and Joe Sinnott), the Human Torch's Inhuman girlfriend, Crystal, who had elemental powers, joined the team in Sue's place...

Interestingly, even when Sue gave birth and returned to the team, Crystal kept hanging out for a while after that, so they were really the Fantastic Five there for a while.

After having their kid, however, Reed and Sue had some problems over the fact that their son, Franklin Richards, was really powerful and villains kept trying to capture/hurt him. Reed was a bit of a jerk to Sue, basically acting like she was a bad mom for still wanting to be a superhero when he thinks that she should spend all of her time being their kid's mom. She gets angry and quits the team and leaves Reed.

A couple of issues later, in Fantastic Four #132 (by Roy Thomas, John Buscema and Joe Sinnott), Crystal's sister, Medusa, decided to take Sue's place on the team (Crystal had just met and fell in love with the former Avenger, Quicksilver, and she wasn't willing to return to the team herself).

Medusa actually remained on the team even after Reed and Sue got back together in Fantastic Four #149, as Sue didn't immediately return to the team until Fantastic Four #159.

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The next roster change-up was a brief one. Over the years, Ben Grimm kept losing his powers occasionally. This was something that Reed Richards was intentionally trying to do, so it wasn't some shocking thing. However, the main thing is that Ben would lose his powers and when that happened in Fantastic Four #168 (by Roy Thomas, Rich Buckler and Joe Sinnott), the Fantastic Four briefly replaced him (they seriously had some ridiculous bit where the Fantastic Four's charter says that the team must be made up of super-powered members and since Ben had no powers, he couldn't be on the team anymore) by hiring Luke Cage....

Then Reed invented a special suit of armor for Ben that made him look like the Thing again, so Ben was able to return to the team (and obviously, eventually Ben got his powers back, like he always does).

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In Fantastic Four #238 (by John Byrne), Human Torch's girlfriend, Frankie Raye, turned out to be a sort of Human Torch herself. Since significant others of Fantastic Four members always get to join the team (Ben kept trying to explain to Reed that having a blind member with no superpowers was a bad idea, so Alicia got to be an exception), Reed offered Frankie a spot on the team...

She worked with the team for a couple of issues but never really officially joined, and then she became Galactus' herald, so she never really got to join the team.

Following the events of Secret War (where a mysterious being known as the Beyonder pulled a bunch of superheroes and supervillains on to a Battleworld planet and made them fight), Ben Grimm discovered that he could now control his ability to transform back and forth into the Thing, so long as he remained on Battleworld, so he decided to stay behind. He didn't want to leave his teammates in the lurch, however, so he convinced another one of the heroes who was sent to Battleworld, She-Hulk, to take his place on the team. She debuted as a team member in Fantastic Four #265 (by John Byrne)...

She-Hulk remained on the team for nearly forty issues, making her probably the longest-lasting replacement member on the team (not counting multiple stints on the team).

After Ben returned to the team and Johnny married Ben's old girlfriend, Alicia Masters, Reed and Sue decided to take a break from the team to just spend some time being a regular family with their son, Franklin.

They were replaced in Fantastic Four #306/307 (by Steve Englehart, John Buscema and Joe Sinnott) by Johnny's ex-girlfriend, Crystal, and the new Ms. Marvel, Sharon Ventura, who Thing knew from his time as a professional wrestler.

Sharon was soon mutated into a She-Thing (while Ben was mutated even further)...

Reed and Sue returned in Fantastic Four #326, but She-Thing hung around for a while as a sort of fifth member.

The biggest change to the Fantastic Four's lineup was soon to come!

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In a fun storyline that was parodying the way that comic books always had characters like Spider-Man and Wolverine guest-star in them to raise sales, Walter Simonson, Arthur Adams and Art Thibert had the Fantastic Four seemingly killed off (really captured by Skrulls) and then Spider-Man, Wolverine, Hulk and Ghost Rider had to form a new Fantastic Four...

When they rescued the originals, they were finished, but it was a really fun arc at the time.

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The next big change to the lineup occurred when Reed Richards was seemingly killed in Fantastic Four #381. In Fantastic Four #384 (by Tom DeFalco, Paul Ryan and Danny Bulanadi), Scott Lang was hired to be the team's new tech expert, and he sort of kind of joined the team as Ant-Man, as well...

Ant-Man was the closest they came to having an official fourth member during this run, but the unofficial members were off the charts during the time that Reed was believed to be dead.

There was Lyja, the Skrull who had impersonated Alicia Masters and married Johnny Storm...

There was an artificially aged Franklin, who was now a young man going by the codename Psi-Lord...

There was Reed's time-traveling half-sister, Huntara...

There was Namor, who helped out and seemingly seemed to be waiting for Sue to deal with being a widow so that he could date her...

And there was Kristoff, Doctor Doom's heir (Doom had seemingly died in the same incident that "killed" Reed)....

So the Fantastic Four had a whole lot of heroes helping out during that period. Reed, of course, later turned up alive.

In a weird storyline during Chris Claremont, Salvador Larroca and Art Thibert's run on the book, Reed was stuck as Doctor Doom, so "Doctor Doom" joined the Fantastic Four...

During Carlos Pacheco's run, Johnny had to put together a temporary team to rescue Sue, Ben and Reed, so he had She-Hulk and Ant-Man re-join and he had his then-girlfriend, Namorita, also join up...

Following the events of Civil War, Reed and Sue needed time away from the team again to work on their marriage, so the then-newly married Black Panther and Storm joined the team in their place in Fantastic Four #544 (by Dwayne McDuffie, Paul Pelletier and Rick Magyar)...

Next, following the apparent death of Johnny Storm during Jonathan Hickman's run, the team essentially ceased to exist and became the Future Foundation, with Spider-Man taking Johnny's official place as the fourth main member of the team...

But really, there was now a whole group of young students of Reed's, plus even Doctor Doom (who needed Reed's help), who made up the Future Foundation. By the way, Franklin and Valeria are considered to have "joined the team" at some point, and I guess that's true, but I think that it is a stretch. So it really wasn't one of those things where there was a clear lineup as before. If you had to pick a "lineup," though, it would be Reed, Ben, Sue and Spider-Man.

Obviously, Johnny turned up alive and returned to the team.

Also, there was this weekly series where this guy gained powers, but only had a month to live. Codenamed Flux, he ostensibly joined the Fantastic Four in that one month...

I think it's kind of weird to count him as a member of the Fantastic Four, but if I left him off, you know we'd see some "You forgot to mention Flux! I will burn the internet to the ground over this!" comments, so fair enough, here's Flux.

Finally, when the Fantastic Four went on a mission during Matt Fraction's run that could take them away for longer than expected, they put together a temporary Fantastic Four team, with each member picking a substitute. Reed, Ben and Sue all picked former team members, Ant-Man, She-Hulk and Medusa, but Johnny forgot all about it and had to quickly put his then-girlfriend on the team, giving her one of Ben's old Thing armors and made her Ms. Thing!

The Fantastic Four ended up needing their fill-ins,as their mission did, indeed, take them away for longer than expected.

Then the Fantastic Four returned and became the main team again. They broke up after the apparent deaths (as far as everyone else thinks) of Reed and Sue during Secret Wars. Now Ben and Johnny are trying to put the band back together, as they think Reed and Sue are still alive (they are).

Let's see if the new series has a new member join!