Marvel is giving the Fantastic Four a fresh banner, officially tying the team to the new Midnight branding after more than six decades as “Marvel’s First Family.” In upcoming comics, the team will headline a horror-leaning series titled Midnight Fantastic Four, effectively functioning as a new codename and identity for the quartet. ScreenRant first highlighted the shift as a rare, explicit renaming of the classic team, something Marvel has largely avoided doing in main continuity for most of their 65-year history.
Midnight is a new publishing line positioned by Marvel as a darker, horror-driven corner of its universe, launching with three flagship titles: Midnight X-Men, Midnight Fantastic Four, and Midnight Spider-Man. The imprint kicks off in Summer and Fall 2026, with Midnight Fantastic Four #1 slated to arrive in October as part of what Marvel calls its “Midnight Universe” of interconnected books. Benjamin Percy writes the series, with artist Kev Walker—fresh off work on Infernal Hulk—providing the eerie visuals, stacking the book with creators already steeped in grittier, genre-heavy takes on Marvel icons.
Early coverage describes Midnight Fantastic Four as a cosmic horror spin on the team, reframing Reed Richards, Sue Storm, Johnny Storm, Ben Grimm, and even Victor von Doom through a more intimate, nightmarish lens. The group now operates out of a new base dubbed Storm Systems HQ outside San Francisco, a departure from the traditional Baxter Building that signals Marvel’s intent to uproot familiar FF status quo. Percy has reportedly reimagined the Fantastic Four not as a tight-knit family but as strangers bound by terrifying circumstances, undercutting the “First Family” archetype that has defined them since the 1960s.
When Stan Lee and Jack Kirby introduced the Fantastic Four in 1961, the team quickly earned the nickname “Marvel’s First Family,” a moniker Marvel continues to use in official character bios. Across the decades, the roster has shifted and the group has briefly taken on alternate banners like the Future Foundation, especially during storylines that saw Johnny Storm die and Spider-Man join the team. More recently, events leading into Avengers: Doomsday have splintered the team into new lineups such as the Fantastic Five and the All-New Fantastic Four, but even those stories treated “Fantastic Four” as the core brand rather than an abandoned name.
Marvel has also been leaning into the team’s nicknames and codenames across media, from officially dubbing them the “First Family of Earth” in tie-in comic Fantastic Four: First Steps #1 to teasing their role in the MCU film The Fantastic Four: First Steps and its connection to Avengers: Doomsday. Even Reed Richards’ own alias “Mister Fantastic” was recently unpacked in a story where he admits he chose the name to create distance between his public persona and the larger-than-life hero people expect him to be. Against that backdrop, giving the group a bold new Midnight-flavored team identity reads as another step in Marvel’s project of reexamining how the Fantastic Four fit into its modern universe.
For fans, the Midnight Fantastic Four era offers both a branding shake-up and a tonal experiment, promising body horror, existential dread, and relationship drama that push the team far beyond their usual science-adventure comfort zone. If the Midnight imprint lands, it could carve out a permanent horror niche for the Fantastic Four alongside their more traditional series, echoing how lines like Marvel Knights or Ultimate Marvel once reframed classic heroes for new audiences. And even if “Midnight” never replaces “Fantastic Four” as the name fans use day-to-day, this official codename gives Marvel a fresh lens on its oldest super-team just as the characters are poised to matter more than ever in both comics and on screen.
