The Human Torch, Thing and Medusa rise from the wreckage of Gregory Gideon's handiwork. Gideon and the Dragon Man appear to be dead. Johnny uses his nova blast to charge up a machine to reinvigorate Reed who has been lying comatose. They leave the facility to go and track down Sue Richards.

What they don't realize is that one of Gideon's henchmen, Slugger Johnson, has also survived. He wanders about for a bit, until he runs across the entity known as the Shaper of Worlds. The Shaper uses Slugger as his own personal muse and recreates reality in accordance to Slugger's imagination.

The new reality mirrors the reflections and lifestyle of the 1950s. A group of juvenile delinquents known as the Wild Ones fly around in hover-cycles in their ongoing war against the The Nation, a totalitarian regime where a protectorate known as the Patriots tries to keep the world safe from the threat of the "youthies".

The Fantastic Four find themselves trapped inside this new reality and split up. Johnny and Medusa investigate the Wild Ones, while Reed and Ben are invited to the council chambers of the Patriots. The Patriots interrogate the two heroes asking if they have ever been involved with the Youth movement.

The leader of the Wild Ones wants Johnny and Medusa to steal a secret weapon from a mastermind known as the Brain.

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