Later, claiming that Franklin's presence in this timeline would lead to destruction, Reed Richards' father Nathaniel abducted the child into the future. (In fact, Nathaniel had learned about the Fantastic Four's forthcoming disappearance upon defeating Onslaught, although he did not know about Onslaught himself.) Nathaniel raised Franklin for years in the future, training him to be a warrior and to master his superhuman powers. The adolescent Franklin journeyed back in time, arriving in the Fantastic Four's headquarters mere moments after Nathaniel had abducted him as a child.

The teenage Franklin called himself Psi-Lord, and wielded vast psionic powers, although they remained far short of his full potential. For a long period Reed Richards was held captive by an enemy known as Hyperstorm. During this period, Franklin founded the Fantastic Force, a new super-hero team to carry on his father's work of protecting humanity.

Finally, however, Psi-Lord somehow was removed from the Fantastic Four's time and was replaced by the child Franklin, as he had been at the time that Nathaniel had abducted him. Nathaniel claimed that Hyperstorm must have arranged the substitution, and that the Psi-Lord version of Franklin no longer existed in the Fantastic Four's timeline. (Ironically, according to Nathaniel Richards, Hyperstorm is the son of the Franklin Richards and Rachel Summers of yet another alternate future.)