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Post by MacNimon on Jun 23, 2011 19:33:42 GMT
Bolstered by the success of the Marvel reprint material in their other comics, Odhams decided to issue two more weekly comics, Fantastic and Terrific. These were a slightly smaller size, somewhere in between the size of Pow and the original American comics they were reprinting. These two comics were almost full of black and white reprints of Marvel material, with The Avengers, X-Men, Iron Man, Thor etc with a token UK story included as well.  Eventually, due to a lack of available material (remember, the oldest material was the Fantastic Four which launched in late 1961 and didn't even become monthly until after it's first year. At a weekly rate, Odhams weren't long in using up all available material) the comics all began to merge with each other until only Smash was left without any Marvel material at all.         |
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Post by MacNimon on Jun 23, 2011 19:39:12 GMT
While Fantasic was one of the later comics published in the "Power Comic" line up, it is probably the best remembered one. While the earlier comics in this 'Power Comics' line began with purely original British strips but introduced UK reprints of the USA Marvel comics into their pages over time, Fantastic (and it's sister title Terrific) contained mostly Marvel Comic reprints from the start. For most readers growing up in the 1960s these black & white reprints were their first introduction to Marvel super heroes. The one thing that everybody seems to remember from Fantastic (and Terrific) is the back page, which was normally a pin-up page; while it often used original US Marvel artwork some of them were originals, apparently by a young Barry Smith who later found fame as the original Conan artist for Marvel. The line-up of strips featured in Fantastic was Thor, Iron Man and the X-Men, with the token UK strip being The Missing Link (which became Johnnny Thunder with issue 16). This line-up continued until issue 51, as Terrific merged with Fantastic from issue 52. The new line-up was: Thor, X-Men, Avengers, and Dr Strange with appaerently no UK strip now in it's pages. Terrific's line-up of strips was Sub Mariner, Avengers, Dr Strange, and abbreviated origins of Iron Man, Thor, Giant-Man and Captain America in the first issue - replaced by The Living Dolls (U.K. strip) from issue 2. Terrific lasted for 43 issues before merging with Fantastic. Terrific will get a thread of it's own, but it began publication the same week as the 9th issue of Fantastic was published. So here we go with the covers for the four weeks issues dated from 15th April -6th May, 1967...     Here are the back page pin-ups from most, but not all, of these early issues of Fantastic...         |
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Post by MacNimon on Jun 23, 2011 19:54:21 GMT
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Post by MacNimon on Jun 28, 2011 6:20:14 GMT
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Post by MacNimon on Jun 30, 2011 6:19:54 GMT
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[/quote]
