"LET THERE BE BATTLE!" FAVOURITE COMICS OF THE PAST - PART TWENTY-SIX...

Copyright MARVEL COMICS

Okay, I admit it - I'm cheating a little with this one.  You see, dear readers, I never actually had this particular comic when I was a lad.  No indeed, but I did read the titanic tale when it was serialised in three (I think) issues of the British '60s title, FANTASTIC.  It was reprinted in black and white, but that hardly mattered, so powerful were marvellous MARIE SEVERIN's dynamically composed layouts and storytelling.

Sometime in the early '70s, I re-acquired a few back issues for a short time, and then the tale was reprinted in The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL.  I couldn't even guess when I obtained the original issue (TALES TO ASTONISH #100) - was it the late 1980s or the early or mid-'90s?  I can't be absolutely sure after all this time.  (Maybe I have an invoice lying around somewhere that will supply the date, but I can't even recall if I bought it in a shop or via mail order.)

Not that it matters I suppose, because the story shrieks the '60s at me regardless of which version I'm looking at.  I'd taken some Fantastics into primary school one day, and therefore associate the tale mainly with the classroom wherein I pored o'er the pulsating pages in awestruck wonder during a break in lessons.  However, I thought it was only right and proper to show the original TTA version, so that you could see how it was first presented to a breathlessly waiting world. 

COMING NEXT:  Part Four of 'Pot Luck' Marvel Cover Gallery!