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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
Alas, alack, we now come to the end of yet another slice of the 1970s, this time The COMPLETE FANTASTIC FOUR series of cover galleries which I trust you've been enjoying these last few months. I've always had a soft spot for the FF ever since I first read about them in SMASH! and then WHAM! (and then, eventually, Smash! again) way back in the '60s, so I was sad to see their own British weekly mag end after so short a period. 37 issues. It deserved more.
Anyway, time once again to remember those glorious, seemingly endless summer days of our youth, as we gaze upon familiar covers and images from yesteryear, when the biggest slice of our lives yet lay in the far-flung future, not in a distant land that is long behind us and to which we can never return - except, of course, in the alluring, sweet-scented, mystical, magical mists of memory.
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I've also included the cover and main splash pages of the FF Annual for 1979, which was likely prepared near the beginning of '78 while the weekly mag was still being published. (It would've gone on sale around August or September of the same year.) There were two subsequent Annuals for '80 & '81 by another publisher in a slightly different format, so whether they were intended as direct tie-ins to the now deceased weekly periodical or not is open to question.
Another sad goodbye after CB yesterday, sob - for me the biggest loss was the original Lee/Kirby FF stories which I'd never read before. And the bloody Invaders were carried over into MWOM - "God Save The King" ?? Excuse me a moment while I throw up. Also, Kid, 'Rampage' finished in the same week as The Complete FF so two-thirds of my weekly comics vanished in one fell swoop (I was getting Super Spider-Man as well). The cover of Complete FF #35 wasn't the same as the original U.S. FF cover though, I wonder why ? The final issues of Complete FF and Rampage went on sale on May 31st 1978 which was the day after I'd seen Star Wars - at least the demise of Rampage led to a new monthly version which was something to look forward to.
ReplyDeleteI used to have all the issues of Rampage weekly, but gave them away in the late '70s, early '80s - only kept the first 3 issues, CJ. (In fact, #s 2 & 3 might be replacements.) The cover of #35 looks as if it's been inked by Joe Sinnott, so maybe it was a rejected cover (for some reason) from the U.S. edition that they decided to use for the U.K. mag. British (and other) reprints often used U.S. covers as they were originally drawn, before changes had been made for the published American editions.
ReplyDeleteI was sorry to see it go but at least the FF finally came back home to MWOM. In fact it was quite a nice run that followed that merger until the dreadful Marvel Comic 330 reared its ugly head.
ReplyDeleteThat was the one saving grace, Chris - FF returning to MWOM. That's where they really belonged and I wish they were in the current incarnation of the mag. I've got mixed feelings about Marvel Comic - on the one hand, it reminded me of the Power Comics of my youth; on the other, the content was not the best and the mastheads, on the whole, were dreadful.
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