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| The 1st issue of Smash! (February 1966) |
It lasted a total of 257 issues - and there would've been more if not for a printing strike lasting several weeks in 1970. It outlived companion titles WHAM! (187 issues), POW! (86), FANTASTIC (89), and TERRIFIC (43), essentially becoming a "best of" repository for all of them - but only for around 6 months or thereabouts. Then it was out with the old and in with the new, and what would've been #163 became the first issue of the 'NEW' SMASH!, devoid of MARVEL reprints and more like traditional British boys comics like VALIANT and LION. (It was the 48th anniversary of that relaunch on the 8th of this month, unless I'm very much mistaken.)
SMASH! was a superb comic, and the one in which I was first introduced to the FANTASTIC FOUR. When ODHAMS PRESS initially presented the awesome origin of the FF, they did so in WHAM! and SMASH! simultaneously - curiously (and erroneously) claiming exclusivity for each title at the conclusion of the first episode of the four-part tale. Would you like to read the next instalment of the quartet's dynamic debut adventure? You could only do so in the next issue of WHAM! - according to WHAM!, that is. If, however, you were reading SMASH!, it was claiming sole publishing rights for the next part of the story. Was this an intentional two-pronged promotion of the FF to double their readership potential, or a sudden emergency measure necessitated by the non-arrival of a regular strip for SMASH!? I guess only ALF, BART and COS know for certain - I sure don't.
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| Art by Jack Kirby & Vince Colletta |
When I later discovered that REED, BEN, SUSAN and JOHNNY were regularly appearing in WHAM! ("The COMIC With The FANTASTIC FOUR!"), I started buying that title too in order to feed my romantic infatuation with The INVISIBLE GIRL, though I still continued to purchase SMASH! as well. Then POW! (after WHAM! was merged with it) and also FANTASTIC and TERRIFIC. It's somewhat ironic that SMASH!, having been the very first 'POWER' periodical I read - and the one in which I first discovered Marvel's most famous family - was also the last title standing, as well as the comic in which the FF made their home for the last few months of their Odhams Press existence.
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| The 1st revamped issue (March 1969) |
As mentioned, the title was relaunched - in March 1969 - in a completely different format, featuring some stories originally intended for a comic called BLACKJACK, which, for reasons unknown (to me anyway), was sadly never published. (CURSITOR DOOM, and - eventually - The PILLATER PERIL being but a couple of examples.) It lasted for 95 issues before being merged with VALIANT on 27th March, 1971 (issue dated 3rd April).
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| The Codemaster cards & envelope |
All things come to an end, alas - but SMASH! didn't quite die with the last issue of its regular weekly comic. Click here for the rest of the story.
