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| Images copyright MARVEL COMICS |
If you're not buying the TRUE BELIEVERS FANTASTIC FOUR series of comics then you're missing out on some great classics. Sure, like me, you may already have the stories in various reprint collections, but there's just something about having them in their own individual issues which is hard to beat. Take the ish above, for example. I first read this tale in MARVEL COLLECTORS' ITEM CLASSICS #1 back around 1967 or thereabouts (and again in The MIGHTY WORLD Of MARVEL #s 3 & 4 in 1972), but having the latest TB reprint is almost like having the original FF #2. You're not going to come any closer than this to it - unless you already own it or win the Lottery.
Next up is FF #8, which I first read when it was spread across a couple of issues of WHAM! back in the '60s. Like the SKRULLS tale, I read it again in an issue of MCIC and MWOM, and I still recall reading its ODHAMS PRESS presentation in my grandparents' ground floor flat one Sunday afternoon on one of my family's weekly visits. To have it again in its very own individual comic is brilliant. No more sitting with a heavy Omnibus volume on my thighs when I'm in the smallest room in the house, perched on the porcelain. (Well, you gotta have something to read while you're in there, haven't you?)
And then comes FF #15, which I again remember reading in Wham!, this time during some 'free time' in my primary school classroom. (Or it may have been during an interval when it was pouring down with rain outside and too wet to let us out into the playground.) Seeing the story again in this superb re-presentation is almost like being a kid again in the '60s. There are more STAN LEE and JACK KIRBY Fantastic Four classics coming soon, so keep an eye out for them to add to your collection. I hope they reprint #7 ("PRISONERS Of KURRGO, MASTER Of PLANET X!") before too long, as it's one of my favourites.
So what are you waiting for? Rush straight round to your local comicbook store today. Each issue is only around a pound, though it'll cost you more if you order them through eBay. Either way, they're worth it!
I discovered Marvel comics in November 1974 so I missed the first two years of Marvel UK but I got the chance to read all these FF stories in The Complete Fantastic Four in 1977/78 :)
ReplyDeleteAnd that's where I got the chance to re-read them yet again, CJ. Still got the issues I bought back then.
ReplyDeleteNice one, Kid - wasn't aware of these, so just placed an order. Excelsior!
ReplyDeleteGlad to be of assistance, PG. Go on to eBay and search for True Believers Fantastic Four - there's loads of them. And if you haven't got the FF #1 Facsimile Edition, grab one while you can.
ReplyDeleteMy introduction to the Fantastic Four was in a very early Wham or Smash. Memories not as good as it used to be.. The story with the guy and his apes.I have mentioned him before...Quite honestly I would rate the Fantastic Four as my favourite Marvel Heroes.
ReplyDeleteIvan Kragoff, the Red Ghost. Or, as he was renamed in Wham!, the Apemaster, then the Mad Ghost in MWOM. I think the Apemaster was a better name, but that's probably nostalgia talking. The FF were my favourite Marvel heroes, LH, but that may've been because I fancied Susan Storm. Thor and Iron Man would be my next choices, particularly the early tales.
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