Fantastic news! The Complete JOHNNY FUTURE is coming in 2020!

It's up for pre-order on Amazon now so I guess it's OK to finally reveal that next year Rebellion will be collecting the complete Missing Link / Johnny Future stories into one volume! The Complete Johnny Future is set for an April 2020 release. Britain's swinging Sixties superhero is back in print!

Written by Alf Wallace and drawn by Luis Bermejo, the strip ran in Fantastic weekly in 1967, - the only originated strip in a comic otherwise dominated by Marvel reprint.

Beginning as a Hulk-like creature, the character's strip was titled The Missing Link for the first few months until exposure to radiation evolved the primitive being into a highly advanced human. The strip then changed its title to Johnny Future, and the lead character embarked on a career as a costumed superhero, fighting bizarre villains.

If that all sounds a bit strange, it was, and the quirky, unpredictable nature of those strips published by Odhams is what made them appealing. The artwork by Luis Bermejo is stunning, and the strip became a firm favourite of those of us who read it back then (including Alan Moore). I know for a fact that the news of this collection will be warmly received by many, and I'm sure the book will delight new readers too.

Bear in mind that the cover shown here may be subject to change before publication. Amazon tend to want covers well in advance and changes often occur in the final design, so it might look a bit different by next April! 

You can pre-order the book from Amazon here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Complete-Johnny-Future-Missing-Link/dp/178108758X

I'll post more news about the book when Rebellion issue the official press release. For now, here's a few pages I scanned from my own Fantastic collection...

The Christmas FANTASTIC (1967)

When is a Christmas comic not a Christmas comic? When it's reprinting stories that aren't seasonal I guess, but Fantastic still made an effort in 1967. The cover strapline at least added a festive feel to the issue, but it's a pity they didn't add some snow to the logo. 

As most of you know, Fantastic was a weekly comic published by Odhams that reprinted Marvel strips from the early 1960s. This was where many of us discovered Thor, Iron Man, and X-Men for the first time. It only ran for 89 weeks, but it did the job of introducing British kids to the world of Marvel comics. (You'll find plenty of other posts about Fantastic elsewhere on this blog if you use the search facility to your right.)

This issue kicked off with an X-Men cover and lead strip. Odhams always deleted the credits on the strips, yet oddly they'd be happy to tell readers on the letters pages who did what. This is a reprint from X-Men No.25 by Roy Thomas and Werner Roth.

The letters page that issue had no mention of Christmas but I'm showing it here to display how chatty it was. Like Marvel, Odhams treated the readers as though they were friends...

The sole Christmas page in the issue was the editorial, wishing readers a Merry Christmas, and using art clipped from various strips in the Power Comics range.

Thor that issue reprinted the second half of Journey Into Mystery No.116, by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby, with this resumé page compiled of images from the previous issue.

Johnny Future was a strip originated for Fantastic, drawn by Luis Berjemo. This British superhero became a real fan favourite, and it's easy to see why going by the artwork. Here's the complete episode for that week...

Iron Man reprinted the story from Tales of Suspense No.72 by Stan Lee and Don Heck...

The back page nearly always featured a Power House Pin-Up and I'd cut out and pin these to my bedroom wall most weeks. I din't think I bothered with the rather lacklustre El Tigre though! Sometimes these pin-ups would reprint Marvel images, sometimes they'd be new, as in this case, with art by a young Barry Smith...

As this issue wasn't very Christmassy I'll bring you another festive comic soon! Watch this space!

The latest Marvel Legends - out now

Thor! Iron Man! Captain America! It's the UK comic that's the closest equivalent to Fantastic of the 1960s. Marvel Legends Vol. 3 #18. On sale now!

76 Action-Packed pages. £3.99!

Who will be in command of S.H.I.E.L.D. now Maria Hill is gone?!! Who is Captain America's latest ally?!! And who knows his secret?!!

Plus, Iron Man vs. Techno Golem and the Bio-Hack Ninjas! Round TWO!

Also, The Asgard/Shi'ar War reaches its conclusion! But there is no peace... only cosmic DEATH! Can Thor save the universe from the phoenix?!!

By Nick Spencer, Jesús Saiz, Brian Michael Bendis, Stefano Caselli, Jason Aaron and Russell Dauterman!

Includes material reprinted from Captain America: Steve Rogers #11-12, Invincible Iron Man #5, and Thor #18!

Superhero colouring goofs!

I've shown these before in older posts, but I thought it'd be good to repost the images under one topic. Plus it's a very quick way to provide a new post while I'm busy. 

These days, we're used to Panini UK having excellent reprints for their Marvel comics, as they use the same files as the original U.S. printing did. It wasn't like that back in the 1960s, when British companies were supplied with black and white prints they had to colour themselves. Presumably they used the actual American comics for reference... but sometimes they seem to have just guessed what the colours should be, and some pretty wild guesses at that. 

Above, the cover to Smash! No.17, dated 28th May 1966. Seems no one told Odhams that the Hulk had green skin, or that he wasn't wearing a yellow dress, and he certainly didn't wear nail varnish.

Next, Terrific No.20, dated August 26th 1967, with a bare-armed, and bare-legged Captain America! Thor with bare legs too. Enough to give kids nightmares for a week. 

Fantastic Annual 1969 actually has a great cover. It's just a pity they coloured Iron Man's faceplate silver instead of gold, but it stands out well as the centre of this painting so we'll forgive them for that.

Less forgivable is Fantastic Annual 1970, where Thor has a yellow costume and bare legs instead of the all-blue combo we were used to. I'm no prude, but what was Odhams' assumption that everyone had bare legs?

That same year, Pow! Annual 1970 gave us the Fantastic Four with red (instead of blue) outfits, and a grey (instead of orange) Thing...

The Fantastic Four fared badly in other books too, such as in The Fantastic Four Comic Album, with red/yellow outfits, a purple Thing, a blue Human Torch, and a multi-coloured Doctor Doom! But at least he didn't have bare legs.

The Fantastic Four Comic Annual of 1970 got the FF right, but poor Doctor Doom had another garish colour combo...

Finally in this selection (and I've no doubt there were more) DC comics didn't escape unscathed either. The British Super DC monthly (published from 1969 to 1970) carried this advert on its back page for all 14 issues. They almost got Superman's colouring right, but with all the Batman merchandise around, how could anyone get Batman's colour scheme so wrong? 

WHAM! No.1 (1964)

One comic that had eluded me until recently was Wham! No.1. I didn't have it when I was a child, and in later years I always lost out on the bidding for it on eBay... until a few weeks ago, when I won a copy for far less than it usually sells for these days. It's a little tatty at the spine, but it's clean and complete, so I thought I'd show a few pages from it here today.

You probably know how Wham! came about, but if not, here's a recap: in 1964, Odhams Press wanted to produce a rival comic D.C. Thomson's Beano. The editors convinced Leo Baxendale to quit The Beano to develop stories for their new comic, which Leo envisioned as a sort of "Super-Beano" (or Wham! as it became) poaching Thomson's top talent. However, most of Thomson's artists would not leave the security of long-established comics to work on the new rival publication. Although the end result wasn't quite the "Super-Beano" that Leo had hoped for, Wham! still turned out to be a fresh and funny addition to the growing number of weekly comics in the Sixties.

Incredibly, in the first issue of Wham!, Leo Baxendale drew 17 of its 24 pages himself. Four of which were in full colour. Naturally, no one could keep up that tremendous output every week, so following issues saw other artists join the comic to imitate Leo's style on many of the strips. Meanwhile, over at The Beano, other artists were also imitating Leo's style on the strips he'd left (such as Minnie the Minx and The Bash Street Kids). As the 1960s moved on, Leo became the most imitated humour artist in the business, and elements of his popular style are still evident in comics today. 

Back to that first issue of Wham!, published Monday 15th June 1964, here's the strip that greeted readers as the opened the comic; General Nitt and his Barmy Army...

The Wacks was one strip that was swiftly taken over by another artist (Gordon Hogg) but for issue 1, Leo drew it himself...

The Tiddlers was very much Wham's version of The Bash Street Kids, but the twist was that teacher (Super Sir) was as wild as the kids. Sadly, this idea was dropped later, with Super Sir replaced by a teacher in conflict with the pupils. 

The centre pages gave us the first episode of Eagle-Eye, Junior Spy, a spoof of the popular spy genre of the time. The most important part of the strip though was its introduction of the baddie, Grimly Feendish, who would eclipse Eagle-Eye in popularity and go on to have his own long-running strip in Smash! (as well as a song about him years later by The Damned).

Another strip of note was Georgie's Germs, a gross version of The Beezer's Numskulls, that saw dirty kid Georgie having to deal with various ailments every week. This was another strip that other artists took over, but Leo set it off to a great start. 

With issue 4, Ken Reid joined the comic, bringing us Frankie Stein (see here) and Wham! became more manic than ever. It may not have been the "Super-Beano" that Leo had hoped for, but Wham! still turned out to be a great comic, with a cheeky, anarchic attitude, and still very fondly remembered by many. It inspired Odhams to launch companion comics for it, and soon we had Smash!, Pow!, Fantastic and Terrific, collectively known as the "Power Comics" that helped make the Sixties a great time to be a child.

You can read about the first issues of those other comics here:

https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2016/01/50-year-flashback-smash-no1.html


https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/01/50-year-flashback-pow-no1.html


https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/fantastic-50th.html


https://lewstringer.blogspot.co.uk/2017/04/50-year-flashback-terrific-no1-1967.html

Fantastic Free Gifts! (1967/68)

As I showed you pages from the first issue of Fantastic the other day for the comic's 50th anniversary I thought you might like to see what free gifts were given away during its run. Back then, free gifts in comics were a rare treat, so there weren't that many over Fantastic's 89 issues but here's what we got...

As I showed a few days ago, Fantastic No.1 gave us a free pennant/wallet. An unusual but interesting gift. 

Inside the comic it explained what to do with it. I never had a bike, and we didn't have a car, so I used it as a pen case...

Images for the pennant were on the back cover for us to cut out...

...and on the back covers of the other 'Power Comics' that week. To see them all, visit this website (thanks to John Pitt for the link):
http://www.ebay.co.uk/gds/Power-Comics-Fantastic-Pow-Smash-Wham-Pennants-/10000000011703423/g.html

Fantastic No.2 gave us a set of stickers which were images of painted scars, plus an image of a 'cyclops eye'. My set are long gone, but you can see what they looked like from the cover...

Strange as it may seem today, confectionery wasn't used as a free gift that often in the sixties. However, in Fantastic No.3 we had a free flat piece of bubble gum. Again, long gone, but you can see what the wrapper looked like from the cover image. I doubt it survived five minutes after I bought this issue. Yum! For me, that was the taste of the sixties!

The next free gift wasn't until the first merged issue of Fantastic and Terrific in 1968, where we were presented with a free cardboard gun, flat card pellets, and targets....

The week after gave us this interesting Apollo Moon Capsule. Again, just made of paper, but when assembled it showed us the details of the capsule in different layers. My thanks to Rob Hansen for sending me the image with the text on it. The rest of the images are of my gift. (You can see Rob's own blog here: 

www.fiawol.org.uk/FanStuff).

Finally, in Fantastic No.54 we had a free metal badge! This was my favourite I think. (Badges were great when you were 8.) It came with four superhero stickers you could interchange by sticking them over the badge. To be honest, they tended to rip after one use. Stickers are long gone, but I still have the badge. 

It's just occurred to me how often Odhams used turquoise as a colour on those Fantastic gifts. Strange. Ah well. Simple gifts, but they meant the world to us back then! Yes, we thought they were Fantastic!

FANTASTIC 50th!

Fifty years ago, on Saturday 11th February 1967, Odhams launched Fantastic comic, a new weekly that is still fondly remembered to this day. Odhams had been presenting reprints of Marvel strips in their other comics for several months by this time; The Incredible Hulk in Smash!, The Fantastic Four in Wham!, Spider-Man and Nick Fury in Pow!, but those reprints were sharing space with traditional British humour and adventure content. With Fantastic, the content was 90% Marvel reprint, (later 100%), making the comic unlike any other weekly on the stands in 1967.  

We're talking about classic Marvel material too, with strips by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Don Heck and more from the dawn of what Stan coined as "The Marvel Age of Comics". (Not that Odhams called it that. They changed references of Marvel to Power, to suit their Power Comics imprint.) Although it reprinted the strips in black and white, and usually cut into two or three parts, the reproduction of the strips had never been so crisp and clear. 

For many readers, Fantastic was a great introduction to the Marvel Universe and we became hooked on the comic. It was exciting and dynamic, making traditional British comics such as Victor look terribly dull in comparison. An advert in the Daily Mirror proclaimed Fantastic as "The new comic book that's so different!" and for many of us, that was part of its appeal. It had 40 pages, so was thicker than most other comics of the period, although that necessitated a 9d cover price meaning it was also one of the most expensive comics in 1967 too. (Most comics were 7d, Dandy and Beano were still only 3d.)

Sadly, perhaps the majority of British kids had more conservative tastes, or 9d was too expensive, for Fantastic only lasted for 89 weeks. Clearly it was ahead of its time (as were its loyal readers) because that similar template of packaging three Marvel stories into a 40 page comic was used with more success in 1972 with Marvel UK's The Mighty World of Marvel, and is still pretty much the format still used today in the popular 76 page Marvel Collector's Editions published by Panini UK.

The back-up strip in Fantastic was brand new; The Missing Link, superbly illustrated by Luis Bermejo. The Link would later evolve into UK superhero Johnny Future but here's the first episode when he was still a lumbering brute...

The free gift in Fantastic No.1 was suitably different too; a soft plastic pennant that could be used for various purposes. (I used mine as a pen holder for a while, and, yes, I still have it.) Artwork to insert into the pennant was on the back page of Fantastic and different characters were on the back pages of Wham!, Smash! and Pow! that week as well.

From a personal viewpoint, I have fond memories of Fantastic. It was a bit expensive, and my parents were already buying me several comics a week, so my Aunt Joan used to buy me Fantastic (and its soon-to-follow companion comic Terrific). I remember her bringing them for me every Saturday afternoon when she'd finished her shift at the bakehouse. (I'd save Terrific to read on a Sunday.) Happy times, long gone, but comics can be great artefacts for stirring up memories. 

I know some feel that 50 years ago was just like yesterday, but I must admit it really does feel like a very long time ago to me, when one considers the numerous things that happen in one's life over such a period. They were good days though, and Fantastic made the swingin' sixties swing even more. 

Here's how Fantastic was advertised in the Daily Mirror on Friday 10th February 1967. (Yes, I've kept this clipping for 50 years!)

...and how it was heralded in Pow! a week earlier (Pow! No.4, on sale 4th Feb 1967)...

As they told us, there's no doubt about it. It certainly was Fantastic!