Fantastic (comics)

Fantastic was a weekly British comic book magazine published by Odhams Press under the Power Comics imprint. It first appeared on 18 February 1967, and with its 52nd issue on 10 February 1968 it merged with its sister title Terrific. The 89th and final issue of Fantastic appeared on 7 September 1968, after which it was merged into Smash!.

Fantastic was different from the earlier Power Comics such as Smash! and Pow!, which were essentially traditional Beano-style British comic papers supplemented by a small amount of material reprinted from Marvel Comics. In contrast, Fantastic (and later Terrific as well) were more American in appearance, resembling the black-and-white comic anthologies of the time such as Creepy and Eerie. However, they were aimed at a younger audience than such magazines (although an older audience than the Beano-style British fare).

Following the successes of Wham! (1964) and Smash! (1966) Odhams were keen to expand their line of weekly Power Comics in 1967. In January they launched Pow! with 'Spider-Man' as the lead strip, and a month later saw the arrival of a comic that consisted almost entirely of Marvel reprints: Fantastic.

Fantastic No.1, which launched on Saturday February 11, 1967, came with a pennant flag with interchangeable inserts of various superheroes. This the first of several free gifts given away with each issue, as was traditional on the launch of a new comic. Fantastic had a different format to its three predecessors, being slightly smaller in size and on better paper, it featured 40 pages and a higher cover price (9d, compared to Smash's 7d for 28 pages). This made it three times more expensive than the 3d cover price of D C Thomson's perennials Beano and Dandy. It could not sustain a profit in the increasingly crowded market of 1960s comics, but it did gain a faithful following, and served as an introduction to many of Marvel's superhero characters.

...
Wikipedia