Presenting the final part in this short series of posts featuring the covers of Fantastic, published by Odhams Press in the late 1960s. Four years later, The Mighty World Of Marvel would make its debut, and in the meantime, TV21 would carry the Marvel banner until it was merged with Valiant in 1971. TV21 took a low-key approach with the strips they reprinted (Spider-Man, The Silver Surfer, The Ringo Kid, The Ghost Rider and Homer, the Happy Ghost ), with none of them ever appearing on the cover, except for a mention in the text. You'd have thought their inclusion would be trumpeted from the rooftops, but it was almost as if the editors didn't know how to best exploit them. Spidey, Kid and the Surfer did feature on the cover of the 1972 annual however, so they at least got a brief moment in the spotlight.
The week after number 89 appeared, Fantastic was "incorporated" into Smash!, which was itself revamped and relaunched as a Marvel-free Valiant clone around five months later. Not to worry though... it may not have seemed like it at the end of 1968, but 1972 and MWOM were just around the proverbial corner.
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