Marvel’s Fantastic Four return to UK comics next month, with a new comic from Panini hitting newsagents from Thursday 3rd July, just a few weeks ahead of the release of their latest movie on 25th July – the super family’s first outing through Marvel Studios.
Priced at £3.50, the new, 48-page Fantastic Four four-weekly comic slots neatly into the empty week in Panini’s US-sized comics schedule, sitting in-between Deadpool & Wolverine and Amazing Spider-Man.
Commencing with material taken from Marvel’s Fantastic Four #4 and #5, first published by Marvel in 2022, written by Ryan North, with art by Iban Coello, and a cover by Steve McNiven, this new comic is the team’s latest appearance on the British newsstand titles since they made their debut in the weekly title, Wham!, back in the 1960s.
Here’s the full intel from Panini…
It all began with Marvel’s ‘First Family’ in 1961. Famously, It all began with Marvel’s ‘First Family’ in 1961. Famously, Reed Richards, Sue Storm, her brother, her brother Johnny Johnny Storm and Reed’s best friend Ben Grimm, made the fateful experimental journey into space that resulted with them bombarded by Cosmic Rays and transformed into The Fantastic Four – kickstarting the Marvel Universe!
Now, comic fans can thrill to the adventures of the FF, as they battle their arch-nemesis Doctor Doom and a host of other villains, in an all-new 48-page action-packed comic, out everyfour weeks!
With the highly anticipated new Marvel Studios’ movie With the highly anticipated new Marvel Studios’ movie Fantastic Four: First Steps out in cinemas out in cinemas 25th July 25th July 2025, it has never been a greater time to be a Marvel fan., it has never been a greater time to be a Marvel fan…
• Fantastic Four #1 is on sale in all good newsagents from Panini from Thursday 3rd July 2025 | Check out Panini UK’s Marvel titles here on their official web shop
• Fantastic Four #1 is on sale in all good newsagents from Panini from Thursday 3rd July 2025 | Check out Panini UK’s Marvel titles here on their official web shop
Looking Back: The Fantastic Four in Britain
For those unfamiliar (surely not – Ed), The Fantastic Four – Reed Richards aka Mr. Fantastic, his fiancee Sue Storm aka The Invisible Girl, her brother Johnny Storm, the Human Torch and Ben Grimm aka the Thing – were the first characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby flor Marvel Comics in 1961. These four adventurers gained super powers after being exposed to cosmic rays, while attempting an unauthorised space flight, and have gone on to have many incredible adventures to this day.
Fantastic Four #1 was reprinted in one of the Alan Class UK comics, Creepy Worlds No. 32 – today considered one of the most collectable British comics of the 1960s, with a copy changing hands in an Anderson & Garland auction for £600 in 2023.
In terms of regular publication, the Fantastic Four were first introduced to British comics readers in the Odhams weekly title, Wham! with the issue cover dated 6th August 1966 (on sale a few days earlier), a black and white reprint of their first adventures, serialised over several issues. As archivist Lew Stringer notes here, the original US pages were redesigned to fit approximately two American pages onto one British page, due to the larger UK format. The Marvel reprints survived Odhams merger with IPC until March 1969.
The super team also appeared in various annuals published by World Distributors, starting with the Marvel Story Book Annual in 1967, before going on to enjoy a strong presence in Marvel’s British titles right from the beginning, in Issue 1 of The Mighty World of Marvel, published in 1972.
The characters had a long run within MWOM, and later within the pages of Super Spider-Man and Captain Britain, before eventually returning to The Spectacular Spider-Man Weekly a few years later, and not long afterwards as one of the regular features in the short-lived Marvel Team-Up weekly.
In the meantime, Marvel’s first family gained their own title in the autumn of 1977 with The Complete Fantastic Four, before 1978’s The Marvel Revolution led to the March 1980 release of the monthly The Fantastic Four Pocket Book. Following the weekly Fantastic Four in 1982 – like that previous Pocket Book, another comic re-running material previously seen in the UK – the team then later guested occasionally in other comics such as Secret Wars (later, Secret Wars II) and Spider-Man.
Lew Stringer also notes the FF featured in the very short-lived Marvel Action Hour – an attempt by Marvel UK to utilise American reprints in a British comic format, the first slim 24 page fortnightly, printed on matt paper with a cover date of 9th October 1996, priced 75p. The free gift was a chew bar. The title featured Fantastic Four stories from the late 1970s and Iron Man strips from the 1980s.
The Fantastic Four would not receive their own title again until 2005, when Panini first launched an Ultimate Fantastic Four comic, cut short when it was realised it would catch up with the parent American series in a matter of months. This was followed two months later by the first of two volumes of Fantastic Four Adventures during the lifespan of their first two film outings – the second commencing in 2010 – running for 60 and 28 issues respectively, their last, until now…
With thanks to Marvel UK archivist Rob Kirby, author of From Cents to Pence, a history of Marvel UK, still in progress – check out his blog at a-distant-beacon.blogspot.com; Lew Stringer, and Brady Webb
Head downthetubes for…
• Rob Kirby’s “A Distant Beacon”
• Blimey: The Road to Marvel UK – Part 1
• Blimey: The Road to Marvel UK – Part 2
• Blimey: The Road to Marvel UK – Part 3
• Blimey: 40 Year Flashback: Mighty World of Marvel No.1 and 45 Year Flashback: Mighty World of Marvel No.1 (1972)
• Blimey: Summer 1968: SMASH! POW! It’s FANTASTIC SUMMER SPECIAL
• Blimey: Marvel Action Hour
• Starlogged – The Fantastic Four at Marvel UK
• Fantastic Four #1 is on sale in all good newsagents from Panini from Thursday 3rd July 2025 | Check out Panini UK’s Marvel titles here on their official web shop
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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