Possibly the first US Fantastic Four comic I ever bought was FF #212. Originally published in 1979, I probably didn't lay my sweaty little hands on it till a year or so later when I found it in a spinner rack in a newsagents in Filey. One of the highlights of my childhood seaside holidays was searching for old comics in paper shops, book shops and junk shops up and down the east coast of Yorkshire; I can still remember how exciting it was to find gems like the one pictured above. I was already familiar with the FF from their cartoon show and British Marvel weeklies, but the US comics looked so much cooler - full colour for a start, and packed with exciting ads for Hostess Twinkies, X-Ray specs and other exotic novelties I could only dream of.

This issue lies towards the end of a massive eleven-issue epic written by Marv Wolfman, and drawn by Keith Pollard, Sal Buscema, and by the time I joined in, John Byrne. A year or so later I'd start collecting the US FF comics every month, early into Byrne's acclaimed run as both writer and artist (#241 was my first "hot off the stands" issue - though back then, "hot off the stands" meant three months later than the comic had been sold in the States). When talking about Byrne's FF, many forget that he was a regular artist on the book for almost a year before he also started writing it. It's obvious now that he learned the ropes from working with Wolfman.

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