Hit Comics #14

History

Hit Comics was the flagship anthology series of Bildschriftenverlag (BSV), a West German publisher based in Aachen that had become affiliated with DC/National by 1966 and was simultaneously licensing and reprinting Marvel Silver Age material in German translation. The series ran from 1966 to 1973 across 153 issues and served as the primary vehicle through which West German readers encountered the core Marvel Universe — Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four, Captain America, and the Inhumans — translated by an in-house editorial team that included Lutz Reinecke, Reiner Taubert, and Herbert Feuerstein, among others. Issue #14 falls squarely in the series' early run, reprinting material originally published by Marvel in late 1965 through 1966, when Kirby and Lee's world-building was at its most fertile.

Trivia · 8 facts

• Hit Comics #14 is a 1967 West German reprint anthology published by Bildschriftenverlag (BSV), which operated under the broader BSV – Williams imprint from Aachen.
• The issue reprints Fantastic Four material originally written by Stan Lee and drawn by Jack Kirby, covering the landmark story arc that introduced the Inhuman Royal Family to the Marvel Universe.
• Fantastic Four #45 (December 1965) — the source issue for the Inhumans' first full appearance — was created by Stan Lee (script) and Jack Kirby (pencils), with Joe Sinnott on inks.
• The Inhumans debuted in that arc with Black Bolt (Blackagar Boltagon), Crystal (Crystalia Amaquelin), Karnak, Triton, and Lockjaw all appearing for the first time in Fantastic Four #45, while Gorgon had appeared one issue earlier in FF #44.
• Medusa had first appeared in Fantastic Four #36 as a villain of the Frightful Four; the Inhumans arc retroactively established her as royalty and Crystal's sister, which is reflected in the characters indexed for this issue.
• The full cast indexed — including Black Panther (T'Challa), Nick Fury, and Wyatt Wingfoot alongside the Fantastic Four — mirrors the extraordinary density of new character introductions Marvel was producing in 1965–1967, all of which BSV brought to German readers in near-sequential order.
• German localized character names used in the BSV series include Das Ding (The Thing), Die Fackel (Human Torch), Die Unsichtbare (Invisible Girl), and Der Schwarze Panther (Black Panther), making this a bilingual artifact of Marvel's Silver Age expansion into European markets.
• The BSV Hit Comics series ran from 1966 to 1973 (issues #1–153) and was the primary channel through which West German readers first experienced the Marvel Silver Age; the publisher was later renamed Williams Verlag after Warner's acquisition of DC in 1972.

Cast · 23 characters

Full credits

Full plot ⚠ may contain spoilers