The Galactus Trilogy and "Marvel Masterworks: Fantastic Four, Volume 5" (). The Galactus Trilogy "The Galactus Trilogy" is a 1966 three-issue comic book story arc that appeared in "Fantastic Four" #48 - #50. Written, plotted and drawn by Jack Kirby and Stan Lee for Marvel Comics, it introduced the characters Galactus and the Silver Surfer. In 2018, "The Atlantic" called it "the indisputable pinnacle of the so-called Silver Age of comic books". In 1966, nearly five years after launching Marvel Comics' flagship superhero title, "Fantastic Four", Lee and Kirby collaborated on an antagonist designed to break from the era's archetypal mold of supervillains,
Marvel Comics was able to capitalize on its successful superhero comics of the previous decade by acquiring a new newsstand distributor and greatly expanding its comics line. Marvel pulled ahead of rival DC Comics in 1972, during a time when the price and format of the standard newsstand comic were in flux. Goodman increased the price and size of Marvel's November 1971 cover-dated comics from 15 cents for 36 pages total to 25 cents for 52 pages. DC followed suit, but Marvel the following month dropped its comics to 20 cents for 36 pages, offering a lower-priced product with a higher distributor