The New Fantastic Four The New Fantastic Four The New Fantastic Four (on-screen title: The Fantastic Four) is an animated series produced by DePatie–Freleng Enterprises and Marvel Comics Animation (both owned by Marvel Entertainment (via The Walt Disney Company)) in 1978. It is the second animated series based on Marvel's comic book series Fantastic Four. The 1978 series replaced the character of the Human Torch with a robot named H.E.R.B.I.E. (Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics), because the 1978 television rights to use that character were tied up by a proposed television pilot movie in development by Universal Studios (now a sister company to
Fantastic Four (comic book) new "Captain Britain Weekly" for its first issue in October 1976. After the demise of "Captain Britain Weekly" the FF went with Captain Britain into the merged "Super Spider-man and Captain Britain Weekly" in July 1977. A few months after the merger a new title "The Complete Fantastic Four" was launched in September 1977 starting with the story from the US Fantastic Four #133. Unusually "The Complete Fantastic Four" reprinted an entire issue of the US publication at a time when stories were always broken up into several installments. As a back up strip it started serializing the FF's adventures