Eclipso #62
Eclipso #62 represents a key node in the long history of Marvel's Bronze Age material reaching French readers through Arédit/Artima's pioneering Comics Pocket digest format — one of the earliest and most sustained pipelines of American superhero comics into France. The issue's character roster, which spans the Fantastic Four, Man-Thing (Ted Sallis), and Black Goliath (Bill Foster), bundles together some of Marvel's most culturally significant mid-1970s creations in a single French-language package. Black Goliath in particular was among the handful of prominent Black superheroes Marvel was actively developing during that era, and his appearance here marks one of the earliest times French readers would have encountered him in print. As a black-and-white, reframed digest reprint, the issue also illustrates how Arédit/Artima routinely adapted American page layouts for the smaller European pocket format, a production practice that shaped how a generation of French readers experienced Marvel's universe.
In "Sinistre Viking," the aftermath of Black Goliath’s victory over Briseur d'Atomes takes a dark turn when the villain is murdered by unseen forces. As Vulcan and his men break into the Stark laboratory, stealing a dangerous experimental device, chaos erupts—leaving Foster’s employees injured and a police officer dead in their wake. Written by Chris Claremont and illustrated by George Tuska with inks by Vince Colletta, this 1978 issue delivers a tense, high-stakes thriller. The cover, by Manuel Breá, captures the menace with striking detail.
In "Danse macabre," the aftermath of Black Goliath’s victory over Briseur d'Atomes takes a dark turn when the villain is murdered by unseen forces. With tensions rising, Vulcain and his men break into Stark’s lab, stealing a dangerous experimental device and leaving behind a trail of violence that claims a police officer’s life and wounds Foster’s staff.
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The Eclipso series launched in April 1968, making it one of Arédit/Artima's first titles devoted entirely to American comics reprints. Arédit itself emerged from the 1962 acquisition of the struggling Artima publisher by Presses de la Cité, which continued operating under both imprint names through 1987. The Comics Pocket line reprinted Marvel material in black-and-white digest format (approximately 5" × 7", 164 pages), with stories reframed to fit the smaller page size — a consistent house practice across the series. Issue #62, published in the first quarter of 1978 and cover-titled 'Sinistre viking,' falls in the middle of the series' mature run, well after the format was established but before the line wound down in the early 1980s.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Published in the 1st quarter of 1978 by Arédit/Artima (France) as issue #62 of the long-running Comics Pocket digest series Eclipso, cover-titled 'Sinistre viking.'
- The Eclipso series ran from April 1968 through the early 1980s and was one of Arédit/Artima's first publications entirely devoted to reprinting American superhero comics.
- Like all issues in the series, #62 reprints its source stories in black and white, with panels reframed to fit the smaller European digest format (approximately 5" × 7", 164 pages).
- The issue features Bill Foster (Black Goliath), one of Marvel's early prominent Black superheroes, created by Stan Lee and Don Heck in 1966 and given his costumed identity by writer Tony Isabella in Power Man #24 (July 1975) — making this among the earliest French-language appearances of the character.
- Ted Sallis (Man-Thing) appears in the issue; Sallis is the scientist whose failed attempt to recreate the Super-Soldier Serum transformed him into the Man-Thing, a key figure in Marvel's 1970s horror-inflected comics.
- The Fantastic Four (Reed Richards/Mister Fantastic, Ben Grimm/The Thing, Johnny Storm/Human Torch) are also featured, continuing the Eclipso series' longstanding practice of mixing Marvel's monster/horror characters with its superhero teams.
- Tony Stark (Iron Man) appears in connection with Bill Foster's backstory — Foster worked as a biochemist in the Plans and Research Division of a Stark Industries factory before becoming a superhero.
- Arédit/Artima labeled its Comics Pocket covers as 'bandes dessinées pour adultes' (comics for adults) to navigate the requirements of the French press oversight commission, a distinctive publishing context that separated this line from mainstream youth comics like Tintin or Spirou.
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Reprints
↩ Reprints Giant-Size Man-Thing #2 (1974), Man-Thing #16 (1975), Black Goliath #3 (1976), Marvel Premiere #32 (1976), Pánico #20
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