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The first ongoing series of Marvel Super Heroes began with the title Fantasy Masterpieces, initially a standard-sized, 12-cent anthology reprinting "pre-superhero Marvel" monster and sci-fi/fantasy stories. With issue #3 (June 1966), the title was expanded to a 25-cent giant reprinting with a mix of those stories and Golden Age superhero stories from Marvel's 1940s iteration as Timely Comics. Fantasy Masterpieces ran for 11 issues (Feb. 1966 - Oct. 1967) before being renamed Marvel Super-Heroes with #12 (Dec. 1967).
While continuing with the same mix of reprint material, this first volume of Marvel Super-Heroes also began showcasing a try-out feature as each issue's lead. This encompassed solo stories of such supporting characters as Medusa of the Inhumans, as well as the debuts of Captain Marvel (#12), the first appearance of Carol Danvers, later Ms. Marvel (#13), the Phantom Eagle (#16) and the Guardians of the Galaxy (#18). The Spider-Man story drawn by Ross Andru in issue #14 was originally planned as a fill-in issue of The Amazing Spider-Man but was used here when that title's regular artist, John Romita, Sr. recovered more quickly than anticipated from a wrist injury. Andru would become the regular artist on The Amazing Spider-Man several years later.
Under either name, this series' Golden Age reprints represented the newly emerging comic-book fandom's first exposure to some of the earliest work of such important creators as Jack Kirby, Bill Everett, and Carl Burgos, and to such long-unseen and unfamiliar characters as the Whizzer and the Destroyer. Fantasy Masterpieces #10 (Aug. 1967) reprinted the entirety of the full-length All-Winners Squad story from the (unhyphenated) All Winners Comics #19 (Fall 1946). Fantasy Masterpieces #11 (Oct. 1967) re-introduced the work of the late artist Joe Maneely, a star of 1950s comics who died young in a train accident.
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