Groove's Faves: "Ant-Man No More!" by Friedrich and Russell

Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Today we're wrapping up Mike Friedrich's nearly-forgotten Ant-Man series from Marvel Feature. As a kid, this was one of my fave series, and I have to say, despite the silly villain, I dig this finale from Marvel Feature #10 (April 1973). My reasons? 1) P. Craig Russell is coming into his own as an artist. Frank Chiarmonte's usually heavy inks don't hide Russell's rapidly-growing style. 2) A super-villain who lives in a trailer. (As I've said before, Friedrich was great at giving us weird/ironic twists a la Steve Gerber before Gerber started in that direction, himself!) 3) An Avengers cameo! 4) And that final page, in which Friedrich and Russell totally and charmingly capture Hank and Jan's relationship--plus the reveal of how/why Hank was narrating this whole series in such a, as Jan puts it, "poetic" way. Check it out, baby...

Cover art by P. Craig Russell and Dan Adkins w/Frank Giacoia

Groove's Faves: "...The Killer Is My Wife!" by Friedrich and Russell

Greetings, Groove-ophiles! It's time for more Ant-Man and the Wasp from their time-lost series in the first volume of Marvel Feature! Today's classic, "...The Killer Is My Wife!", from Marvel Feature #9 (February 1973) was written by Mike Friedrich, penciled by a very young P. Craig Russell, and inked by Gold Key mainstay and cartoonist (Apartment 3-G) Frank Bolle. Look out for cameos by Iron Man and Bill (Black Goliath) Foster!

Secret Origins: The Wondrous Wasp by Lee, Hart, Kirby, and Heck (With Friedrich, Russell, Starlin, and Janes)

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! When Young Groove saw the far-out Jim Starlin/Mike Esposito cover of Marvel Feature #8 (December 1972), I knew something was up. Ant-Man and Wasp were in their original outfits. Did I smell a reprint coming...? You bet your sweet bippy! The Dread Deadline Doom smacked Ant-Man's regular creative team upside the head, which led to a partial reprinting of Stan Lee/Ernie Hart/Jack Kirby/Don Heck's origin of the Wasp from Tales to Astonish #44's "Creature from the Kosmos". Now  I never was one to get all uptight when the DDD left Marvel to run such reprints, 'cause I'd never seen 'em before, so they were new to me, dig? And I figured with all the Ant-Man movie news coming out now, plus the announcement that Evangeline Lily will play a role in it has your appetite whetted for some Ant-Man/Wasp history. The news makes Ol' Groove hope the lovely lass from Lost plays the Wondrous Wasp!

Now, there's lots of dispute over the credits for "Creature..."; on the splash of MF #8 they credited Lee and Kirby; Grand Comics Database credits Hart and Heck. In Superhero Women, Stan himself lays it down like this: he plotted it, editorial assistant H.E. Huntley (aka Ernie Hart or Ernest Huntley Hart) scripted it, Jack Kirby laid it out, and Don Heck finished/inked it. Sounds good to me! The credits for the 70s framing sequence are a bit easier: Mike Friedrich wrote it, P. Craig Russell penciled the first two pages, Jim Starlin penciled the "new" half of page three and all of the final page, and Jimmy Janes inked 'em up right purty. Whew! Enough yang, yang, here come the origin of the Wasp!