The Grooviest Covers of All Time: Mike Grell Made Me Buy These!

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! Starting in 1974, Mike Grell hit Young Groove's radar and sped up into my super-star stratosphere with the speed of light! While he's best known (and justly so!) for his work on Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Green Lantern/Green Arrow, and Warlord, Iron Mike plied his pencils to a plethora of DC back-up features and even a few issues of Batman! His covers, rare on mags other than Superboy, GL/GA, and Warlord, were coin magnets, yanking quarters outta my pockets with astonishing ease. Here are a few all-time faves...

Groove's Faves: "The Day After the Martians Came!" by Pohl, Conway, and Reese

How 'bout another sci-fi shocker, Groove-ophiles? This is a goodie, "The Day After the Martians Came!" adapted by Gerry Conway and Ralph Reese from Frederick Pohl's immortal short story. This classic first appeared in Marvel's World's Unknown #1 (February 1973). Can you dig it?

Black and White Wednesday: "There Will Be Time" by John Byrne

Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Today we're diggin' on what would (could? should?) have been Doomsday +1 #7, but instead originally appeared in black and white (split into two parts, yet!) in Charlton Bullseye issues 4 and 5 waaaaaaaay back in 1976! It's cool to see where John Byrne would have taken Kuno and company had the series continued.  It's all-Byrne* sci-fi in living black and white, baby! Dig it!!

 *Okay, all-Byrne except that splash by Joe Brozowski and Terry Austin. But, hey, since you played so nicely, here's Neal Adams' Byrne-inspired rendition of the Doomsday +1 characters from the back cover of Charlton Bullseye #5!

Who loves ya, baby?

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!