Bring On the Back-ups Two-fer: "Perilous Plan of the Plant Master!" and "Fury of the Floronic Man!" by O'Neil, Dillin, and Austin

 Check it out, Groove-ophiles! While Iron Mike Grell was preparing the pencils and inks for Green Lantern's return to his own mag with ish #90 in late 1976, JLA artist supreme Dick Dillin stepped in to pencil GL's last couple of back-ups stories in The Flash. What's really cool (besides the iconic changes in Plant Master/Floronic Man) is that the old master was inked by a young buck shooting on his way to super-stardom--inker Terry Austin! A fun story by Denny O'Neil, cool art--yeah, this should help you get through your Tuesday, baby! Here are "Perilous Plan of the Plant Master!" and "Fury of the Floronic Man!" from The Flash issues 245-246 (August-October 1976)!

MOKF Monday: "The Crystal Connection" by Moench and Gulacy

HiiiiiiiYA, Groove-ophiles! You've been hankering for more MOKF Mondays, haven't ya? Well, your patience is about to be greatly rewarded! We're heading back to MOKF #29 (March 1975) and "The Crystal Connection"! Doug Moench and Paul Gulacy were firmly buckled in to MOKF's driver's seat with this ish, and man, oh, man, did they ever stomp full-on the throttle! Not only did we get the return of Dr. Petrie, but we got the intros of Clive Reston (son of James Bond, great-nephew of Sherlock Holmes, don'tcha know) and major villains Carlton Velcro and Razorfist! Ooooo-EEE! Dig it, baby!!

Diversions of the Groovy Kind/Bronze Age Babies Team-Up! The Grooviest Covers of All Time: "Pleased As Punch to See You!" or "Marvel Heroes Hit It Off!"

A couple weeks ago, my pal Doug at Bronze Age Babies posted about super-heroes guest-starring on the covers of other super-heroes' mags. His readers (Ol' Groove included, natch) enthusiastically responded with tons (really, tons) of cool cover ideas. Yers trooly owned up to the fact that I was gonna steal some of those ideas, but Doug, genius and honest fellow that he is, suggested that we do a DotGK/BAB cross-over featuring many of the covers that had been suggested. So when you head over to BAB today (if you haven't already), you're gonna see lots of cool DC guest-star covers--cause Doug let Ol' Groove pick and I chose to showcase Marvel "team-up" covers (but not Marvel Team-Up or Marvel Two-In-One) here on the Diversions.

Of course, we're not gonna sling just any old covers at ya. For my part, we're gonna look at how Marvel heroes, when visiting other heroes' mags, usually greeted one another--with a slug in the kisser! Yeah, they'd wind up making up and teaming up, but those cover-tussles sure forced a lotta Groovy Age kids to fork over dimes, nickels, quarters, and pennies! Here are a few of the very best by some of the very best featuring the very best!

Thursday Team-up: "The Taking of Counter-Earth!" by Gruenwald, Bingham, and Day

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! Last Thursday you thrilled to The Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing teaming with Starhawk as they got caught up in the mystery of Her! Today we're digging on part two, which adds Moondragon and even The High Evolutionary to the mix! Toss in flashbacks featuring Adam Warlock and a glimpse of Thanos, and you'll understand why we heaped such praise 'pon author Mark Gruenwald and artists Jerry Bingham and Gene Day back in January 1980, when this ish of Marvel Two-In-One (#62 to be exact) first appeared! It's a mix of Marvel continuity and Marvel cosmic, baby!

Cover art by George Perez and Joe Sinnott

Oh, and if ya dig team-ups and cross-overs, wait'll tomorrow, baby! Ol' Groove is doing a special team-up/cross-over post with my pals Doug and Karen at Bronze Age Babies featuring the grooviest team-up covers evah! It's gonna be faaaaaar-out!