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!

Byrne-ing to Read/Tuesday Team-up: "Where is Karen Page?" by Wolfman, Byrne, and Mooney

Greetings, Groove-ophiles! I'm sure you've heard it said many times, "John Byrne worked on just about every major Marvel comic except Dr. Strange." It's a fairly accurate statement. Early in his Marvel career, one of Jocular John's most offbeat assignments was a two-part crossover between Daredevil and Ghost Rider. No jive! If I'm lyin', I'm dyin'! Seems that DD's former love, Karen Page, did a stint as a supporting character in Ghost Rider's mag for a while, opening the door for the superhero who dressed like the devil to team up with the guy who got his powers from the devil. Don'tcha just love those ka-razee Groovy Age coincidences? Anyway, today we'll dig on the first part of the crossover from Daredevil #138 (July 1976). The story is by regular (at that time) DD series writer Marv Wolfman and inked by the veteran madman Jim Mooney. Mooney's inks over Byrne's pencils are interesting, to say the least. While Mooney's inks are usually completely overpowering, you can see Byrne's style come through pretty strongly in most places. Sometimes they mesh quite nicely (the splash, page 16, and the final page, especially), while other times--not so much (pages 6 and 15). But that's just Ol' Groove's opinion. Check it out for yourself...

Be on the lookout next Tuesday for the Ghost Rider half of this BYRNE-ING TO READ/TUESDAY TEAM-UP extravaganza, baby!