Making a Splash: Kirby's FF, 1967 Style!

Yeah, this summer was brutal on Marvel's premiere super-team, the Fantastic Four. Their mag was cancelled. The team was disbanded. And the movie was a big ol' flop! There was a time, though, when the FF was Marvel's marquee title. As the Groovy Age was just starting, Jack The King Kirby and Stan The Man Lee (along with main inker Joltin' Joe Sinnot) was busy setting fandom on fire with the hottest, most cutting edge comics of the day. Already having introduced the Skrulls, Galactus, Silver Surfer, The Inhumans, The Black Panther, and many others, they weren't satisfied! In 1967 we got the Kree, Ronan the Accuser, Him (who would become Adam Warlock)...well, you get the idea. Jack's powerful and inventive pencils and layouts were killing it month in and month out! Whaddya say we go back to the dawn of the Groovy Age and check out the sizzling splashes (and a few more in-freakin'-credible pages) from Fantastic Four issues 61-72? Yeah, Ol Groove knew you could dig that...

Byrne-ing to Read: "The Day the World Winds Down" by Macchio, Byrne, and Friends

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! We're back with another chapter of the Project Pegasus prelude! Hey, if you asked most folks when John Byrne drew his first ish of 2-in-1, they would probably say ish #50--and they'd be el wrong-o! For some reason, MTIO #43 (June 1978) falls through the cracks! Dunno why! Not only does it have fantastic Byrne art (with inks from Byrne and others from the looks of it), not only does it feature bashful Ben Grimm, Captain America, and Man-Thing, but it also features the Cosmic Cube aaaaaaand it leads directly to the near-legendary Pegasus Project arc that is known and beloved by so many! And hey, no one less than Walt Simonson inked Byrne's pencils on the cover! Oh, yeah, Ralph Macchio's story is pretty cool, too! Are you ready for..."The Day the World Winds Down"?

Black and White Wednesday: "Dreams of Grandeur" by Lewis, Mayerik, and Janson

Check it out, Groove-ophiles! Here's a sci-fi shocker from the cool creative combo of Budd Lewis, Val Mayerik, and Klaus Janson! "Dreams of Grandeur", from Creepy #111 (July 1979), takes hero worship to a whole 'nuther scaaaaaary level...

Groove's Faves: "The Hunt" by P. Kupperberg, Newton, and Adkins

Dig it, Groove-ophiles! In July 1977, Aquaman graduated from the pages of Adventure Comics (where he'd been appearing for the past couple of years) to his own revived title. After seven issues, the King of the Seven Seas' mag was cancelled due to the infamous DC Implosion and he dove straight back into Adventure Comics (now a Dollar Comic) the following month in Adventure Comics #460 (August 1978). Ol' Groove has the sinking feeling (pun intended--so keelhaul me!) that "The Hunt", by regular Aquaman writer/penciler team of Paul Kupperberg and Don Newton (along with inker Dan Adkins) would have appeared in Aquaman #64 had such a mag existed, but was edited down to 13 pages to make it fit into Adventure's Dollar Comic format. It's a cool story, with an angry Aquaman (his son had recently been killed) laying the smack-down on the evil big-game hunter, and the  art by Newton and Adkins is truly far-out...