Marvel-ous Monday: "The Mark of the Metazoid" by Drake, Heck, and Tartaglione

Greetings, Groove-ophiles! Okay, the honeymoon's over with Captain Marvel. With ish #5 (June 1968), Roy and Gene have abandoned our Space-Born Super-Hero leaving writer Arnold Drake and penciler Don Heck to take over. Yeah, the mood changes very swiftly, and the direction is already shifting, but Ol' Groove's gotta say that I still dig this ish. The villain is kinda generic, and Drake's story is a bit overwrought--but that's one of those things that makes the Groovy Age so groovy to moi. And a lot of you are gonna disagree, but I dig Heck's energetic, open, dramatic pencils on this particular ish, and inker John Tartaglione stayed pretty true to Heck's style. To Ol' Groove, Dashin' Don was really good at sci-fi slanted comics, and "The Mark of the Metazoid" is a doggoned good sample of what he could do!

Random Reads: "Witch Hunt!" by Thomas, Heck, and Adkins

Hey, hey, hey, Groove-ophiles! Let's take a trip back to August 1969 and check out the Supernatural Spinner Rack...round it goes, and it stops on...Tower of Shadows #2! What's the lead story? "Witch Hunt!" written by none other than Rascally Roy Thomas with art by Dashin' Don Heck and Dapper Dan Adkins...

Making a Splash: Rose and The Thorn

Happy Friday, Groove-ophiles! Today let's check out the superior splashes of the only back-up that ever made me buy issues of Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane--Rose and The Thorn! R&T ran for most of issues 105-130 (August 1970-February 1973; one ish, #113, was an all-reprint giant/annual; The Thorn guest-starred in  team-ups with Lois in issues 105, 114 and 122). Robert Kanigher wrote most of the stories, while artists like the team of Ross Andru and Mike Esposito, Gray Morrow, Dick Giordano, Rich Buckler (some of his earliest super-hero work), and Don Heck. Since they're back-ups, few of them had "traditional" splashes, but we got some really cool ones, so who cares? Enjoy!