#Steve ditko

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Steve Ditko Strange Tales #109 1963

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Nothing can stop... The Sandman! - art by Steve Ditko (1963)

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THE TORMENT OF SPIDER-MAN

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(1960)

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House-ad for Man-Bat (1976), a would-be ongoing series by Gerry Conway and Steve Ditko. The book was cancelled after just two issues due to low sales.

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“Unmasked by Dr. Octopus!”, by Steve Ditko, with Letters by Artie Simek, and a Script by Stan Lee.

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Disney Legends: Marvel Celebrates Steve Ditko

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DO NOT PANIC

in Strange Tales #95 by Steve Ditko

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Homage to Amazing Spider-Man 33 (1966) by Casey Parsons

Spider-Man 33 (1966) by Stan Lee & Steve Ditko

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Portada de Amazing Spider-Man (1963) #14 por Steve Ditko.

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Spideypool

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Ditko's legacy

a really interesting thing i noticed about steve ditko is that not only he was a prolific creator of iconic comic book characters. but the pattern that his characters follow to fame is particularly odd and it tends to repeat itself.

let's start with the most iconic of all, mist aracnid human himself

an interesting thing is that ditko only drew spiderman until issue 38, afterwards the art was taken over by john romita sr.

in many ways romita's version of spiderman is the definitive interpretation. whereas under ditko peter was actually kind of an immature, prepotent jerk, under romita he became a lot softer and classically heroic. romita is also the guy who designed mary jane watson, it was under his tenure that the green goblin's identity as norman osborn was revealed. in many ways john romita's work was was finally turned spiderman into marvel's mascot.

so neat, right, what else did steve ditko do. well, he created another iconic character for marvel. a very Strange Doctor indeed

for this guy i dont have as much history but i think it would be fair that he was relatively an obscure character, someone you were not familiar with unless you were really into superhero comics... until 2016

when he was interpreted by superstar tumblr sexyman extraordinaire benedicto cumberbacho. thanks to that and his role in the avenger's endgame movie now the guy is a bit of an icon and a respectable IP on his own right.

but we can go even more obscure than that, let's check another character created by ditko, a character so obscure that is literally incognito

created in 1967 by ditko for a now defunct company called charlston comics. his original appearance was actually incredibly short lived. so much so that he was cancelled that very same year he was created.

but then, in 1987, dennis O'neil decided that he was interested in that character and so we got

in here the character was radically changed from a staunch objectivist into more of a zen buddhist philosopher. in many ways o'neils run is the best run the question ever had and the version that tends to be the heavier inspiration for all other subsequent adaptations.

but actually how about we go even more obscure than that, how about we go to a shady guy driven to madness...

once again, ditko made, in 1977 for DC, a strange man from another dimension whom, with the help of his stolen M-vest he could transform into a huge difigured version of himself. as ditko was wont to do, his stories were very surrealistic and psychodelic. as is often the case his work was cancelled after only 8 issues. forgotten by time until, courtesy of the british invasions of the 80's/90's on the comic scene, we got

a story that became far more explicitly political, a crude, surrealist examination of the american culture, touching on topics such as alcholism, the hippie movement, gender theory and abortion. an absolute masterpiece if you want my opinion and probably one of the best comics ever made. once again all other successive adaptation we got of the character tend to borrow a lot more from this version than from the original.

ok one final stop in this ride of ditko creations. who else is left you may wonder, is there something this guy has not created? well, you see ditko could be a heady philosophical creator but he was not above being a little silly from time to time, and that is how he ended up coming up with

yes you heard that right, squirell girl!

ok to be fair, this one was not created by ditko, he was just the artist. the actual creator is will murray, but bear with me here.

created for a superhero special in 1991 as a fun jokey character, she was never really meant to have her own book or series or anything like that.

after being introduced she kept appearing her and there and with every new appearence the gag that she could beat any character started to get built up more and more, beating dr doom, thanos, eternity and god knows who else until finally, in 2014, she actually got her own run written by none other than the creator of dinosaur comic Ryan North

not going to lie, i personally always thought the art was really bad, but it became a fairly popular book, getting high praise from most critics and even winning an eisner award in 2017

conclussion

i think it's absolutely fascinating that ditko has this pattern of creating incredibly iconic characters who become popular and known by a later adaptation by another artist who takes the character on a whole new direction. he seems to be really good a seeding ideas and establishng concepts but there are fertile grounds in the hands of other artists.

if there is one character that has survived this process is his strong, stalwart, objectivist hero who thinks in incredibly rigid, unbreakable rules about good and evil, up and down, black or white.

mr A

and why is that? well, its very simple, the ancient greek philosophers already established this millenia ago. everythng that exsts has a specific nature, each entity exists as something in particular and has characteristics and has characteristics of what it is.

A is A.

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Witch Hunt - art by Steve Ditko (1961)

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Amazing Spider-Man 29 pg18-19 by Steve Ditko

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BHOC: BRING ON THE BAD GUYS

As I talked about yesterday, for Christmas 1978 I was given the four existing volumes in the Marvel Origins trade paperback collection that up to that point existed. I had read SON OF ORIGINS OF MARVEL COMICS at my local library, but I was happy to have my own copy to go back to and review. But once ORIGINS had been consumed, I made my way into the next book I hadn’t yet read, which was this one.…

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Amazing Spider-Man #13 Cover by Steve Ditko