Censorship has been around longer than Steve Ditko, and while he has always
been held in the higher regard as an artist, that hasn't placed him above having
his artwork altered. The Comics Code Authority kicked in around 1955, and kicked out
alot of the "filth" (aka anything interesting) that was supposedly perverting young
minds. And while one may be able to make an argument against rampant depictions
and rape and pillage in a children's medium, the Code had set up stringent rules
of conduct to manipulate the reader's thought process, as it related to good and
evil. The Code was to be a moral authority, and the results could be rather
humourous at times.
But Ditko wasn't the only one at Marvel to get nailed by the CENSOR,
as this Jack Kirby page from STRANGE TALES #100 (Sep '62) proves. The story
has Charlie Burns trapped in a maze of which he may never get out, his fate sealed
by the old man narrator in the third panel, who suggests Charlie's descent
will lead him to his deserved place in Hell. But who is the Old Man?.....
As is shown in the second last panel, it appears the Old Man is the Devil
himself, or at least a demon, but CENSORSHIP rears its head again. The
head of our Devil is smudged, and the lettering is VERY clumsily changed in
the next-to and last panel to make the Old Man "the man called Fate". As if.
Once again, the possibility that the Devil might exist, even if it is to
teach an immoral individual a lesson, was judged to be too harsh for the
young, fertile minds of 1962.
IF YOU HAVE ANY OTHER EXAMPLES OF DITKO (or any other Marvel Silver Age
artist) BEING CENSORED OR ALTERED, PLEASE E-MAIL
ME, SO THAT I CAN ADD IT TO THIS SECTION. YOU WILL RECEIVE FULL CREDIT FOR YOUR
CONTRIBUTIONS.
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