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.
Here's an oddity. Ditko re-designed Iron Man's armor back in 1963. In the second
issue by Ditko, TALES OF SUSPENSE #48 (Dec '63), Iron Man squares off against
the villainous ''Mr. Doll''. The credits claim the story was written by Stan Lee
with ''art by Steve Ditko and Dick Ayers''. There's only two problems...
The villain's original name was ''Mr. Pain''! And people doubt Eric Stanton worked
on some of Ditko's Marvel material! You can see on the original art (and especially on
the cover of the issue) the name has been changed to ''the Mysterious Mr. Doll''. Plenty
of paste-ups on this art to make the more-Code friendly change. But if Stan Lee was the
writer of this story, would have he started off with the name ''Mr. Pain'' and then have
gone through all the changes to the artwork? Did Ditko come up with the name ''Mr. Pain''
and it just slipped under Stan's radar? Also, notice the credits in the original art.
Clearly, the phrase ''inked by'' Dick Ayers is blotted out, and the "and" is added to
denote an equal share of the artwork credits. I have always believed it to be true
that Ditko did very sparse pencils, and then added in all his details with his inks.
Perhaps Mr. Ayers has felt he deserved more than an "inker" credit for this story,
and this is why the change was made?
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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