BLAKE'S 'STEVE DITKO HISTORY' by Blake Bell, Apr. '98

The work speaks for me.

This is Steve Ditko's famous credo; one from which he has rarely wavered in over 35 years of creating comic-books. Given that Ditko was one to conjure netherworlds of mystery and intrigue, it is possible to easily plunge into extravagant hyperbole about the wonders of the man; obsess on the Whys and the Hows; or wax romantically about how much he meant to a multitude of generations of fans and creators following in his footsteps.

But in the end, Steve Ditko is a man - his own man. He is a man who has chosen to represent himself and his beliefs through his work, rather than a sly tongue, given to sound-bytes and grand, public gestures bent on the almighty ''increased exposure''. If A = A, then the facts, and the work, should speak for themselves; telling fans all they need to know about the internal make-up of one man - Steve Ditko.

Born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on November 2, 1927 (or so we are told), Ditko left such rural surroundings and came to the big city to enter the field of comic-books. What possesses a man to leave his home of 26 years and head to the snake-pit of the U.S.A.? Ditko must have really loved THE WORK. What grabs the attention of a young child at the age of 7, 8, 9, 10 and on - in the late '30s and early '40s - which lead him to pick up a pencil, keeping it active for 35 years, through bleak and better times? He must have loved THE WORK.

What does motivation matter which the results produce such triumphs and longevity? Ditko studied in New York under instructor Jerry Robinson, the second Batman artist, at the 'Cartoonist And Illustrators School', fond of Mort Meskin's work and getting turned down by the requisite amount of publishers in 1953 whom, ten years later, would make Pete Best look like a genius.

Fantastic Fears; an appropriate title for all the madness that Ditko would conjure over his career. With issue #5 of said title, Ditko had in the bag his first purchased work. Black Magic #27 would be dated late 1953, but if you want Ditko's first work ever, Fantastic Fears #5 (dated 1954) is the gold-medalist on that impressive podium.

Almost as significant as his beginnings with Marvel, is Ditko happening to end up on Charlton's door-step in 1954. The volume of work Ditko would produce for this company would only be rivaled by his Marvel output in terms of sheer numbers. The stories were never as good, the paper was inferior, yet Ditko kept coming back to the small company that couldn't. Why? Because he loved THE WORK. Those in control at Charlton left Steve Ditko completely alone to do virtually whatever he pleased. There was little editorial interference. As history would bear out, nothing please Ditko more than this, and nothing produced work that was more Ditko.

There is a blip in the story as Ditko left New York in 1954, giving up comics and having only 3 pages published in 1955. An explanation as to why has never been provided.

Ditko eases back into the comics' scene in 1956, but a new player has come onto the horizon. Stan Lee, editor at Martin Goodman's ATLAS (formerly Timely, soon-to-be Marvel) Comics is running the same brand of work put out at Charlton and Ditko buys in, creating the first ever Atlas story in April's Journey Into Mystery #33, titled ''They'll Be Some Changes Made''. How appropriate.

Atlas falls on extremely hard times in 1957 as Goodman orders Lee to stop buying new stories. Ditko is not deterred as he pumps out his greatest volume yet, putting the Charlton printers into over-drive.

But the end of 1958 marks the rebirth of Lee's Atlas. With the third member of the famous triad on board, in the form of Jack Kirby, another appropriate title, ''Strange Worlds'' #1 makes it debut, marking the sign-post to all the wonderment, wacky monsters and weirdness that the three would create to end the decade and begin the new.

Ditko would split his time between Charlton and Marvel over the next years, but what would mark Ditko as special was the nuggets buried in the back of every Atlas book; the nuggets commonly referred to as ''Five-Page Stories''. The front end of every Atlas book at the time was loaded with bland monster-of-the-month fare by the likes of Kirby and Heck, but always following them was a twisting, spooky, atmospheric little gem of a story by Ditko. These tales always ended in a fantastic twist and ALWAYS had atmosphere to spare, thanks to the stylings of Steve Ditko. Ditko proved here, first and foremost, that he was unique and would always stand out in a crowd.

While most people credit the Fantastic Four or Spider-Man as the Super-Hero Revivalist of the Silver Age, it was in fact a Ditko-drawn character that first heralded the madness. March of 1960 saw Space Adventures #33, featuring Captain Atom, the first Cold War, Nuclear Super-Hero. Ditko has always been a political beast and he was tapped in to the fear and paranoia of the day concerning those dang Kommies. He would also put to paper the monster movie characters of Konga and Gorgo for Charlton as well.

The Golden Age of Steve Ditko can be marked as 1961, where he doubled his page count from the previous year, to 1966. Each year, Ditko produced over 450 pages, with 1963 seeing a whopping 701. Virtually all of the famous characters that he would visually design erupted during this era. The gems of '62 arrived in the form of Amazing Adult Fantasy #7-14, where Ditko produced every page (over 20) each issue of his usual five-page mayhem.

Of course, it would be issue #15, retitled to Amazing Fantasy that would secure his eternal fame. The triad of Lee-Kirby-Ditko cut a swath through the industry; the impact of which has few peers in any of the entertainment industries. The advent of the Fantastic Four, Amazing Spider-Man, the Hulk and Dr. Strange, plus character after character that live on today, had their most of their geneses in the minds of these three individuals.

Without Lee's scripting, Ditko's characters may have ended up as harsh and unforgiving as his later work, but it was the tension between two successful styles that created the hybrid known as The Amazing Spider-Man. The voice is Lee's but the look and feel of the nerd of the century - the look and feel of true villiany in a cast of antagonists, that few collaborators will ever match, is Ditko's.

While God-Like Heroes battled God-Like Villains in Marvel's other books, the impact of ''The Street'' that encompassed Peter Parker and Spider-Man's life cannot be under-stated in the revival of an industry. On the character of Spider-Man alone, an entire generation of above-the-normal-age comic-book readers (college kids) were born for he was a teenager who hit the books and hit the malls. Once in a while The Vulture would force Spidey into the sky, but Ditko's character was a street-level hero, readily identifiable to a number of pockets of society. Comics, fantastic stories about God-Like Heroes that dazzled the young, were now all over the generational board.

Proving Ditko's uniqueness again, Lee left Ditko alone to develop his other famous Marvel creation; Dr. Strange, Master Of The Mystic Arts. By the time the serial was hitting full stride, Lee had a multitude of duties (and books) on his plate, and just couldn't figure out what Ditko was doing in the book that probably has brought Ditko more respect than his Spider-Man work, in terms of the sheer artistry - in terms of creating worlds and characters so unique and bizarre, that a series has yet to be created to match it. In fact, it can be said that the character of Dr. Strange was rendered virtually un-writeable from the time Ditko left it, because it was truly of him; his stamp on the work so great that the others who have tried to A) mimic him; or B) find their own vision of the good Doctor, have never been able to capture what was THE Dr. Strange. Horrible sales and multiple cancellations during the past 30 years bare this out.

Those who had Ditko's acquaintance of the time knew Ditko as a sociopolitical beast. Somewhere along his path, Ditko discovered the philosophies of Ayn Rand, which combined to cement his own in stone. Ditko as the ''Objectivist'' would be the character those who would follow him, from his Marvel departure in mid-'66, would come to know best.

Ditko's view of the world - of good and evil - became ever-increasingly black and white (or A=A). Portraying life as it really was became more of an obsession of Ditko's and it ultimately led to his self-imposed exile from Marvel. Lee and Ditko created the Green Goblin in Amazing Spider-Man #14. Lee had hopes of creating a spine-tingling identity-mystery story, but Ditko wanted the secret to be a non-secret; having the Goblin to be found out as another face in the crowd since, as Ditko felt, 99 out of 100 times a criminal is found in real life, he is a nobody. Lee's philosophy that Spider-Man was about a guy who walks on walls, thereby stripping away any notion of reality as a basic foundation, didn't sit too well with Ditko. There were no doubt other tensions and strains that led to Ditko walking into the Marvel offices one day in '66 and quitting. First and fore-most, one is left with the irony that the elements of conflict between Lee and Ditko, which made Spider-Man such a work of importance and quality, would eventually tear them, and their tenure on the book, apart.

Ditko would return to Charlton in 1966 and begin re-creating Captain Atom, as well as adding The Blue Beetle and one of his finest creations, The Question, to the mix. The Question would mark a string of characters who would light the moral lamp in the face of amoral adversity surrounding them from all sides. 1968 brought Ditko to DC, where he continued the same themes in the characters of The Creeper and The Hawk And The Dove. Most people regard The Creeper as the finer of the two, but Ditko was using the other to further development the philosophies of his greatest creation of the last 30 years, Mr. A. .

While Ditko would always have one foot in the Charlton pool (again, because there was little to no editorial interference; something he had resented, and fought against at Marvel), the purist Ditko work was being developed in the growing fanzine/independent market. Long before there was Cerebus or Elfquest, Ditko was the strongest proponent of the independent scene. This may have simply been because, in this arena, he was free to run his own show, but for a man who is now dismissed as aloof, secretive and a loner, Ditko embraced fandom in the late '60s and early '70s like no other artist. He was not an up-and-comer, using the scene as his break-through, but a well-known veteran who lent it instant credibility.

The character of Mr. A. was the harbinger of all this. Whether in Wally Wood's fanzine, Witzend, or fan-produced wonders by Marty Greim or Bill Wilson, Ditko eschewed corporate fame and fortune to tend to his first love - THE WORK. Such work, by the early-to-mid '70s was so steeped in his political views, it is hard to imagine that a mainstream publisher would have touched it. While others were still pulling up the super-tights of super-corporations, Ditko had taken the medium to its ultimate - a true expression of The Creator.

Ditko hooked up with DC (as well the ill-fated Seaboard aka Atlas 2) in 1975 which produced his oddest series yet, the ill-fated Shade, The Changing Man. Once again the Ditko imagination was in full force. He had mapped out his masterpiece well into the teens when DC, whom must have thought Ditko had completely lost his marbles, pulled the plug without any warning.

From here, Ditko split his loyalties, heading back to Marvel in 1979. His work at DC continued, including a Creeper revival in World's Finest, Starman in Adventures Comics and a crack at The Demon in Detective Comics, but Ditko was back home, working away on numerous odd-ball characters like Machine Man, the Micronauts, Captain Universe and a host of supporting characters elevated to a level of importance in any Ditko fan's life.

1984 brought his best '80s Marvel work in the form of Rom, The Space Knight. The much-maligned Jim Shooter didn't think much of Jack Kirby (for some reason) but had a soft spot for Ditko, always making sure he had work because he believed Marvel owed him something (as opposed to them owing Kirby?). His work on Rom was like a farewell party (the character DID actually make his farewell after 17 Ditko issues and an annual) with ALL sorts of inkers coming out of the woodwork for a shot at inking the legend. P. Craig Russell made his mark on Ditko History as his polish on Ditko's work created a tight image, earning him a place among the great Ditko inkers.

1985 would mark the beginning of another valued partnership. Robin Snyder, under the banner of Renegade, drew Ditko into the fold for his ''Revolver'' anthology comic. Snyder had been a Ditko fan for two decades and was to become the umbrella under which much of Ditko's late '80s-early '90s significant work would fall. One of Ditko's creations, Static, would receive the red carpet treatment from Snyder, as would other characters like the Mocker in the form of giant trade paperback sized books; all with original or revised Ditko material.

1988 saw Ditko back in the Amazing Spider-Man title. In somebody's idea of a joke, Ditko backing stories started to appear in Spider-Man annuals, while Ditko himself was trying to re-create a little of that '60s magic with his Marvel creation, Speedball. The title would only last ten issues (expiring before the eleventh issue featuring one Dr. Octopus) and a myriad of shorter stories spread over the Marvel Globe.

By 1991, competing comic companies gave Ditko another avenue for expression. Jim Shooter, proving his soft-spot for Ditko, collaborated on the flavour-of-the-month company (based on plenty of Gold Key heroes) and brought Ditko into the fold, doing spot-duty on Magnus, Robot Fighter, Solar, X-O Manowar and Shadowman. During 1993, Shooter would be gone from Valiant, taking Ditko with him and creating his new company, Defiant.

Together, they came up with the most promising Ditko-vehicle in years, Dark Dominion. The hero would fight underground-dwelling monstrosities that only he could see, seemingly giving Ditko carte-blanche to weave his magic once again. They presented the first issue as a card series that one would have to piece together out of random packs, but that was all for Ditko on the series. He pulled out, with Shooter claiming Ditko would only do pure fantasy or pure politic work, although one wonders how Dark Dominion veered away from pure fantasy.

Roy Thomas was also at work in 1993, collecting many ''founding fathers'' for Jack Kirby's Secret City Saga; the baseball card company Topps's foray into the comics market. The ''epic'' series was based on Kirby characters and ideas and Ditko contributed 145 pages in 1993 to the exercise.

What happened to Sir Steve in 1994 is a mystery. To the general public's knowledge, he only contributed 3 pages of work to ''Monster Menace'', a Marvel series reprinting the old Atlas monster/horror shorts. 1995 was slightly more active, with Ditko drawing a four-issue mini-series for Marvel called ''Phantom 2040'', but 1996 would again mark a low in Ditko's output - 16 pages.

Ditko's stern character proved indominitable again in 1997 as he seemed poised to return to the top of the field with the independent comic-company, Fantagraphics, publishing Strange Avenging Tales, a completely Ditko series, with a lead-off story done in ink-wash like the classic, mid-'60s Ditko work for Warren's Creepy and Eerie. Unfortunately an excellent first issue, and second issue cover, would be all the world would see. Rumours abounded that the boys at Fantagraphics had played around with the artwork or that Ditko didn't appreciate the fun at his expense by Gary Groth in the back of issue one, but since Ditko is supposedly working on a graphic novel for Fantagraphics, it is likely that the rumour stating Ditko didn't like the direction the book was going is probably truer to the mark.

What does 1998 hold for Steve Ditko? Already an excellent black-and-white Iron Man story in Marvel's Shadows And Light series; perhaps that graphic novel for Fantagraphics; definitely a Spectre story in an upcoming DC Giant-Sized Special and hopefully much more. While others wade into retirement at 65; while others give up the comics-ghost for more profitable design work; while other live off their past accomplishments; Ditko, just into his 70s, to this day refuses to tread over previously-trodden ground. As per usual, Steve Ditko's imagination is always looking forward; always one step ahead of, no doubt, even himself.

DITKO LOOKED UP