SPEEDBALL
Ahh, Speedball. There weren't too many Ditko creations for which I was around for the genesis,
given that I was 27 years old on October 23, 1997, but here was one of them. Why, even my
best friend Len had THREE letters printed in them. This was Ditko's attempt at recapturing
some of that early '60s Marvel magic with Robbie Baldwin obtaining the power bounce around
at ever-increasing speeds, foiling more wacky Ditko villians and hiding his secret identity
from his lawyer father. Much of the set-up was reminiscient of Spider-Man, but Robbie was
never quite the nerd that Peter Parker was, and was more accepted at his high school (when
he wasn't chasing around that cat who had gained the same powers as he had). Most issues had
two seperate stories in them. The first two issues of the series, inked by Jackson Guice had
excellent Ditko art. Unfortunately, he was gone by issue #3 and the artwork declined
after that. The series ran from September of 1998 for ten issues until June of 1989.
Issue #11 was solicited as featuring an appearance by Dr. Octopus but, sadly, it never
saw the light of day, even though Speedball lived on, appearing in many Marvel compilation
books. The cover presented here is that of issue #1.
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Ditko's Speedball, please E-MAIL me.
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