(UPDATED APRIL 22nd, 2005)



The
 STEVE DITKO
 MARVEL VISIONARIES:
 Volume



Hot on the heels of the D.C. Comics Archives for Captain Atom, Wednesday April 20th 2005 saw the release of what will hopefully be the beginning of a "Ditko Reprint Revolution" at Marvel Comics.


The title of the volume is STEVE DITKO: MARVEL VISIONARIES and it's a 336-page, $29.99 hardcover volume featuring stories covering the arc of Ditko's career at Marvel. Editor, Mark Beazley, offered me the opportunity to write the introduction to the volume and (after having written the introduction to the D.C. Comics' CAPTAIN ATOM ARCHIVES) I was happy to oblige!

As an added bonus, the back of the book contains the unpublished, original covers by Ditko to AMAZING FANTASY #15 (before Kirby - inked by Ditko - drew the final product) and AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #10. It also features a pre-inked page (page 7) AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #31 and Issue #38 (although it is credited to Issue #31 as well). We'll have a review of the book in our next update.


The complete contents of the volume are as follows:

1. TALES TO ASTONISH #26 (Dec '61, 5pg): "Dream World"

2. STRANGE TALES #94 (Mar '62, 5pg): "Help!"

3. STRANGE TALES #97 (Jun '62, 5pg): "Goodbye to Linda Brown"

4. TALES TO ASTONISH #42 (Apr '63, 5pg): "I Am Not Human!"

5. AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #7 (Dec '61, 5pg): "Why Won't They Believe Me?"

6. AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #7 (Dec '61, 5pg): "Journey's End"

7. AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #10 (Mar '62, 5pg): "Those Who Change"

8. AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #10 (Mar '62, 3pg): "No Sign Of Life"

9. AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #12 (May '62, 3pg): "Something Fantastic"

10. AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #13 (Jun '62, 5pg): "The Unsuspecting"

11. AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #14 (Jul '62, 5pg): "The Man in the Sky"

12. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 (Mar '63, 10pg): "Spider-Man Vs. The Chameleon"

13. INCREDIBLE HULK #6 (Mar '63, 24pg): "The Metal Master"

14. STRANGE TALES #110 (Jul '63, 5pg): "Dr. Strange"

15. STRANGE TALES #115 (Dec '63, 8pg): "Origin of Dr. Strange"

16. TALES OF SUSPENSE #48 (Dec '63, 18pg): "The Mysterious Mister Doll"

17. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1 (1964, 41pg): "The Sinister Six"

18. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1 (1964, 3pg): "How Stan and Steve Create Spider-Man"

19. STRANGE TALES #126 (Nov '64, 10pg): "The Domain of the Dread Dormammu"

20. STRANGE TALES #127 (Dec '64, 10pg): "Duel with the Dread Dormammu"

21. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #31 (Dec '65, 20pg): "If This Be My Destiny"

22. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #32 (Jan '66, 20pg): "Man on a Rampage!"

23. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33 (Feb '66, 20pg): "The Final Chapter"

24. STRANGE TALES #146 (Jul '66, 10pg): "The End - At Last"

25. DAREDEVIL #162 (Jan '80, 18pg): "Requiem for a Pug"

26. HULK #249 (Jul '80, 17pg): "Jack Frost Nipping at Your Soul"

27. MARVEL SUPER-HEROES SPECIAL #8 (Jan '92, 22pg): "The Coming of Squirrel Girl"

28. SPEEDBALL #1 (Sep '88, 11pg): "Origin of a Masked Marvel"



The contents of collections like this always inspired spirited debate, so allow me to pick my own contents, and why. The stories in red are the ones included in the real collection, meaning we happily agree with the editors' choices:

1. STRANGE TALES #50 (Sep '56, 4pg): "The Fog That Couldn't Lift"
(An awe-inspiring display of negative space by a very young Ditko. A "definitive" collection of Ditko's Marvel work can't leave out a selection from Ditko's 1956 first run - 19 stories - with Marvel before he returned for good in mid 1958.)

2. STRANGE WORLDS #1 (Dec '58, 6pg): "I Captured The Abominable Snowman"
(The detail in Ditko's Charlton work in 1958 was disappearing - probably from being paid so little - but his return to Marvel with this story shows a reinvigoration. A "must" for any collection detailing Ditko's career.)

3. TALES TO ASTONISH #7 (Jan '60, 5pg): "I Spent Midnight With The Thing On Bald Mountain"
(1960 has the tightest, sharpest linework in his career. This is a classic of Ditko motifs. 1960 is a year that CANNOT be unrepresented in a collection that claims to represent Ditko's "vision." Read all about this story here.)

4. STRANGE TALES #74 (Apr '60, 5pg): "When The Totem Walks"
(Brilliant storytelling by Ditko on every page. Inspired a sequel story next issue.)

5. TALES OF SUSPENSE #10 (Jul '60, 5pg): "Behind My Door Waits...Medusa"
(1960 was Ditko at his detailing best and the splash page alone in this story is amongst Ditko's top.)

6. GUNSMOKE WESTERN #66 (Sep '61, 5pg): "The Escape Of Yancy Younger"
(Ditko could tackle any genre, so why not show it off? Ditko could draw rundown, mean hombres.)

7. TALES TO ASTONISH #24 (Oct '61, 5pg): "He Waits In The Dark"
(The run-down tenaments illustrated by Ditko make Eisner's look like a Holiday Inn! Stunning atmosphere!)

8. STRANGE TALES #94 (Mar '62, 5pg): "Help!"
(We can't disagree with this selection. By 1962, Ditko was getting all the work he could muster and was paring out all details he didn't believe contributed to the storytelling. The story's splash is a shining example of 1962's more minalimist work at its best.)

9. AMAZING ADULT FANTASY #12 (May '62, 3pg): "Something Fantastic"
(You don't want to OVERrepresent Amazing Adult Fantasy as a title because it was weaker artwork and cliched stories - by this point - but Ditko has always been an underrated humourist, so why not include this selection from what many consider Lee and Ditko's signature title? A nice choice by the editors.)

10. TALES OF SUSPENSE #34 (Oct '62, 5pg): "Who Am I?"
(I don't know if you should buy a collection that represents Ditko's career if it doesn't include this story. The first and last page are amongst Ditko's finest.)

11. AMAZING FANTASY #15 (Aug '62, 11pg): "Spider-Man!"
(The most reprinted story in comic history? Maybe so, but should one really create a collection of Ditko as a visionary without printing the story that cemented Ditko's status as such?)

12. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #1 (Mar '63, 14pg): Spider-Man"
(Same applies here as to the above. The editors should have included this and not the battle vs. the Chameleon.)

13. STRANGE TALES #115 (Dec '63, 8pg): "Origin of Dr. Strange"
(We've removed Strange Tales #110 from the real collection, but you can't remove this classic tale of greed and redemption.)

14. TALES OF SUSPENSE #48 (Dec '63, 18pg): "The Mysterious Mr. Doll"
(A nice choice by the editors, if one is comfortable with a collection including non-Ditko inked material. Read all about this story here.)

15. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #17 (Oct '64, 22pg): "The Return Of The Goblin"
(We're dispensing with the Sinister Six story from Annual #1 in favour of the next two. This represents Ditko's signature villian and is a phenomenally paced story.)

16. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #24 (May '65, 20pg): "Spider-Man Goes Mad"
(Mysterio tricks Spider-Man onto the couch in this fantastically crafted title.)

17. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN ANNUAL #1 (1964, 3pg): "How Stan and Steve Create Spider-Man"
(Can't argue with the editors' choice here. Stories like this made those old annuals great.)

18. STRANGE TALES #126 (Nov '64, 10pg): "The Domain of the Dread Dormammu"

19. STRANGE TALES #127 (Dec '64, 10pg): "Duel with the Dread Dormammu"
(No quarrel with these two. Dr. Strange took off as more than a hokey magician title with Ditko's art pushing all the limits into other dimensions.)

20. STRANGE TALES #138 (Nov '65, 10pg): "If Eternity Should Fail"
(Hey, Strange Tales #146 has some epic splash pages and ties up the whole Ditko run - albeit extremely quickly - but #138 is THE issue I'd show to anyone I wanted to convince that Ditko was a genius. Absolutely ESSENTIAL.)

21. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #31 (Dec '65, 20pg): "If This Be My Destiny"
22. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #32 (Jan '66, 20pg): "Man on a Rampage!"
23. AMAZING SPIDER-MAN #33 (Feb '66, 20pg): "The Final Chapter"
(The above three are a given. I'd argue #32 is the best of the three. One of the best-paced comics of all time.)

Okay, here's where it gets entertaining. The real Visionaries volume seems intent on highlighting modern day Marvel characters and/or ones in which Ditko had a hand. They seem to try to avoid non-Ditko inked jobs unless they follow the above two rules (Iron Man's armour from TOS #48 and SPEEDBALL #1). We've got another 90+ pages to fill, so here we go:

24. AVENGERS ANNUAL #13 (1984, 40pg): "In Memory Yet Green"
(Since we're not going to include Hulk #249, here's your Hulk fix, as well as the rest of the Avengers. A superb inking job by John Byrne makes this stand out amongst Ditko's Marvel work in the 1980s.)

25. ROM #69 (Aug '85, 22pg): "This World Alive"
(Inkers in the '80s that revered Ditko did their best to replicate Ditko's artwork as they remembered it, and P. Craig Russell did an excellent job here, but it's Ditko's layouts of Rom encountering the planet Ego that makes this perhaps his best '80s entry.)

26. WHAT THE?! #1 (Aug '88, 7pg): "Secret Wars III"
(Crikey, I even have the uninked pencils for this humour gem inked by John Severin.)

27. SPEEDBALL #1 (Sep '88, 11pg): "Origin of a Masked Marvel"
(Can't not have a Ditko creation in the mix. If you accept going with non-Ditko inked stories, a pick from the first two Speedballs, inked by Guice, can't hurt.)

28. SHADOWS & LIGHT #1 (Feb '98, 12pg): "A Man's Reach...!"
(A forgotten B&W gem, inked by Ditko himself, featuring Doc Ock's mechanical arms, that would show Ditko still producing quality work at the end of the 20th century. A much better Iron Man choice than that Squirrel Girl piece.)

Others that we considered? Machine Man #10 (Aug '79, 17pg): "Renewal" (Ditko's return to Marvel; Kirby did #1-9, Ditko finished the run); Tomb Of Dracula magazine #2 (Dec '79, 36pg): "The Dimensional Man" (Where else can you find a Marvel Ditko wash story?); Coyote #7 (Jul '84, 16pg): "The Djinn" (Superior inking by Steve Leialoha; originally published in B&W by New Media's Fantasy Illustrated #1, Spg '82, before brought over to Epic and done in colour); Marvel Comics Presents #80, 81 (1991, 16pg total): "Wargod" and "Wargod and The Final Blow" (Terry Austin's beautiful work for this two-part Captain America story).

Whatever one's choice for a collection representing Ditko's career at Marvel Comics, what bodes so well for the future is two-fold: 1) Marvel is finally mining the career of one of their legends; 2) most importantly for those who want to see more Ditko stories reprinted, Marvel is starting to run out of things to reprint that would have some marquee value. They seem to be tapping the 1940s now, but how long can it be before they move to reprinting 1950s horror material, or Steve Ditko pre-superhero material in collections like these? One can only hope Marvel does it and does it right.
- Blake Bell



DITKO LOOKED UP