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Working top down, it appears Guice knocked out the extra ceiling board and removed the lines from the burst of energy in the top left corner. Guice did an excellent job enhancing the body and face of Speedball, while remaining very faithful to Ditko's original. Guice rounded some more of the muscles (aping Ditko's work on the more muscular Spider-Man images from later in the 1960s run). At this point in Ditko's career, cohesion of form was starting to slip away, but Guice reigned it in, as can be seen on Speedball's left leg. 'Polished' might be an appropriate word, but without losing the animated spirit of the character. All in all, a very strong job by Guice, but he would be gone after issue number two, and Ditko's work would not recover. The title didn't find its legs and was gone 10 issues in (although issue #11 promised an appearance by Dr. Octopus, Spider-Man's famed nemesis). To Ditko's credit, and the character's potential, Speedball has lived on in as a featured player in the New Warriors title.
Click on the image above to view the published piece.
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