Friday, June 20, 2014

THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MYSTERIOUS STEVE DITKO !!!



I've loved Steve Ditko's art ever since I bought my first comic, Amazing Spider-Man #38. We all know his work on his Amazing Spider-Man run. Fantastic.



When he went to work for DC Comics, he came out with a couple of great characters. The Creeper, real psychotic at the time and The Hawk and the Dove, feuding bothers at odds with aggression and pacifistic. Both, great departures from the typical Superman & Batman comic books.

 

What I really enjoyed was his out of the box heroes, especially the ones from Charlton Comics.



I remember coming across Captain Atom, wow! Ditko was great with dazzling setting for his heroes. Space was his frontier.

Then along came a back-up feature in Captain Atom,. the Blue Beetle. I was not familiar with the previous incarnation of Blue Beetle. Now here was a fun character.



I was excited when he got his own series. And then he had a back-up as well, with a character, the Question. A man with no face. Spooky, brilliant.


 The Question had a brief solo appearance in Mysterious Suspense #1. That was it. Bummer. 




After the Charlton collapse, a black day, came the Charlton Bullseye. The first couple of issues finished up the story lines from the previous series. The Question was featured, with amazing art by Alex Toth.



Then he took a leap, and merged his personal beliefs with his heroes, with Mr. A. It's been awhile for me, since I've read Mr. A in The Ditko Collection, but I do remember them being very thought provoking.

Now I'm going to have to hunt that collection down, sit down in a quiet place and re-read it.

Fantastic.

Thank you for your time.



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