Pacific Presents #1 [1982]

The Missing Man was a character Ditko created in the early 1980s, appearing first as a back-up in CAPTAIN VICTORY, then being one of the two co-features in PACIFIC PRESENTS. I thought the visuals on the character were really nice, but the execution was a bit lacking, with no real background on the character other than that he was troubleshooter Syd Mane, who had an odd gimmick.

"The Queen Bee" is an 18-page adventure written and drawn by Ditko. Mob boss King tries to take over the racket of another mobster, Headman, using the powers of Queen Bee, a singer with a hypnotic voice, who thinks King is helping her find the killer of her lover. With the help of Ma's Detective Agency, Syd is able to find her lover alive, defeat King and reunite the couple.

Like I said, cool visuals for a character with a cool gimmick, but not much of a story, lacking both the pure goofiness and the heavy philosophical musings of Ditko's more interesting creator-owned work.

Ditko also draws the bottom half of the cover, under a Dave Stevens piece for the Rocketeer.