Adventure Comics #478 [1980]

ADVENTURE COMICS #478 [1980] features the twelfth and final chapter of the Starman space opera by Paul Levitz, Steve Ditko and Romeo Tanghal with the story "...and Death's Icy Touch Shall Come Searching...".  Following his discovery of his imprisoned teacher Mn'torr last issue Starman confronts the elders of Mn'torr's people and their reasons for punishing him, and we get a short interlude with the supporting cast back home setting up future complications before a final scene with teacher and student.

They announce the story will continue in the Superman team-up title DC COMICS PRESENTS, and so it did eight months later, but without Ditko (or even Tanghal), so not relevant to this site.

A decent wrap-up to a good year of comics, highly recommended as an example of Ditko's commercial work of the period.  All chapters were reprinted in THE STEVE DITKO OMNIBUS #2 [2011], and should be again next year in THE DC UNIVERSE BY STEVE DITKO OMNIBUS.

Beyond The Grave #1 [1975]

BEYOND THE GRAVE #1 [1975] launched a new title for Charlton, and Ditko was there with the 6-page story "Nightmare Flight", written by Gary Petras, the story of a businessman take a flight across the Atlantic to London, only the find himself possessed by a spirit obsessed with killing women with knives and which can only be seen by a young boy on the flight.

Pretty standard Jack the Ripper based story, and typical of Ditko's work for the period, clear and straightforward with some nice use of shadows.

Daredevil #162 [1980]

DAREDEVIL #162 [1980]

Steve Ditko had an interesting history with Daredevil, which is a story for another time and place, but part of it is that he did four issues of the series in the 1980s, all pretty much fill-in issues.  This was the first, with the 17-page story "Requiem For A Pug", written by Michael Fleisher, with whom Ditko had worked a few times on different projects at DC in the recent past.

It opens up with a 4-page scene where an accident in a lab threatens to explode and Daredevil responds as the radiation is distorting his radar sense.  As it does.  One lab guy is so happy to see DD that he says "if anyone might be able to avert this catastrophe, it's you", and sure, you take what help you can get, but maybe Reed Richards would have been a better fit?  Tony Stark?  Bruce Banner? Peter Parker? Stephen Strange?  I mean, pretty much anyone but the acrobatic blind lawyer? Of course he fixes the problem, but after putting on his civilian garb again he collapses, and wakes up with amnesia.  So that entire opening might as well have been "a piano fell on Matt Murdock's head".

And of course the amnesiac Matt falls in with a crooked boxing promotor with a pet leopard, becomes a successful boxer until a demand that he take a dive in the ring overwhelms him with memories of his father.  So yeah, not a very good story.  Doesn't even try to address how he's going to explain Matt Murdock being missing for over a month.  I seriously doubt if Fleisher read beyond DD #1 in preparation for this story.

Ditko's art is much better than the story.  I thin this is the first time he draws the Wallace Wood design of DD's costume, and he does that well, and provides a few interesting versions of Daredevil using his enhanced senses and radar.  And of course the whole boxing storyline gives Ditko a chance to do some down-to-earth action.

Ditko also draws the cover to the story, although regular art team Frank Miller and Klaus Janson also did a cover, published a few issues later.

Marvel Super-Heroes #1 [1990]

MARVEL SUPER-HEROES #1 [1990]

A year after the SPEEDBALL series ended its ten issue run they published a few more stories of Robbie Baldwin, the Masked Marvel, by his creator Steve Ditko in a few of their anthology titles, five in all over the next year.  This was the first of them, in the debut issue of this quarterly title which often featured unused inventory issues from various Marvel books.

"Pulitzer Patty" is an 11-page story opening with a Patty, a student reporter in Robbie's school, interviewing some of the students about hard-hitting stories like the cafeteria food and what they think of the Masked Marvel.  She also gets the janitor on camera, which upsets him.  As you might expect the janitor is a criminal in hiding, afraid of being exposed, and tries to get the video, not even considering it would be backed up to the cloud... oh, sorry, 1990, I forgot. Robbie has to activate his speedball effect and go into action as the Masked Marvel to save the day.

Nice little story, I liked the little scenes of what other students think of Robbie's alter ego, and the emphasis on the civilian life of Robbie with just a quick well staged action scene.

The script is by Fabian Nicieza and the inks are by Chris Ivy, who mostly do okay (except a painful opening bit written in verse).

Upcoming Ditko - The DC Universe by Steve Ditko Omnibus

 

Currently scheduled for June 2025, THE DC UNIVERSE BY STEVE DITKO OMNIBUS is a large format hardcover that will bring together the contents of the previous two volume THE STEVE DITKO OMNIBUS series and THE CREEPER BY STEVE DITKO.

The preliminary contents list is 

Detective Comics #483-485; Legends of the DC Universe 80-Page Giant #1; Tales of the New Gods #1; House of Secrets #139 and #148; World's Finest Comics #249-255; Adventure Comics #467-478; Showcase #73 and #75; Superman #400; House of Mystery #236, #247, #254, #258, #276; 1st Issue Special #7; Beware the Creeper #1-6; Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #1-2; Strange Adventures #188-189; The Legion of Super-Heroes#267-268, #272, #274, #276, #281; Shade, the Changing Man #1-8; Plop! #16; Weird War Tales#46, #49, #95, #99, #104-106; Secrets of Haunted House #9, #12, #41, #45; The Unexpected#189, #221; Ghosts #77, #111; Mystery in Space #111, #114-116; Time Warp #1-4; Stalker #1-4; Amazing World of DC Comics #13; The Outsiders #13; The Hawk and the Dove #1-2; Man-Bat#1, plus behind-the-scenes extras!

This would appear to address only one of the omissions previously noted from the previous three books, the Ditko/Wood/Skeates PLOP remnant that appeared in AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS #13 [1976].  

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1799501736

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1799501732

Ghostly Tales #70 [1968]

GHOSTLY TALES #70 [1968] from Charlton features the 8-page Ditko story "Finders Keepers...Losers Dead!", with host Mr. Dedd hanging around on a quiet beach as the despondent Simon Randall takes a stroll hoping to take mind off his business troubles, only to find an ancient locked chest washed ashore.  Of course this leads to a story involving Spanish conquistadors, betrayal, revenge and ghosts.

A nice story with some interesting twists and good designs by Ditko.  This is also in the brief period where he was often experimenting with layouts outside the standard rectangular grid.  It feels a bit disconcerting at times, but there are a few points where Ditko uses it imaginatively to get some interesting storytelling effects.  Someone should do an examination of that period (which includes the last few issues of BEWARE THE CREEPER).  Not sure if he ever returned to that kind of thing for a full story, but there are a few short scenes where he does, along with other storytelling flourishes in the 1970s especially.

New Ditko - MAKE MY DREAMS COME TRUE (1974 Charlton reprints)

The library of print-on-demand books from SD Comics expands with Ditko's work 50 years ago with MAKE MY DREAMS COME TRUE, a collection of his 1974 published work for Charlton, primarily written by Joe Gill, stories like "The Ancient Mine". 

Also included is the second (and best) Killjoy story written and drawn by Ditko and a Blue Beetle story drawn years earlier, "A Specter Is Haunting Hub City".

Freshly printed copies are available from various booksellers, use the ISBN 978-1945307409.