Adventure Comics #469 [1980]

Adventure Comics #469 [1980] features the 9-page third (of twelve) chapter of the Levitz/Ditko/Tanghal Starman series, "Death In A Dark-Starred Void".  This was actually the last chapter of the story I read, as I first got chapter 2, got the book regularly from chapter 4 to 12 and had to later find 1 and 3 as back issues years later.  Terrible chapter to miss, as it's the first half of the origin of the character, and while there's enough recapping in later stories to catch up (as was the style of the time) there was some pivotal information I was lacking.

This story see's Starman, formerly Prince Gavyn, remembering his earlier life as one of the possible heirs to the imperial throne, who after the sudden death of the Emperor must deal with an odd tradition that insists all potential claimants to the throne (marked by permanent tattoo on their foreheads) are to be executed except the one chosen to rule. Seems like a poorly thought out law, but that's what they have.  Gavyn of course is passed over for the throne in favour of his sister, but clearly found a greater destiny after being blown out of an airlock into the vacuum of outer space.

I really like this chapter, Levitz does a lot of world-building, deeply rooted in genre tropes but still fresh and imaginative, and I think the art team of Ditko and Tanghal really start to click on this chapter.

Forbidden Worlds #138 [1966]

The 3-page story "You'll Know No Rest" is one of eight stories that Steve Ditko did for ACG circa 1966, all  inked by Sal Trapani and written (under various pseudonyms, this time "Karuto Osaki") by Richard Hughes.

It was published in Forbidden Worlds #138 [1966], and feature the story of Captain Jabez Green, an 19th century whaler, who lost his beloved wife Emily early in life, erecting a statue of her on her gravesite. Eventually in the Civil War he drowns on a mission for the Union navy, but is cursed by his adversary to wander the Earth with no memory, which he proceeds to do for over a century, indeed until the very year this comic was published, when fate intercedes.

A very nice story, very dense in its three pages and gives a lot of interesting things for Ditko and Trapani to draw. Might be my favourite of the Ditko ACG stories.

Unreprinted DC Ditko (2025 redux)

Many years ago, following the publication of three books containing Steve Ditko's work for DC published from 1966 to 2008, I posted about a few lapses that kept those books from being complete. Now, DC has published THE DC UNIVERSE BY STEVE DITKO OMNIBUS [2025], which addresses most, but maddeningly enough not all, of those issues.

AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS #13 [1976]
"The Gnark Is Coming, The Gnark Is Coming"
This 4-page story written by Steve Skeates and inked by Wallace Wood was intended for PLOP, but remained unpublished until this issue of DC's promotional magazine. A cute little fantasy, Wood has a heavy hand in the inks but the Ditko still comes through, and this is an unfortunate omission since it's probably the hardest Ditko story at DC to find.

Now included, in the original black and white it was published in.  Arguably should have been coloured since it was drawn for PLOP, but looks better this way. First ever reprint of the story.

DC SPECIAL SERIES #9 [1978]

aka WONDER WOMAN SPECTACULAR

"The Cosmic Quest For The Disk Of Mars"

Ditko draws a 6-page chapter and 5 later pages for the 64-page story written by Jack C. Harris for this issue, with other artists including Jose Delbo, Russ Heath and Dick Ayers drawing the rest. I guess it's understandable not either including the full 64-page story or just excerpting the 11 Ditko pages, but it's some decent work. Wonder Woman doesn't actually appear on the Ditko pages, by the way, except as a chess piece on the God of War's board (with the other piece being Hitler).

Full 64-page story and cover included, with the 11 Ditko pages. First ever reprint of the story.

SUPERBOY & THE LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #257 [1979]
"Once A Legionnaire"
An odd omission, since the other six Ditko Legion stories were reprinted, this first one, a 7-page back-up written by Gerry Conway and inked by Dan Adkins, was not.

Now included, so all seven of Ditko's LSH stories represented. They did decide to omit five non-Ditko covers to the full issues Ditko drew, which were included in the 2012 book.  Minor loss, a bit odd considering the amount of non-Ditko work now included in other stories.

DETECTIVE COMICS #487 [1979]

"The Odd Man"

This 8-page story, originally intended to be a back-up in SHADE #9, actually was reprinted in OMNIBUS v1, in the version that appeared in CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2 [1978], in black and white and under the title "The Pharoah And The Mummies". The script was heavily revised in this printing, so if they were only going to include one version it's nice that they included the rarer one, but it does look much better in colour.

Oddly enough, they chose to colour the story this time, but using the colours based on the DETECTIVE #487 printing (which is credited to Gene D'Angelo, but since they use the art from CCC #2 it has the credit to Jerry Serpe, who would have coloured it in SHADE #9.  So this is an odd hybrid that's never seen print before.  They do correctly identify Jack C. Harris as scripter this time, as noted in his book WORKING WITH DITKO.

ACTION COMICS #642 [1989]

"Where There Is A Will - Chapter II: The Decline"

Ditko pencils and Art Thibert inks an 8-page chapter to Elliot S. Maggin's 38-page story featuring Superman, Green Lantern, Deadman and Nightwing, all regular features in the 42 issue weekly run of ACTION COMICS that ended with this issue. Ditko's chapter only features Green Lantern, and doesn't really work as a stand-alone story, so understandable omission, I guess.  Other artists were legends Gil Kane, Jim Aparo, Curt Swan, Jim Mooney and Carmine Infantino (with inking by younger artists John Nyberg, Ty Templeton, Ian Akin, Brian Garvey and Kevin Nowlan), so it's a full story worth having a copy of.

Full 38-page story and cover included, with the 8 Ditko/Thibert pages. First ever reprint of the story.

WHO'S WHO - THE DEFINITIVE DIRECTORY OF THE DC UNIVERSE #19 - #22 [1986]

Ditko did illustrations for four entries featuring his characters in this series, a shame they weren't included since they were all enjoyable. The Shade entry is just a great encapsulation of the graphic strength of the concept Ditko created. Romeo Tanghal's inks on the Starman piece are very strong, and Joe Orlando does an interesting job on the Stalker page.  The most missed piece is the Question entry, a brief return by Ditko to one of his greatest creations, and again one that Barr even mentions in his introduction, so really no good excuse not to include it.

Only #20, Shade, included.  Stalker, Starman and The Question inexplicably omitted. Despite there being a 2021 book which included all four.

THE UNEXPECTED #190 [1979]

A single page black and white illustration in the inside cover with Abel and Madame Xanadu on the occasion of their cancelled titles (HOUSE OF SECRETS and DOORWAY TO NIGHTMARE) being folded into THE UNEXPECTED.  Written by Mike Barr, this is a doubly frustrating omission since Barr's introduction to OMNIBUS v2 mentions the page and the fact that Ditko gave him the original art, so not only could it easily have been reprinted, but a superior copy from a fresh scan of the original art could have been used.

Still omitted.  And the reprint of the Barr introduction in the back (outroduction?) still mentions both it and the still-omitted Question WHO'S WHO page. Note it can be seen in Harris' WORKING WITH DITKO book (ISBN 978-1605491226).

BATMAN #322 [1980]
And possibly some other DC comics out that month. DC ran short biographies of their creators for a while, and #58 in the series was Steve Ditko.  Instead of the biographical information typical of those profiles, Ditko did an illustration of seven of his characters (The Creeper, The Hawk, The Dove, Stalker, Odd Man, Rac Shade and Starman) to "let his work speak for him".

Still missing.  Can be seen in Harris' WORKING WITH DITKO, along with the story of its creation and two other books it was included in, SECRETS OF HAUNTED HOUSE #322 and LEGION OF SUPER-HEROES #262. If you ever see the original art to it know that it was supposed to go to Harris but was apparently taken before it could be.

So very close, over 100 pages of material added in order to get an additional 31 pages of Ditko not included in the older books.  A few non-Ditko covers are omitted from the previous books. Only having one version of the Odd Man story is a minor omission (especially since they have the preferable one).  But five single pages...

(also no sign of various known unpublished works like "Woro and the Liquid Man", "The Robot and... The Ghost", Green Lantern colouring book pages and other such stuff)

In addition, they have now chosen to colour the CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE stories that were previously presented in black and white (SHADE #9, including Odd Man as noted, and the SHOWCASE #106 Creeper story). The new colours are roughly consistent with the style and methods used to colour the other stories.

And I'll just note that the story sequencing is kind of strange. The previous books had a story order much more to my liking (though still far from ideal).  This one makes an arbitrary distinction between fantasy/terror and science fiction making it harder to find certain things,

So still a really good book full of some great comics.  But kind of a shame it stopped at approximately 99.56% complete...

New Ditko - MOCKER and 1961 Charlton reprints

The library of print-on-demand books from SD Comics expands with two recent books

Ditko's 1980s independent work is featured in a 100-page densely plotted super-hero / crime drama in STEVE DITKO'S THE MOCKER THE DEFINITIVE EDITION, along with lots of extras. One of Ditko's best fully realized works.
ISBN 9781945307423

And another full-colour collection of his Charlton work (mostly in collaboration with Joe Gill) goes back to 1961, with the balance of the original Captain Atom stories, the early Konga and Gorgo stories and lots of short science fiction and fantasy tales in THE RETURN OF GORGO, over 250-pages of Ditko work in all.
ISBN 9781945307454

Marvel Comics Presents #56 [1990]

One of several stories featuring the Masked Marvel after his series SPEEDBALL was cancelled, Marvel Comics Presents #56 [1990] has the 8-page "Any Number Can Play", written and drawn by Ditko, scripted by frequent Masked Marvel scripter Jo Duffy and inked by Sam Grainger, a long-time journeyman inker going back to the 1960s, but only working on Ditko's art this one time.  Looks very solid and faithful to Ditko's work of the era.

Bit of an odd story building on some of the previous events of the series which led to masks being illegal in Robbie Baldwin's hometown of Springdale. He encounters six men who are wearing masks that are based on the pips of a standard six-sided die, with nicknames to match (Solo, Duo, Trio etc). Actually feels a lot like something Ditko would have done in one of his 1990s independent works.

Mort Todd, R.I.P.

Sad to hear the news that Mort Todd (aka Michael Delle-Femine, aka Eel O'Brain) has passed away at the far too young age of 63.  Todd's career intersected with Ditko a number of times. In the 1980s he was the editor of CRACKED and commissioned a number of stories by Ditko (some of which Todd also wrote).  Later on Todd created the magazine MONSTERS ATTACK, each issue including a memorable story by Ditko (one of them inked by Todd). Also in that era, Todd wrote the story for RETURN OF THE SKYMAN #1 for A.C.E. Comics, which Ditko drew.

In the early 1990s, Todd worked with Ditko on some original Mr. A. material that only ended up being published years later by SD Publishing. He apparently did produce a Mr. A. t-shirt and some other stuff.

In the 1990s Todd was an editor at Marvel, where he worked on a number of reprints that included vintage Ditko work. He also got Ditko to contribute some new covers and pin-ups for those books, including the amusing little bit on the side here.

Later on Todd worked on some publications reprinting some of the 1980s stuff, and was recently announced as editing some material for the Ditko Estate's Ditkoverse initiative.

Some other relevant images below:

--Link-- DitkoVerse update and indiegogo campaign

There have been some updates to the DitkoVerse site run by the Steve Ditko Estate and Steve Ditko's nephew Mark S. Ditko, including news of some upcoming publications edited by frequent Ditko collaborator Mort Todd, which can be seen on their Indiegogo campaign.   Including Mr. A., Static, The Avenging World and Fantastic Giants (featuring Konga), setting the stage for marking Ditko's 100th birthday only 939 days from today.

Ditko 100

Upcoming Ditko - The DC Universe by Steve Ditko Omnibus

Update to this post, the upcoming THE DC UNIVERSE BY STEVE DITKO OMNIBUS scheduled for June has some revised contents from what was previously posted.

Collects Detective Comics (1937) #483-485; Legends of the DC Universe 80-Page Giant #1; Tales of the New Gods #1; House of Secrets (1956) #139 and #148; World’s Finest Comics #249-255; Adventure Comics (1938) #467-478; Showcase (1956) #73 and #75; House of Mystery (1952) #236, #247, #254, #258, and #276; 1st Issue Special #7; Beware the Creeper #1-6; Cancelled Comics Cavalcade #2; Strange Adventures (1950) #188-189; The Legion of Super-Heroes (1980) #267-268, #272, #274, #276, and #281; Shade, the Changing Man (1977) #1-8; Plop! #16; Weird War Tales #46, #49, #95, #99, #104-106; Secrets of Haunted House #9, #12, #41, and #45; The Unexpected #189 and #221; Ghosts (1971) #77, #111; Mystery in Space (1951) #111 and #114-116; Time Warp #1-4; Stalker #1-4; Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes #257; Amazing World of DC Comics #13; The Outsiders (1985) #13; The Hawk and the Dove #1-2; Man-Bat (1976) #1; DC Special Series #9; and Action Comics (1938) #642.

The four highlighted entries address most of the omissions from the previous books listed here.  Still unclear if the ACTION and DC SPECIAL will reprint the full stories or only excerpt the Ditko pages from the larger stories (which would mean about 100 pages of non-Ditko art in a "by Ditko" titled book, when you add the second half of the last 1960s CREEPER story). The LEGION #257 was always an odd omission, and it'll be good to see the PLOP remainder from AMAZING WORLD, a great rare Ditko/Wood/Skeates job.

Most of the remaining omissions are single page things (WHO'S WHO entries, an intro page and a profile page), but the solicitation listing doesn't include other single pages that were included in the previous books (a cover and a pin-up), so good chance they'll be included.

If they don't include the version of the ODD MAN story from DETECTIVE #487 (coloured and with a revised script) that's regrettable, but hardly tragic, as long as the rarer black&white version is included.

That leaves some known ("Woro and the Liquid Man", "The Robot and... The Ghost") and unknown unpublished work, some house ads (some maybe with original art), work done for things like a licensed Green Lantern colouring book and other odds and ends. Have to wait for the book to see if any of that shows up as "behind-the-scenes extras!".

My article specifically about the stand-alone genre stories in the book.

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1799501736
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 9781799501732

Adding... Informal page count is 1138 pages of Ditko material, if you only include one version of Odd Man.  There are around 17 pages of non-Ditko material in the three book set (Creeper #6 cover and second half of story, Legion covers for issues Ditko does the lead story.  Oddly not the Man-Bat #1 cover).  The ACTION and DC SPECIAL would need 31 and 54 pages of non-Ditko art, respectively, including covers, bringing us to 1240 pages, more than 20 pages fewer than the 1264 the book is listed at to use for contents pages, indicia, intros and extras.  So if I was a betting man I'd say good odds the full stories will be included, which will mean first-ever reprints for some work by Russ Heath, Gil Kane, Curt Swan and others. But probably not enough pages for "Woro" and the like (if DC even has access to them)...