New Ditko - THE THING from PI

Shipping to comic stores through Diamond this week, the latest Pure Imagination book from Greg Theakston, reprinting some of Ditko's earliest work originally published by Charlton and St. John.

[Note I just got my copy and there are two additional stories not listed in the original post, "The Shadow" and "Oggo the Thinker". The backcover also has four Ditko covers in colour]

STEVE DITKO'S THE THING! VOLUME 1 TP
by Steve Ditko
The Thing! is one of the most sought-after series by Ditko and pre-Code fans alike. Packed with wild ideas and wilder images, The Thing! #12-15 feature some of Steve Ditko's earliest work in the field of comics. It's almost 100 pages of the kind of comics your parents didn't want you to see. Also included in this volume are some of Ditko's best work for the Charlton horror books. Save yourself hundreds of dollars and years of search for some of Ditko's most sensational work!
SC, 8x11, 160pgs, B&W $25.00
NOV053071 Pure Imagination

Table of Contents

“Cinderella” from THE THING! #12 (Feb. 1954)
“Library of Horror” from THE THING! #13 (Apr. 1954)
“Die Laughing” from THE THING! #13 (Apr. 1954)
“Avery and the Goblins” from THE THING #13 (Apr. 1954)
“Rumplestiltskin” from THE THING! #14 (June 1954)
“The Evil Eye” from THE THING #14 (June 1954)
“Doom in the Air” from THE THING #14 (June 1954)
“Inheritance” from THE THING #14 (June 1954)
“The Worm Turns” from THE THING #15 (July 1954)
“Day of Reconing” from THE THING #15 (July 1954)
“Come Back” from THE THING #15 (July 1954)
“If Looks Could Kill” from THE THING #15 (July 1954)
“Family Mix-Up” from THE THING #15 (July 1954)
“Live for Reunion” from MYSTERIES OF UNKNOWN WORLDS #5 (Oct. 1957)
“Stranger in the House” from MYSTERIES OF UNKNOWN WORLDS #5 (Oct. 1957)
“Stowaway” from MYSTERIES OF UNKNOWN WORLDS #5 (Oct. 1957)
“A Dreamer’s World” from MYSTERIES OF UNKNOWN WORLDS #5 (Oct. 1957)
“Nightmare” from DO YOU BELIEVE IN NIGHTMARES? #1 (Nov. 1957)
“The Sonambulist” from DO YOU BELIEVE IN NIGHTMARES? #1 (Nov. 1957)
“The Strange Silence” from DO YOU BELIEVE IN NIGHTMARES? #1 (Nov. 1957)
“You Can Make Me Fly” from DO YOU BELIEVE IN NIGHTMARES? #1 (Nov. 1957)
“The Man Who Crashed” from DO YOU BELIEVE IN NIGHTMARES? #1 (Nov. 1957)
“The Elixar” from STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #36 (Mar. 1958)
“The Shadow” from STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #36 (Mar. 1958)
“Failure” from STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #36 (Mar. 1958)
“Oggo the Thinker” from MYSTERIES OF UNKNOWN WORLDS #11 (Jan. 1959)
“Confederate Girl” from UNUSUAL TALES #25 (Dec. 1960)

The Further Adventures of Indiana Jones #33 [1986]

Yeah, I'm not sure why either, but Marvel had Ditko draw eight issues of INDIANA JONES in the mid-1980s. Hey, at least it was Harrison Ford he was drawing, better that than Chuck No... What was that? Really? Okay, never mind...

#33 is Ditko's second last issue, beginning a two-parter that takes Indy to Scotland in pursuit of a stolen amulet. "Magic, Murder And The Weather" is 23-pages, inked by Danny Bulanadi, who did most of Ditko's Indy stories. I find Bulanadi's inks over Ditko kind of flat sometimes, but this is one of his better ones. A few bits even looked like Leialoha's inks over Ditko. Other parts seem a bit heavy, but that might just be satisfying the Lucusfilm people. The opening scene, with Indy being harassed by two Scotland Yard types and doing one of those Ditko double-takes in six straight panels is kind of funny. I don't really get a heavy feel of the 1930s setting like I'd hope for, but that might just be because Ditko's characters always look a few decades in the past.

[see the comments for more on the inking, which might be an uncredited Art Nichols on the last seven pages, and John Romita on the Indy faces]

The story is pretty much serviceable pulp adventure from Linda Grant, with Indy pursuing Amanda Knight, who's stolen an amulet for a mysterious employer. After various fights and attempted poisonings, he find her held prisoner, and confronts the cloaked figure who turns out to be a sorcerer, and also the brother of a villain from an earlier issue.

ROM #68 [1985]

Surprisingly, ROM is probably the second longest run (in page count) that Ditko ever had on a character, drawing the last 17 issues of the series, as well as an annual, from 1984 to 1986 (I'm pretty sure 419 pages beats his Captain Atom total), all with Bill Mantlo, writer of the series from jump street. The run is also interesting because it was very much an "inker of the month" thing, with a dozen inkers over the course of 18 stories (P. Craig Russell did five scattered issues, no one else did more than two). Unfortunately part of the run had among the worst printing Marvel ever subjected us to, so you can't judge some of the inkers fairly.

Anyway, #68 has the story "Ad Infinitum", a 23-page story inked by Brett Breeding. This is a single issue story with ROM flying through space, following the end of his long war against the Dire Wraiths, and encountering a group of humans who are in a war against robots they created who turned on them and exiled them from their homeworld. ROM, being half-human/half-robot, tries to intercede in the conflict and convince the two sides to live in peace...

And completely fails, witnessing helplessly as they destroy each other. That was a pretty cool ending. A pretty fun book, far from any sort of high art, but a lot more interesting than a book based on a toy should be.

I liked Breeding's inks on this, solid, very clearly Ditko and very nice on the flying in space bits. Ditko did some nice design work on the design of the alien world and robots.

--Link-- Amazing Web Spidey reviews

Dustin McNeill is reading an issue of THE AMAZING SPIDER-MAN every day, and has been posting about it since #17 and is up to Ditko's last issue, #38 (he'll eventually go back and post on the first sixteen issues). The link is to #38, you can work your way back from that.

http://amazing-web.blogspot.com/2006/03/issue-38-just-guy-named-joe.html

Marvel Tales #136 [1982]

This issue reprints the third Doctor Strange story, "The Return Of The Omnipotent Baron Mordo", from STRANGE TALES #114 [1963]. As the title says, Doc's main rival, Baron Mordo, attacks again, this time luring Doctor Strange to an old castle in London by disguising himself as Lord Bentley, an old and apparently distant friend of Doc (distant enough that Doc didn't know he died a decade before). Mordo traps him in the vapours of a mystic candle, which will end his life if it's allowed to burn out. Ever arrogant Doc refused the Ancient One's offer to help, and instead reaches out to the nearby Victoria Bentley, who has latent mystic powers. Not taken by surprise, Doctor Strange is more than a match for Mordo, who is forced to retreat.

They sure did pack a lot into these early 5-page episodes. Mordo and his arrogance, clearly covering for his innate cowardice, is always nice to see. I thought it was kind of interesting that Victoria was pretty clearly set up to return, though she doesn't until long after Ditko is gone. There seem to be a few mild attempts to create a few supporting characters for Doctor Strange beyond the Ancient One, though none seem to take for the first few years.

Machine Man #12 [1979]

Machine Man was a Jack Kirby creation, cancelled when he left Marvel in 1978. It was revived less than a year later, this time with newly returned to Marvel Steve Ditko drawing and Marv Wolfman writing.

I'm looking forward to reading and re-reading these. A few of them were among my earliest Ditko back issue buys, but I only recently got the last few (they were absurdly expensive in one of those odd comic book marketplace things where books become "hot" for a guest appearance that no one cares about a year later (Jack O'Lantern?), but the price never goes down).

"Where Walk The Gods" is a 17-page story, starting with Machine Man patrolling the streets of New York at night, and getting increasingly disenchanted with humanity. For no well explained reason, his frustrated electrical discharge ends up instantly hyper-evolving five humans, who appear just as Machine Man is about to kill a criminal who shot a young boy's father. A rather odd dialogue on ethics ensues, as the cosmic beings debate whether Machine Man will prevent humanity from reaching its destiny. One amusing anti-Ditko note, when the young boy pleads on MM's behalf he also says of the shooter "there's gotta be a way to help him without hurting him". Oh, Mr. A would be so disappointed...

Actually kind of some ambitious, if unsuccessfully done, ideas in here for a mainstream comic about a robot from 1979. Maybe if there had been a fuller explanation of what exactly happened, or a follow-up of some sort.

Pretty standard Ditko art from the era. Solid, but nothing too eye-opening. In some ways his Machine Man is a bit too visually restrained at times.

Ditko also draws the cover.

"Where Walk The Gods" LG718

Captain Glory #1 [1993]

Topps is yet another short-lived comic book start-up that Ditko was a part of, being one of the artists for their "Kirbyverse" books, featuring character designs by Jack Kirby. Some of the actual comics weren't bad, but I think they were doomed from the start by launching a line that literally needed a flowchart to follow and their insistence on bagging all their comics with trading cards.

Captain Glory was a Kirby design dating back to the New Gods days, originally named Captain Victory until that name was used for someone else.

This issue introduces Keltan, a soldier from 15,000 years in the past, preserved in a pod along with two others as their civilization collapsed in order to help the next civilization survive. He emerges alone in modern day Chicago, unable to understand this new world and running into reporters and police, until he's found by other survivors of his time, determined to conquer the new world.

Ditko draws the 28-page story, written by Roy Thomas. It's some good looking stuff from Ditko, thankfully doing his own inks unlike a lot of his mainstream work from the period.

After this one-shot Ditko also drew the four issues SECRET CITY SAGA that told the rest of the story.

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.