Marvel Comics Presents #83 [1991]

"The Matchstick And The Moth" is an 8-page Human Torch story with plot and pencils by Ditko and inks and script by Erik Larsen. The story features a one-shot villain, the Moth, a woman who has some sort of vaguely defined power that makes her able to temporarily snuff out the Torch's flame powers. She works with two criminal types, posing as a crime victim to lure the Torch in and capture him. She thinks that there's a big-boss promising a million-dollar payday for capturing the Torch, but while she's out of the room the Torch overhears that in fact they're planning to double-cross and kill her. The Torch is able to escape their trap, and tries to warn the Moth, but she douses his powers again before the criminals (rather stupidly) reveal the double-cross. She gets shot, but manages to rescue the Torch who musters up just enough power for one last attack, and then she dies with some metaphor about Moth's getting too close to a flame.

A decent enough story, nothing too memorable, but I do like the way that Ditko draws the Torch, both in and out of flames. Plus you get a lot of great sneering faces on the criminals. Larsen's inks worked a lot better than I'd have expected, although I think they'd have worked better with some slightly less slick flatter colouring.

Marvel Age Annual #4 [1988]

This issue previewed Marvel's upcoming comics for 1988, including a few short original stories of new books, among them 5-page Speedball story "The Mystery of Crooked Face", plotted and pencilled by Ditko, scripted by Roger Stern and inked by Jackson Guice.

This story presents some of the background of Speedball, teenager Robby Baldwin who got super-powers in an accident that enable him to absorb and release kinetic energy. His father is a district attorney and his mother is a former actress. In this story, Robby's father loses a trial in which the defendant, who was accused of crimes committed wearing a goofy mask, was identified by a witness who removed his mask but also had an airtight alibi. "Crooked Face" tries to get even with the Baldwin family, leading to some confrontations with Speedball, until it's eventually revealed that the original defendant was the twin brother of "Crooked Face", and they planned the crimes together.

I'm pretty fond of Speedball, who's a well designed character with some nice visual gimmicks that Ditko uses to good effect. I think Guice's inks are a bit too slick at points, but they work nicely in some places, bringing a bit of a then-modern look to Ditko's style. The actual story in this one is a bit too quick, but then it is only 5-pages, even with the dense layouts Ditko used for this series (with a lot of pages with 10 or more panels). I do think that the Crooked Man villain is a nicely silly bit of Ditko design.

Who's Who - The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #19 [1986]

Ditko drew the profile images for four of his creations for DC's first WHO'S WHO character directory series, including one of the characters published by Charlton and then-recently bought by DC, the Question.

Apparently there was some preliminary talk at the time of Ditko heading a revival of the character at DC, but not too surprisingly it didn't seem to go too far. It could have been interesting, certainly this page shows that he could still do some great artwork on the character. Well, at least we got this one great image that sums up some of the visual appeal of the character.

Vic Sage remains one of the definitive Ditko characters and an interesting middle-ground of his career, with a strong philosophical basis but with a stronger storytelling, characterization and dramatic sense than some of his independent work.

Daredevil #264 [1989]

"Baby Boom" is the 22-page Ditko pencilled Daredevil story from this issue, inked by Mike Manley and Al Williamson. I kind of had higher hopes for it before I got it, given the inkers, but for the most part it was a let-down, mostly thanks to a pretty awful story. Old-time DD foe the Owl hires a goofy group called the Bombers in some plot involving switching the shopping bags that a New York gang use to smuggle cocaine with bags containing bombs, or something. This all gets confused with a homeless man who has a baby he found, who accidentally places the baby in one of those bags. Yeah, I know, not a lot to work with there.

Actually, the more I look at it the art itself isn't that bad. The inking is a bit heavy at times, but for most of it the Ditko shows through, and has some goofy energy that comes as close to selling the story as anything can.

Strange Tales #136 [1965]

"What Lurks Beneath the Mask?" is in the middle of Ditko's long final storyline for Doctor Strange, with Doc on the quest for the secret of Eternity to save the Ancient One while pursued by Baron Mordo, who is being backed by Dormammu. Doc spends the first half of the story going to various mystics around the world for a clue, while agents of Mordo search for him. A lot of great stuff in that sequence, giving a feeling of great breadth to the wider mystic world that Doc inhabits.

Doc finally finds a clue in the possession of a crazy old mystic whose memory the Ancient One had once erased, bringing him to one of those surreal realms, this one filled with odd masks and a demon who traps Doc by switching bodies through eye contact and then covering his face with a mask. Fortunately Doc retains control of his cloak of levitation, which leads to a funny scene of the cloak tossing around the demon wearing it and freeing Doc of the mask. Free to use his powers, Doc then frees all the previous captives of the demon and destroys the realm, then returns to the orient to try to get the secret of Eternity straight from the Ancient One's mind.

This year of Doctor Strange stories is among Ditko's finest work, with a lot of strong short stories full of great imagery building up the suspense for the main story.

Ditko plots and draws the 10-page story.

Charlton Spotlight #5 [2006]

As mentioned a few posts back, the recently released CHARLTON SPOTLIGHT #5 [Argo Press] contains a number of items of interest to the Ditko fan, among them a complete reprint of the 5-page "The Great Martian Drought" from SPACE ADVENTURES #25 [1958]. Ditko's style is a little more sparse at this time than some of his earlier work, though the establishing shots of the Martian city are well designed, and the body language is really effective, plus I love the detail on this one close-up of an eye. He definitely knew when to bring in the detail to enhance a story. In this story Mars is suffering from a long drought, and they consider writing a message to Earth until a scientist finds a way to take what's left of their population to Earth, scheduled to arrive in 1964. Guess they didn't make it...

Two 1957 Ditko covers are also reprinted full size, TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER #4 in black and white and MYSTERIES OF UNEXPLORED WORLDS #4 in colour. The second is especially good, with some great moody furnishings in the "Forbidden Room". The issue has an interview with Joe Gill which has some background on Captain Atom, Steve Skeates talking about Doctor Graves and Ron Frantz talking about some of the Charlton alumni who worked at his ACE Comics in the 1980s, plus articles about the Blue Beetle, the Question and Captain Atom. Lots of great art to go with the articles, including a number that appeared in fanzines like a great 1965 illustration of Captain Atom that appeared in THE COMIC READER #36.

"The Great Martian Drought" 3948

New Ditko - Marvel Masterworks

Ditko's in a pair of recent MARVEL MASTERWORKS volumes. HUMAN TORCH v1 includes the Torch/Spider-Man story Ditko inked from STRANGE TALES ANNUAL #2 and ATLAS ERA TALES OF SUSPENSE v1 has at least one Ditko short from each of the first ten issues of the series, plus one solo cover and one cover inked over Kirby.

New Ditko - Charlton Spotlight #5

Just picked up CHARLTON SPOTLIGHT #5, which is full of some great Ditko stuff, with a long interview with Joe Gill and articles on the major Charlton super-heroes that Ditko worked on, plus a long article by Steve Skeates where he talks about his time at Charlton, with a special emphasis on the Doctor Graves story that ended up looking much more like Doctor Strange than he expected. Also included is a complete 5-page reprint of Ditko's "The Great Martian Drought" from 1958, two full page Ditko covers (one in colour) and several rare bits of art that appeared in 1960s fanzines.