Marvel Team-Up #101 [1981]

A minor bit of Ditko in this issue, a 5-page backup story called "Don't Let the Sun Come Up On Me", written by Mike Barr and featuring Nighthawk, also the star of the Spider-Man team-up story by other creators that leads the issue (Marvel had just bumped up the cover price and page count of their comics a few months earlier, so this short follow-up story was probably commissioned at the last minute to fill in the extra pages).

I don't know much about the character, other than he was a member of the Defenders, but Ditko does a good job with the design. The story features Nighthawk having a crisis of confidence, which leads to him rather clumsily almost dropping a wall on a young girl. Of course he saves her in the end, and learns a thing or two himself. Not sure if it was intentional on Barr's part, but the sequence does evoke a rather famous scene in a later Ditko Spider-Man. Not quite up to that level, but Ditko does have an affinity for those kinds of scenes, where he gets to show various levels of struggle and desperation in the body language and faces.

Upcoming Ditko - Tales of Suspense Masterworks

Will return to regular posting on this weblog soon, but for now, the first "Upcoming Ditko" to announce in a while, coming in October, a companion piece to the recent reprint of the first 10 issues of TALES TO ASTONISH. Ditko in every issue, mostly 5-page stories, a few of them never reprinted, plus a bit of inking Kirby.

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MARVEL MASTERWORKS: ATLAS ERA TALES OF SUSPENSE VOL. 1
Written by STAN LEE, LARRY LIEBER & VARIOUS
Penciled by JACK KIRBY, STEVE DITKO, DON HECK, JOE SINNOTT, AL WILLIAMSON, BILL EVERETT, JOHN BUSCEMA, RUSS HEATH & MORE
Cover by JACK KIRBY

What’s Halloween without a little scare? Well, how about a big scare?! A big scare in the form of monsters galore, and another awesome Atlas Era addition to the Marvel Masterworks!

In 1958 Atlas Comics Editor-in-Chief Stan Lee was joined by two titanic talents: Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko. Together this trio of storytellers launched Tales of Suspense and its sister title, Tales to Astonish, and along with them the beginnings of a creative revival that would change comics forever. With startling twist-enders featuring Martians, killer robots, and massive monsters like Diablo, Cyclops and Monstro they, hand in hand with a growing group of artists including Don Heck, Joe Sinnott and John Buscema, began to burn up the racks with a style and creativity that comics hadn’t seen in years.

With artwork by an absolute who’s who of comic-book talents, this volume is an absolute must-have for fans with a desire to dig into the foundation would be built into the Marvel Age of Comics! So strap on your tin-foil hat, grab your ray gun, and get ready to dive into one of the most amazing eras of comics history!

Featuring an introduction by noted Atlas Era historian, Dr. Michael J. Vassallo.

Collecting TALES OF SUSPENSE #1-10.
272 PGS $49.99

Where Monsters Dwell #7 [1971]

This issue reprints "The Terrible Trap" from TALES TO ASTONISH #19 [1961], a 4-page story. The star this time is Bart Magor, a great hunter, which we see from his effortless capture of a mouse. Not surprisingly, he runs afoul of a trap while on his hunting trip, and is taken by aliens who place him in a maze. The irony is almost palpable.

Pretty simple story, but a lot of nice touches. I like that mouse in the opening (although I’m surprised the story doesn't do anything with the fact that Magor takes it along on the safari). The aliens are also a nice design, looking very curious and thoughtful rather than menacing.

I’m kind of surprised that this issue isn't promoted as a prototype issue for Kraven the Hunter. Hey, it’s a great hunter. That’s more of a prototype than most of the characters thus billed these days.

"The Terrible Trap" V-137

Where Creatures Roam #4 [1971]

This issue has another of the many 5-pagers, this one "Beware Of The Ghastly Glass" from TALES TO ASTONISH #17 [1961]. I love the symbolic full page splash pages on a lot of these stories, this one with a man trapped by a giant crystal, with a great smoke effect.

A very tightly told story about an old man who, with his strongman servant, goes around the world, from curio shop to curio shop, searching for a mysterious crystal which he knows will grant him four wishes. Like most people in these stories, he's well aware of the traps involved in wishes, but thinks he's got it figured out and has his wishes worded perfectly. He finally finds the crystal and asks for youth, long life, freedom from "arrest, jail, prisons and institutions" and finally the to be the richest man in the world. Of course that last one is the trap, and when all the special effects clear the man is young and healthy, but on another world.

I hope at some point we get a massive collection of these 5-page stories (there are over 200 of them, so they could easily fill two big "Essential" format collections, or three "Visionaries" books).

"Beware Of The Ghastly Glass" V-54

Journey Into Mystery #7 [1973]

This issue reprints "Take A Chair" from JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY #82 [1962], one of the most interesting of the many 5-pagers Ditko did from that era. The art is the usual fine stuff, but what I find most fascinating is how similar the structure and theme of the first half of the story is to a lot of Ditko's own work of later years, setting up the contrast of the nobility of hard work against the lazy man stealing the work of others. Even a lot of the names (Gorgi Gruff, Mr. Vort) sound like the kind of things you get in Ditko's writing.

Unfortunately, after the interesting set-up the story kind of veers off into a less interesting sci-fi twist ending, where it turns out the creative chair-builder is in fact an alien in disguise investigating humanity, and his chairs are spy robots. Cute, I guess, but doesn't quite live up to the set-up of the first few pages.

New Ditko - Ditko Reader CD-ROM

Via NeilAlien, apparently the DITKO READER CD-ROM from Pure Imagination was listed to ship to comic shops this past week. Can anyone verify? Reviews?

Fantasy Illustrated #1 [1982]

In honour of the recent reprint, here's something from the first Djinn story. The character actually predates Coyote, first appearing in a 15-page story in what would turn out to be the only issue of FANTASY ILLUSTRATED, a high quality black and white magazine published by New Media Publishing. Steve Englehart writes, Steve Ditko pencils and Steve Leialoha inks, hence the "All-Steve Squad".

The story opens with Anthony Coyne bringing Ali Pasha to Cairo. We later find out Pasha is returning to Cairo to kill the Djinn, leader of a Cult of Hashishin, and allows himself to be captured. Coyne ends up embroiled in all this intrigue as well, and he and Pasha wind up in an elaborate death trap which they manage to escape by working together and then plan to work together against the Djinn and his secret society.

Kind of an odd story, Englehart takes some getting used to, especially his scripting (he seems positively giddy at being allowed to including swearing in a comic script...), but it's some imaginative stuff. Ditko does a great job on a lot of the settings and action scenes, and Leialoha is probably one of the three or four best inkers Ditko ever had not named Ditko, so it really is nice to look at.

The magazine also has an ad for another book by the publisher, ADVENTURE ILLUSTRATED, which shows Ditko's Mocker character. That story would end up being published by Pacific the next year.

New Ditko - Coyote v3

Coming out this week, Coyote TPB #3 from Image, reprinting issues of the Steve Englehart series from the 1980s, including the Djinn back-up with art by Ditko. I'm not getting it, so could someone who does confirm how many of the four chapters and one pin-up the book includes.