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: