Return Of The Skyman #1 [1987]

The Skyman is a long-running Golden Age comic book hero, published by Columbia and first appearing in BIG SHOT COMICS #1 [1940] by creators Gardner Fox and Ogden Whitney. He appeared in that title until 1949, as well as four issues of his own title.  See here for more on Columbia's comics.

As ACE Comics publisher Ron Frantz discusses in the latest DITKOMANIA, he acquired the rights to Columbia's The Face and The Skyman from publisher Vincent Sullivan, and first published three issues of WHAT IS... THE FACE with art by Ditko. Then in 1987 he published RETURN OF THE SKYMAN #1, with an 18-page story penciled by Steve Ditko, inked by Rick Altergott and written by Mort Todd. It begins in 1949, with Allen Turner, the Skyman, a decade into his career and considering retirement with his recent marriage and a baby on the way, gets a call that prompts him to check in on his mentor and uncle, scientist Peter Turner. He finds his uncle being interrogated by a Nazi war criminal looking for the secret to time travel, which ends up bringing the Skyman into 1987 and the immediate aftermath of a nuclear disaster.

This is only the first chapter of a longer story that never did continue, but it's an intriguing start, and The Skyman is a pretty interesting and well-designed character. Ditko does a solid job, with a lot of nice visual bits like the time machine (especially the fate of the Nazi criminal) and the post-disaster future world. Altergott's inks are very much in the slick Wallace Wood inspired vein, which works well.

This issue also features an Ogden Whitney cover from SKYMAN #1, the 3-page Fox/Whitney recap of the origin from that issue, a 1965 fanzine article about the feature and a long article by Frantz about both Whitney's life and Frantz's search for information about Whitney.  That includes some panels from a 1965  Herbie the Fat Fury story (Whitney's most famous creation) which features a Skyman cameo.

Ace Comics Presents #1 [1987]

In addition to the four comic books that Ditko drew for Ron Frantz's publishing company in 1987, he also drew the cover for this comic, which sort of reprints two early Jack Cole stories from Lev Gleason's SILVER STREAK COMICS (the Daredevil story is redrawn by C.C. Beck, of all people, with varying degrees of fidelity to the original, the Silver Streak story appears to be reproduced from a printed copy).

Anyway, a nice little cover by Ditko. I don't recall ever hearing Jack Cole cited as an influence on Ditko, and perhaps he wasn't, but there does seem to be enough of a common ground to make such a link possible. Interestingly, around the same time as this cover would have been done, Ditko drew an unpublished image, perhaps for DC's WHO'S WHO series, featuring Cole's Plastic Man and Woozy Winks.

(see comments for a link to an article by Ron Frantz which gets into the background of Ditko's work for Ace Comics, including this cover)

What Is... The Face #1 [1986]

Ron Frantz published several comics on the A.C.E. Comics imprint in the 1980s, including revivals of several characters published by Columbia Comics in the 1940s. Ditko pencilled four issues for the company, including all three issues of WHAT IS... THE FACE, an update of the 1940s character (whose first story, by Gardner Fox and Mart Bailey, is also reprinted in here). The original Face was Tony Trent, a radio station owner/commentator. The new Face is his grandson, also Tony Trent, a TV reporter who inherits the form fitting mask and colt .45 of his grandfather.

"The Ransomed City" is an 18-page story, plotted by Frantz, scripted by Joe Gill and inked by Frank McLaughlin. Tony Trent is shown to be the usual upright Ditko hero, confident of his ability to bring down the crime boss, despite skepticism from the police lieutenant, DA and station owner. After an attack and attempt on his life he decides to dig out his grandfather's old mask and gun and take the fight directly to mob boss Duke Arno. Unfortunately, while he's able to shake up Arno, it doesn't help get an arrest since the mobster just accuse that mysterious masked freak for the murder they committed.

The series is a bit of a throwback, but entertaining, and both looks and reads a lot better than most of the work Ditko was doing for Marvel around this time (his three issues of CHUCK NORRIS were around this time). McLaughlin, who inked some of Ditko's Captain Atom stories in the 1960s, was a pretty good match for Ditko's work of the time, despite a tendency towards excessive feathering at points.