Wally Wood's Thunder Agents #4 [1986]

As mentioned before, Ditko did work on the Thunder Agents for many publishers. This version was published by Deluxe Comics, and it's pretty much accepted now that they didn't actually have the legal right to do so, but the creators at the time obviously didn't know that.

"An Alien Nation" is a 10-page story by Steve Perry with art by Ditko and Greg Theakston, the second part of a NoMan story that began the previous issue. NoMan is of course the robotic member of the Agents who can transfer his identity between various bodies. In this story he's sent, with about 100 spare bodies, to attack a would-be world conqueror with the unlikely name Cyrano de Klopps, who has stolen some Thunder technology, which he's combined in a Thundersuit that one of his hapless minions wears. Fun little story in the vein of the original Agents stories, more than a little intentionally goofy, with some clever stuff involving NoMan switching bodies, and really great inking by Theakston. Well worth it for a Ditko fan to seek these issues out.

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.

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.

Supernatural Law #27 [2000]

This issue has a reprint of one of those rare instances of Ditko inking someone else's pencils, in this case Batton Lash for a 4-page story featuring Lash's "Wolff & Byrd" characters. It was originally published in colour in SATAN'S SIX #1 [1993] from Topps, reprinted here from Lash's own Exhibit A Press with some tonework added in place of the colour. It's a pretty appropriate pairing, since Lash is among the most directly Ditko inspired cartoonists working in comics today, and among other things "Wolff & Byrd" is often a humourous take on the short fantasy/horror stories Ditko did for Marvel and Charlton.

This particular story starts very much in the vein of a STRANGE TALES yarn from 1960, with a teacher mocked by others learning to summon a demon, and using the powers of the demon to gather riches and take revenge on his enemies. Soon he finds himself party to a lawsuit brought on by Wolff & Byrd, lawyers specializing in the supernatural, and he goes to trial as his own lawyer, and you know what they say about that.

It's a very funny story, and the artwork is a perfect blend of Lash and Ditko's styles (and even includes a joke about those wonderful Ditko "magic gesture" fingers). Well worth picking up in any of its printings (I think it's also in the collection THE VAMPIRE BRAT AND OTHER TALES OF SUPERNATURAL LAW [apparently not, but still a book worth getting]). And of course if you like Ditko you'd be well advised to check out Lash's other work, including his new online strip version of Supernatural Law.

Hall of Fame Featuring the THUNDER Agents #2 [1983]

Ditko somehow managed to do original THUNDER Agents work for four different publishers over the years. First of course for the original Tower series with Wallace Wood. This one was for JC Comics, on a series reprinting some of the original 1960s Tower stories. No Ditko reprints in this particular issue, but he pencilled the NoMan cover, with inks by Willie Blyberg. The same image, with slightly different colouring, appeared on the backcover of the issue without logos and such.

Ditko would later do a new NoMan story intended for JC Comics' original THUNDER AGENTS book, but wound up in an Archie comic instead. Then he'd also do a couple of stories for Deluxe's WALLY WOOD'S THUNDER AGENTS.

Imagine #4 [1978]

IMAGINE was a fantasy anthology published by Mike Friedrich's Star*Reach Productions in the 1970s. This issue includes Ditko's only contribution to the title, an 8-page story printed as a colour section on glossy paper, I think the first time a Ditko story would have seen better than standard newsprint.

Paul Levitz, who Ditko had worked with before on Stalker and would work with again on Starman, writes the story "The Summoning", a sort of odd fantasy/sci-fi story about the last survivors of a race and how they attempt to persuade some metaphysical being to follow their own visions of the future of their race. The scripting has kind of a strange air of pretentiousness that I don't really associate with Levitz, but then he was a college student at the time, so who knows what sort of substances he was ingesting. Very oblique dialogue which can be tough slogging at times, although I thought it picked up a bit on the last page and is pretty effective there. Ditko's art suits the odd atmosphere of the story, using similar visual motifs as what he used in Doctor Strange and Shade, and I don't know if it's the superior reproduction or what but this does seem to be a bit better than most of the DC/Charlton short stories he was doing around the same time.

Ditko also draws the cover of the issue.

Eclipse Monthly #2 [1983]

Static was one of Ditko's main works of the 1980s, clearly one he cared about finishing since he eventually took it to four publishers to finish. The first was Eclipse, where he ran the first three chapters in their anthology title. This is the second chapter, which he later revised when it was re-published, including completely re-lettering the story, plus some minor art changes. The biggest change in the script is that he changed the name of the lead character from "Mac Rey" to "Stac Rae". I'm not sure that was an improvement...

In "The Exploder", Mac is testing the new magnetic powers and suit he got in the previous chapter, while Dr. Serch and his daughter Fera observe, with Fera thinking he's being too reckless. While not planning to use the powers in any adventures, and despite being cautioned against it by Fera, pretty soon Mac is in costume and fighting the Exploder, who killed a friend of Dr. Serch. In the end, Fera hides the suit, afraid that they'll be unable to resist the temptation to use it.

Static was a pretty fascinating series. Ditko does tend to over-write sometimes, and there's a reason "didactic" is often used to describe him, but there are quite a few surprises and interesting twists in the full series, though it takes a few chapters for that to start. I'll post more about those when I get to the full book on the weblog someday.

For the early chapters, there's a lot of nice visuals to admire under the heavy word balloons.

Ditko writes and draws the 10-page story.

Daughters of Time 3-D [1991]

Unlike some artists of his stature, it's pretty rare to see Ditko do covers for books where he didn't do the interior art, and almost all the examples that there are come from Charlton and often not really related to any interior story or feature. One of those rare exceptions is DAUGHTERS OF TIME 3-D, a 1991 book published by 3-D Zone and created by frequent Ditko collaborator Jack C. Harris. Kurt Schaffenberger designed the characters and was the interior artist for the book, and he also inked the Ditko cover, which also appears on the back-cover with 3-D effects. I really like the design of the piece, very well suited for the 3-D theme even without the actual effect (and I can barely see actual 3-D comics), as well as the goofy nature of the feature, and Schaffenberger's inks look really nice with the Ditko.