Space Adventures #13 [1979]

SPACE ADVENTURES #13 [1979] is from early in Charlton's reprint era from 1978 to 1984, during which they published very few original comics but still averaged two books with Ditko work every month.  This issue reprints a trio of stories from OUTER SPACE #1 [1968], including the Ditko illustrated "His Own Little World" (uncredited but possibly written by Joe Gill).

Great opening page on this one, with a large establishing shot of a spaceship cutting straight to a classic Ditko fistfight in progress.  The story involves Rudd, the second in command of a patrol ship hijacking the ship to an uninhabited world that he wants to rule for himself, using an invention that allows him to duplicate anything that he can think of.  Of course, his choices of what to duplicate are questionable.

Fun little story, the ending is maybe a bit... of its time, but the road there is fun, with a lot of great things for Ditko to draw, including crashing ships and cute aliens.

The Unexpected #221 [1982]

"Em The Energy Monster", a 9-page story from THE UNEXPECTED #221 [1982], is an unusual story in Ditko's work at DC.  Of the three dozen non-series stories he drew in the various anthology books, this is the only one Ditko wrote as well, and is in fact one of the few stories he did for the DC/Marvel where he was the sole credited writer.

This story features an alien who crashes on Earth and has the ability to animate any type of matter, and causes great destruction while trying to find a suitable body. Meanwhile, Dr. Bazom is in charge of efforts to stop the creature he's dubbed EM.

The concept of this story provides for some interesting visual ideas. You actually see a hint of the concept in a cover from over two decades earlier and would see it again in a story Ditko wrote almost a decade later.

The story is well-inked by Gary Martin, although the opening splash page (which looks like it was designed to be a cover, with a large space for the title logo) looks like Ditko might have inked it himself. Overall it's one of the most wholly satisfying of the short stories Ditko did for DC. Unfortunately this would be the last Ditko drawn story published by DC for several years (and going by story codes might actually have been drawn several years earlier) and the last Ditko written story ever at DC.

This was reprinted in THE STEVE DITKO OMNIBUS #1 [2011].

Doc Stearn...Mr Monster #6 [1986]

DOC STEARN...MR MONSTER #6 [1986], published by Eclipse, features a reprint of the 5-page story "Stretching Things" from FANTASTIC FEARS #5 [1954]. This Bruce Hamilton written story is one of the first Ditko stories to be drawn and published, and had been reprinted a few times before this (such as the 1970 fanzine FMZ #1, where editor Michael T. Gilbert's introduction mentions as the first place he saw it), but not in colour as far as I know. The colouring is some then-state-of-the-art work by Steve Oliff, and might be a bit over-rendered to my tastes, but doesn't look too bad compared to the original.

As I've said before, this is a great little story in both writing and art. You can see a lot of the little storytelling bits that would appear in more polished form in later Marvel and Charlton shorts.

Gilbert's introduction also includes a few bits of art that Ditko had drawn for the fanzine ALTER EGO in the 1960s.

Monsters Attack #5 [1990]

From MONSTERS ATTACK #5 [1990]  is Ditko's "The Creator", a 6-page story, the final issue of the series which had a Ditko written and drawn story in every issue.

This is Ditko’s take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein story, with a scientist (in the classic mountain-top castle overlooking a small village location) managing to create life in his lab, only needing the a sample of brain blood to finish the job and infuse the creation with a personality.  He heads into town to find the right donor, encountering a variety of personalities among the townspeople, and also revealing a few secrets about his own past.

An interesting story with a somewhat enigmatic ending, this is the story in this set most similar to the work that Ditko has done since, right up to his latest on-going self-published stories.  There are several very strong bits of imagery playing on the story’s themes of creation and personality.

This story is reprinted in the recent  TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER #16 from Robin Snyder and Steve Ditko in its original form and in colour in STEVE DITKO'S WEIRD COMICS #1 from Charlton Neo.

Monsters Attack #3 [1990]

MONSTERS ATTACK #3 [1990] is the middle of the five issues of this black and white magazine edited by Mort Todd and published by Globe Communications. In addition to some John Severin, Pat Boyette and Gene Colan in this issue is the usual Steve Ditko written and drawn story, the 5-page "Face It".

This is a nice little crime story with a science fiction twist that serves as a nice companion to two of Ditko’s major long-form works of the era, STATIC and THE MOCKER. In this, an inventor named Kuga uses his robot to kill Welson, a rich man who refuses to fund Kuga’s work, and steals Welson’s identity with another invention to get access to his money.  As you’d expect, Kuga soon faces a form of justice.

A great looking splash page of the various half-finished works in the lab, and Ditko’s renditions of the face-transforming mask is quite striking, both when it works as planned and when it goes out of control.

This story, like the other four Ditko stories in MONSTERS ATTACK and many fine stories by other artists, has never been reprinted. Yet.

Hm, why did I feel the need to add "yet"...

Strange Suspense Stories #47 [1960]

STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #47 [1960] ends with the 5-page Ditko story "His Brother's Keeper". It features Peter Marsden, a once-renowned but now reclusive scientist, who once pursued a theory that ancestral memories were stored in the unused portions of the brain. We then flashback to the tragic story when he and his brother George went to Egypt to research the work of an ancient sorcerer which might validate his theory. Let's just say that they do, but immediate human tests on experimental drugs are never a good idea.

Odd little story, parts of it are really overwritten in scientific gobbledygook, but the ending is surprisingly subtle, letting the art tell the ending in a silent final panel. Ditko's art is excellent, this is one of his more detailed jobs from the era, with some really fine shading. As usual Ditko does a good job on the Egyptian imagery, and the ending gives him a chance to draw some more historical scenes, and he does a good job with that silent ending.

This story has never been reprinted.

The cover of this issue, as was the norm for Charlton at the time, is composed of interior artwork re-purposed for the cover, in this case a collage of images from the last two pages of this story.

Curse of the Weird #1 [1993]

This is one of the reprint anthologies of Marvel science-fiction/fantasy/horror stories edited by Mort Todd in the early 1990s. Among other things, Todd hired Ditko to do some new illustrations for the books, including the cover to this issue, which is a nice image of people on the street in a story fleeing a man being struck by lightning. The image reminds me of the story "The Most Dangerous Man In The World" from WORLD OF MYSTERY #6 [1957], but that might be a coincidence.

The Ditko story reprinted in the issue is the 4-page "Do Not Panic" from STRANGE TALES #95 [1962]. A typical science-fiction parable of the era with the reaction of a city to the first landing of an alien craft. I do really like the space-suit that Ditko draws, though the colouring is a bit too modern for me.

Where Creatures Roam #3 [1970]

Two Ditko 5-page reprints in this issue.

"I Am The Victim Of The Sorcerer" is from TALES TO ASTONISH #16 [1961], a great little showcase for Ditko's art, featuring a confused and desperate man on the city streets at night, with no memory of who he is or how he got there, but with a a definite sense of fear of an evil entity drawing him closer.  The level of increasing despair Ditko brings to the character as he approaches his inevitable end is intense.  I especially like how for pages 4 and 5, he changes the layout to a less common 4 panels per row, increasing the sense of constriction the character is feeling and making the reveal in the last larger panel all the more satisfying.  Definitely a highlight among the many great shorts Ditko did in that period.

Later in the issue is "I Live Again" from TALES TO ASTONISH #8 [1960]. It's a sequel to "I Spent Midnight With The Thing On Bald Mountain", which was reprinted in the previous issue.  It's a comparatively lesser story, as the statue come to life survives its fall from the previous story (with some selective memory about what caused it), terrorizes the nearby village, then decides to head for America to fulfil its dreams of world conquest. So he takes over a fleeing ship, orders it to head to the US, sinks it as it gets close to Florida, just to be mean. Fortunately for Earth it decides to hide out in a steel structure in a fenced in field to plan some more, which just happens to be a rocket being fired out into deep space.  Seriously. Oh well, at least Ditko does his usual good job with the art to elevate the story.  The stone texture of the creature is great, and it punching out an alligator and tossing around a bull is kind of funny.

The cover is the Kirby/Ditko cover from TALES TO ASTONISH #16 [1961], with a lot of little modifications as was common for cover reprints at Marvel around that time.

Charlton Premiere #4 [1968]

"The Time Machine" is a neat little 7-page time travel story with art by Ditko. The title page is a really great image of a ship going through time, shown as a tunnel with slices of various times going from the far future back into history.  It starts in the very advanced looking 2037 A.D., and now that we're more than half-way there from when the story was published, I'm pretty confident we won't have those flying cars by then.  A young scientist is trying to get an elder one to help him develop his time travel theories, but the older man doesn't believe it's possible, and even if it is considers the consequences of changing the past too dangerous.  Evidently he grew up reading old Charlton comics...

The kid doesn't buy it, and throws himself into his research with renewed vigor, perfecting his invention with a minimum of design work.  Seriously, the thing looks like a giant bullet.  It works, though, and he decides to go check out the cavemen.  Oddly, we're taken back to the past by a previously unseen narrator, a guy in a green hooded robe.  Not sure what his name is.  Anyway, he introduces us to a particular caveman who's destined to be the ancestor of half of humanity.  Well, until his hunger leads him to the wrong place and he gets killed by a time machine.  Fortunately for humanity, the rules of time travel in this particular reality aren't the same as that old comic.

A nice little story, although some of the narration is a bit too cute, trying a bit too hard.  In addition to that great time tunnel image, Ditko's version of savagery (something he uses in a lot of his independent work as well) is always a treat.

According to an intereview in ALTER EGO, Steve Skeates wrote this story.

Space War #34 [1979]

A trio of Ditko reprints in this issue. The cover is the absolutely splendid giant alien squid monster cover to SPACE ADVENTURES #11 [1954], one of Ditko's best from his first stint at Charlton. Recoloured the monster green here, but that works.

The issue opens with the oft-reprinted 6-page "Mystery Planet" from STRANGE SUSPENSE STORIES #36 [1958]. There are some excellent visuals in this one of a killer planet on the rampage, with an evil face on it and destroying other worlds. I'm pretty sure this is the only story with this cast, the heroic Commander Bryan Bodine, his beautiful navigator Nedra and Dr. Wradek, but they're treated as on-going characters very much in a Buck Rogers type set-up. Anyway, the story is a visual treat, with the planet and the aliens and lots of heroics. The ending is a bit of a letdown, but about what you'd expect in a 6-page story. An interesting note is how well this story would fit in with some of the solo stories Ditko did 20 years later for QUESTAR, so I guess he found a lot to like in the basic set-up.

Later in the issue is the less well known "Automata Ultima", a 3-page story from MYSTERIES OF UNEXPLORED WORLDS #12 [1959], in its only reprint to date. An intriguing title, although the story doesn't quite live up to it. It opens with a future Earth, where the automated machines continue to make an endless supply of weapons long after the human civilization is dead and gone. This turns out to be a nightmare of a 1950s arms-maker, I guess reflecting his fears about the weapons he's working on. I'm guessing this made more sense in 1959. A couple of neat images by Ditko, not marred by any speech balloons on the first two pages.

Monsters Attack #2 [1989]

MONSTERS ATTACK #2 [1989] is the second of five issues of this magazine from Globe Communications, all of them featuring a short story written and illustrated by Steve Ditko. In this case it's the 5-page "It's All In His Head". The table of contents lists the finisher as "E. O'Brain", who I believe may be editor Mort Todd, but I haven't confirmed that yet (see comments). It's pretty good, anyway. The linework is a little rough around the edges, but I do like some of the use of tone work, assuming that was part of "finishing".

A strange little story, with some echoes of the classic "Dream World" from TALES TO ASTONISH #26 [1961], with the gimmick of someone waking up from a series of nightmares, never knowing what's real. This one has the added visual of bodies flying into pieces (also a motif he's used a few times, like with Missing Man), and actually has an explanation in the end. A very nice little story, with Ditko taking a couple of visual ideas and running with them to extremes. I'd definitely like to see a collection of all of his stray bits of work from various magazines like this, QUESTAR and CRACKED.

Questar #5 [1979]

Ditko had a story in each of the first five issues of William G. Wilson Jr.'s science fiction magazine QUESTAR, with "The Rescue" in this issue being the final one. Only a 2-page story, unlike the 6-pagers in the previous issues.

The story is pretty basic, space hero Kace rescues his girlfriend Niela from some weird alien creature. In a nice change from the norm for these kinds of stories, Niela gets in a few shots of her own, and the dialogue is pretty snappy. I'm sure some people will be glad to hear there's not much philosophical preaching, other than Kace saying the villain will "get none of [his] tears" when the villain's weapon backfires on him.

The real star is the artwork. Ditko's work for QUESTAR is always very detailed, apparently drawn at a larger size than was standard for his DC/Marvel/Charlton work of the same era, and his inking is just stunning. It's an added bonus that this great work also got the best production Ditko's work had seen up to that point, still looking brand new on bright white paper after 30 years, unlike anything those other companies published then.

Secrets of Haunted House #45 [1982]

Steve Ditko draws the 8-page story "Star-Trakker", written by Stan Timmons, in this issue of what was DC's then-quickly dwindling line of genre anthology titles. The fact that this is a science fiction story in one of the ghost/mystery titles suggests that they were using up the various inventory they had from cancelled titles like MYSTERY IN SPACE.

This is a really nice little story, opening with some mysterious scenes of a creature lurking the in Louisiana swamps, and a government agent named Stone sent down to take care of the situation, as we gradually get clues to what's really going on. Some tight writing and a very nice unexpected twist at the end.

Since a lot of the story is told in captions, Ditko's are really gets a chance to shine, with some nice panels to set the mood, especially in the swamp scenes, and some really good work on the action sequences.

 

Questar #2 [1978]

 Ditko writes and draws a 6-page story for this issue of William G. Wilson Jr.'s SF/fantasy magazine, this time debuting "The Destruction Agent". It's a frantic and dense little story about the attempt of Spago, an agent of the dictator Zenek, trying to get the security codes to the planet Atn, using his traitors he has on the inside. Young Captain Brash is fired from the security unit for voicing suspicion that there's a traitor and gets some experimental devices from Dr. Veg that enable him to follow Spago to his base and then defeat Zenek's armada.

This is a good example of Ditko's science fiction work of the era (and with some obvious similarities to SHADE, which he was likely still working on or had just wrapped up when he did this). Not a lot of time available for characterization or explanations, some interesting twists and some great artwork (which is reproduced much better here than in his colour work at this time).  Check out some of the detail in those panels, the ships in the space armada, the feeling of depth in the last two panels. Really prime Ditko stuff.

Ditko's work appeared in the first five issues of QUESTAR, including the "Cosage" story in #1.

Tales of the Mysterious Traveler #15 [1985]

Original material from Steve Ditko appeared in Charlton comics until 1978, and from then on it was a steady stream of reprints, usually two or more a month, for as long as Charlton was a going concern.

Then, late in the company's run, there was some new Ditko stuff printed in their pages again in 1985, only this time it was material owned by Ditko.  Two issues of CHARLTON ACTION FEATURING STATIC presented revised versions the first two chapters of Static previously published by Eclipse, along with some other new and revised Ditko stories, and after reviving the 1950s series TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER with an all reprint #14 they included a new Ditko story among the reprints in #15, which turned out to be the final issue.

The issue opens up with a reprint of the 5-page "The Desert" from TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER #4 [1957] (though with the first page edited to remove the title to make room for the indicia). A decent little story about two men trapped for months in an remote Arctic outpost until the younger man gets cabin fever and decides to brave the elements.  Nothing too special, but the giant floating head of the Traveler watching the proceedings is always interesting.

The new story follows, "Deadly Shadow", an 8-page story written and drawn by Ditko. The Traveler only appears at the beginning and end.  Clever little morality play about a down-and-out inventor who comes up with a device that turns him into a living shadow, and uses it for criminal purposes.  A series of double crosses and betrayals and hasty actions leaves him with a serious dilemma in the end.  A solid example of Ditko's work of the era, finding different ways of exploring a theme to keep it visually interesting for the length of the story.

"Mister Evriman" from TALES OF THE MYSTERIOUS TRAVELER #4 [1957] has always been one of my favourite of these 1950s Charlton shorts.  The 6-page suspense story starts with the Traveler musing about that impact of this new-fangled "television" thing on American society, with a nice symbolic urban background dominated by antennas on every building.  A pollster doing some research finds some disturbing correlations about the negative impact of game shows, and how they're setting the world up for tyranny and destruction, until a game-show contestant named Homer Evriman shows up, who everyone sees as a reflection of themselves, setting the cosmic balance straight. Sure, it makes little sense, but it's a tale well told.

THIS MAGAZINE IS HAUNTED #16 [1958] is the source for the 4-page "The Night Was Strange", a science fiction drama narrated by Dr. Haunt, who we're supposed to believe is someone other than the Mysterious Traveler. Actually, he's slightly re-drawn and coloured here to make him seem even more like the Traveler, not that it takes a lot. This science fiction story has an astronaut returning from a two year mission on an experimental rocket, only to find himself in some totalitarian future. A nice little twist at the end improves the story somewhat, and as usual Ditko does a better job with the storytelling than the story needed.

While all-Ditko in the middle, the story opens and closes with some non-Ditko, a very strange Alex Nino cover and a Henry Boltinoff gag page that could have come right out of a 1950s DC comics.

Fantasy Masterpieces #2 [1966]

This issue reprints "Those Who Lurk Below", a 6-page Ditko story from TALES OF SUSPENSE #12 [1960]. At a 19th century penal colony, one prisoner, Pierre, is singled out for especially cruel treatment by the guard Kragok. Assigned to clean up some ancient ruins in a tunnel, he finds an old book called "The Legend of the Earth Dwellers". From this book Equality learns of the Unspeakable Word. Sorry, that's not right. He finds out about an ancient race which was unable to live on the surface so retreated underground using powerful brain-operated digging chairs. Bolstered by this new hope, he keeps working, and finally finds a digger, not realizing that Kragok has planted both it and the book to give Pierre false hope that he could then crush. Imagine his surprise when the chair works, Pierre escapes to an underground utopia that Kragok is doomed to spend the rest of his life searching for.

This story, especially the page shown, is a great little showcase for the expressiveness of Ditko's faces. The feelings of hate and fear and anger and hope and surprise all come through loud and clear on all the characters. And interesting to note that his visual concept of a utopian city remains consistent through the years, as that last panel is pretty much a different angle view of the city on the cover of AVENGING WORLD [1973] (and reprinted as the cover of AVENGING WORLD [2002]).

Part of a Ditko panel from page 6 is used on the cover of this issue, and the three artists reprinted in here (Kirby, Ditko and Heck) actually all get billing on the cover with their story titles, something not too common at the time.

Monsters Attack #1 [1989]

MONSTERS ATTACK was a black and white anthology comic book edited by Mort Todd and published by Globe Communications, the company that put out CRACKED. It lasted five issues and featured lots of comics by the likes of John Severin, Pat Boyette and Gray Morrow, plus some illustrated prose and articles on horror/monster movies (Romero's "Living Dead" trilogy (as it was then) in this first issue).

And of course Steve Ditko, who had a short story in every issue. This debut issue has the 6-page science fiction story "In Solid", very much a morality play in the vein of the old Marvel/Charlton work (in fact, it even has thematic echoes with the old Hamilton/Ditko "Stretching Things"). A criminal breaks into a science lab hoping to steal some notes, and ends up turning an experimental device on the scientist. This somehow makes the scientist's body absorb into the very fabric of the building, able to bring the walls or floors or machines to life. And of course, he's out for revenge.

This is a very strong story from Ditko, taking a clever visual idea and really running with it in the few pages he has. In fact, since Ditko in 3-D has been on my mind lately, I was briefly thinking how perfect this would have been as a back-up in SUBSTANCE a few years later, and then I realized that Ditko captured the 3-D look here without any need for special effects and glasses.

The scripting is also really good, capturing in very few words both the fear and confusion of the criminal and the anger and thirst for revenge of the scientist. If this had been in those old Marvel or Charlton comics of the 1950s, I think it would be considered one of the highlights of that era.

I hope at some point we see a collection of the various short pieces like this that Ditko owns the rights to (along with a collection of Mr. A.). There's some good stuff in there that hasn't been widely seen.

Revolver #3 [1986]

Ditko writes and draws the 12-page story "The Expert" for this issue of the Robin Snyder edited anthology from Renegade. The story is apparently a revision of the story of the same name that I don't have, published in QUESTAR #3 [1979], which is listed as a 6-page story. The pages are printed sideways, in landscape format, in this story, so I'm assuming that each page of the original was split into two pages here, among other changes.

The story is one of those Ditko ones where he seemed to get ahead of himself, probably knowing more of the backstory than he manages to get into a coherent form on the actual page, so it's very high on action and energy, very low on characterization. The story has a despot named Zar who is opposed by two rebels named Cela and Raig, as well as the treachery of one of his own men, Xex. Boy, sometimes you could just type in letters at random and get Ditko names...

The art is much better than the story, really slick and exciting space opera, really detailed classic Ditko art (I'm also struck by how much, in stories like this, you can see Ditko's influence on popular "cosmic" artists of the era like Steve Rude and Jim Starlin. Zar would fit neatly as a villain in NEXUS or DREADSTAR).

Outer Space #21 [1959]

Damn, that's a big, obtrusive promo blurb on that cover.

Otherwise it's a pretty good cover. At first I thought it was one of those unusual "friendly alien" covers, rescuing some American astronauts, contrary to the vast majority of "alien menace" imagery in comics and pop culture of the era, but looking closer I think those humans are captured prisoners of the alien. Damn sneaky aliens, can never trust them.

Also, Ditko's vision of alien architecture, in this case the giant floating space centre, presumably the space POW camp in the space war, in the background, is always a delight.

Space Adventures #12 [1954]

Here's a fan favourite among Ditko's cover-only books, seeing how it was used as the front cover for both Michael Wileman's A 50'S DITKO COVER GALLERY [1982] and Vanguard's STEVE DITKO - SPACE WARS [2005] (hardcover version). Just a delightful little piece from early in Ditko's career (his first published story was less than a year before this, and his first cover only six months prior).

Ditko's obviously showing a strong influence from the then-current EC sci-fi comics of the era, in particular Wallace Wood and Al Williamson, with the female astronaut being attired in an outfit that is impractical at best (high heels and a conveniently transparent suit over a form fitting suit). That's also a magnificent alien.

And I know some people dislike dialogue on covers, but can even they argue that it works on this one?