Steve Ditko: Pure Concentrated Awesome

Stan Lee and Jack Kirby get a lot of credit, and rightly so, for ushering in the "Marvel Age of Comics", and laying most of the groundwork for a fictional universe that's lasted for nigh-on fifty years, now. But every family has a step-headed red-child, and for the Merry Marvel Bullpin, that child was Steve Ditko.

Ditko's work has always been my favorite of the classic Marvel creators, and you're about to find out why. But first, a little background for the uninitiated: Stan Lee had a lot of really great ideas, but he was only one man. So he developed a half-way measure for writing and plotting his comics, dubbed the "Marvel manner". Lee would develop an outline, and hand it off to his artist to break down and storyboard. The artist then gave the pages back to Lee to fill in the dialogue.

What this meant was that the artists were a lot more involved in the formation of the stories back then than they tend to be today. Most artists from this era are given co-creation status along with Lee; check the opening credits of your favorite Marvel movie if you don't believe me. As a result of this, however, a change in artist back then tended to change the tone of the entire series to a degree that's rarely seen nowadays.

This is important because any discussion of Ditko has to start with a discussion of Spider-Man. Ditko, with a background in horror and sci-fi comics, was given the artistic chores on the title because go-to guy Jack Kirby didn't give the title character the proper creepy feel Stan Lee was looking for. He looked a bit too "heroic" for a nerd-turned-outcast vigilante. Ditko's Spider-Man was lithe and stylized to more convincingly contort into many odd positions. And lo, a legend was born.

It's important to note that Ditko's other big character for Marvel was the equally-unique Dr. Strange, master of the mystic arts. Although operating for the most part in entirely different spheres of the Marvel Universe (save for a semi-controversial run of Amazing Spider-Man in the early aughts,), Spidey and Strange are similar in one very unique respect: they both started out as huge douche bags.

Both of their origin stories hinge on acts of extreme selfishness and pettiness on the part of the protagonists, leading to a semi-redemption when they embark on their heroic careers. Spider-Man's moment of hubris in letting a burglar escape (more pronounced in the film version) needs little revisiting. However, for those not knowing Strange's origin, here's the short version: Strange was originally a world-renowned surgeon, but also a pompous ass. So when his hands are injured in a car accident and he can't perform surgery anymore, no one wants to help him when he's suddenly left with no source of income. Strange, after exhausting everything else, spends the last of his money to travel to Tibet and meet a monk who's rumored to have the skills to heal Strange's hands through mystic means. The monk refuses, but offers to train Strange in the mystic arts, instead. Strange throws a hissy fit and leaves, only returning to save the monk's life from an evil wizard. Strange changes his mind and stays with the monk, and takes the monk's place as the master of the mystic arts. Yaaay.

Why is this significant? Because both of these origin stories paint the protagonists in very different ways that the other Marvel characters of the time. The Fantastic Four got their powers testing an experimental rocket ship. The X-Men were born with their powers. Iron Man was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Bruce Banner was actively saving someone else from harm when he was caught in the blast that created the Hulk.

(Some of these characters, particularly Iron Man, have had additional moral qualms inserted in re-tellings of their origins, but what's important is that wasn't present in the source material.)

Now, these characters were all unique and inventive in their own way, but the fact is that Ditko's co-creations were the result of a slightly different worldview than Lee's. In Ditko's world, even the heroes could be jerks until reality slapped them upside the head. And in both cases, the slap is huge indeed: Peter Parker lost his father figure, and Stephen Strange lost his career and all the security that entailed. Karma is a bitch in Ditko's world.

Except, of course, when it's not. Dr. Strange's recurring foes tended to be non-humans like Nightmare and Dormamu. But Spider-Man fought real people, and these people all seemed to have more going for them than he did. The worst thing that happened to a villain in the Ditko issues was jail, and sometimes even that didn't take. Dr. Octopus, the Vulture, Electro and the Sandman weren't shown to even suffer the kind of loss that Peter Parker endured. Hell, in some instances, particularly with Ock and Electro, their own hubris is what leads to their powers, and the subsequent illicit rewards those bring. Kraven the Hunter and the Chameleon, both dirty commies, are merely deported, and the Green Goblin escapes four separate times without a scratch.

The karmic inequity even extends to non-super jerks. Flash Thompson may suffer minor snafus, but he's still the most popular kid in school. Even worse, no matter how many times J. Jonah Jameson is shown to look like a fool, he's still wealthy and successful. Of course, all of these characters would eventually be fleshed out in later stories as the medium of serial comics became more complex, and many of them would be shown to have pain on par with Peter Parker's problems (say that five times fast), but essentially, Ditko is portraying a very unfair world.

Take Amazing Spider-Man #4, the first issue with the Sandman. At first, Spidey can't figure out how to handle this guy, and actually has to flee their first battle when his mask is ripped apart. But he sews it back together, and the next time the two tangle, Spidey manages to vacuum the Sandman into submission. He get some pics of the fight to sell to JJ Jameson, and while he wasn't able to make a date with Liz Allen because of the fight, he's not too bummed. At least she'd said yes, right? He's on top of the world.

And then on his walk home, he hears some folks discussing Spider-Man's exploits, and a few of them voice really vitriolic opinions. And it gets to Pete so much that he spends the last panel of the issue wondering if maybe being Spider-Man is a huge waste of time. Maybe he's doing more harm than good. Maybe he's actually slight insane, himself.

I was nine years old when I got the book that reprinted these early stories, and that ending blew my mind. Even now, I'm still impressed by the general harshness of the concept.

Sometimes, you can do everything right. But there are always going to be people that don't like you. That may even hate you. And if you listen to them and allow them to define your worldview, you're never going to be happy. This was pretty heady stuff for an allegedly "kid's" medium. You didn't even see it in other Stan Lee books. Sure, the Thing was depressed about his appearance, and Tony Stark resented his heart injury, and Captain America would get mopey about being a man out of time, but they still didn't have this crushing sense that the world itself was fundamentally unfair. Their problems were linked to specific causes; Spidey had problems because sometimes, life just sucks.

I've got to give credit for this slightly starker vision of reality to Ditko, and it's really not hard to see why once you know he was an Objectivist. Read anything by Ayn Rand, and the themes are practically identical: it's always the lone, idealized hero against an apathetic or downright hostile society. And while I don't subscribe to Objectivism as a philosophy, it certainly has ideas I can appreciate. Besides, I've tolerated weirder perspectives from lesser creators. (What the Hell does Alan Moore subscribe to, anyway?)

The "hero against the world" was physically represented in the climax to the Master Planner Saga, Ditko's summit on the Spider-Man title. Ditko would stick around for a few more issues, but his last few stories paled in comparison to the sight of Spider-Man lifting an entire building off of his back to save Aunt May. Professional differences (the identity of the Green Goblin not being one of them, despite many rumors to the contrary) had arisen between him and Lee, and the two parted on less-than-amicable terms. But that wasn't the end of his comic's career.

Ditko would also create another of my favorite characters for an independent company called Charleton Comics: the Question. Although a vastly different type of vigilante than Spider-Man, the Question is still just as unique, with a similarly-striking visual. (And a surprisingly workable costume; Ditko always took care to explain the functionality of his designs, and the Question's outfit is definitely the most feasible.)

Left to full creative control, Ditko was able to make the Question stories a much more thorough example of Objectivist thought in action. (Although still not as much as Mr. A, a completely creator-owned character who was arguably a prototype for the Question.) The Objectivist outlook was so fundamental to the Question that when the character was bought by DC Comic along with the rest of the Charleton company, new writer Denny O'Neil had to create an in-story reason as to why his depiction of the Question wouldn't operate under the same stark philosophy. (Yet another reason Denny O'Neil is awesome.)

(Oh, the in-story reason? The Question was shot and left for dead, and had to recover over many months. Yeah, that might change a guy's outlook on life.)

I've unfortunately only seen bits and pieces of Ditko's Question work. Come on, DC! You released all of Denny O'Neil's Question series, and that ran for over forty issues! Give us a Ditko Question hardcover!

Of course, comics aren't the only media where the Question is featured. He was also one of the breakout stars of the Justice League Unlimited series, where he was completely and totally awesome. And banging Huntress. Of course, the animated Question didn't have all the same Objectivist trappings of the Ditko Question, but was rather a fusion of that and the O'Neil incarnation of the character.

And of course, there's Rorschach. Rorschach was a pastiche of the Question written by a man contemptuous of Objectivism. And yet Rorschach is the most memorable character from the story, and despite the author's best efforts, the most heroic character of the piece. The Question is so awesome that even his knock-offs are awesome. That's how good Steve Ditko is.

Of course, Spider-Man and the Question are just my favorite Ditko creations, but there's many more: Hawk and Dove, Machine Man, Speedball, Captain Atom, the Creeper, Ted Kord, and Shade, the Changing Man.

Oh, and Squirrel Girl. Hot damn.

It's sad that, in many ways, Ditko is the anti-Stan Lee, at least in the sense that he refuses to do interviews or the like. I mean, the guy co-created Spider-Man! Maybe his bibliography isn't as extensive as Jack Kirby's, but it's got to count for something. And frankly, I liked his run on Spider-Man better than the more-lauded Lee/Romita Sr. run. Nothing against John Romita Sr., of course, but there was just an added edge to the Ditko stories that I appreciated a lot more as a young reader, and continue to today.

So, salutations to Steve Ditko! If Stan was the Man, and Kirby was the King, you're definitely the Duke. Or something similarly cool. You're the outcast among those creating stories for outcasts, and your stories still resonate today.