Shade The Changing Man!

It is not difficult to argue that Shade the Changing Man was Steve Ditko's last significant creation for mainstream comics. It's a been decades since I read these stories and frankly reading them all together and not once a month has altered my opinion. For one thing the stories are incredibly dense, both in plot and numbers of characters. The fact that unusual names are common only makes keeping the rosters of good and bad guys distinct and further hurting that effort is the fact that at least half the cast is keeping a criminal secret and the rest are duplicitous about something at the very least. These are agents of a bizarre other-dimensional government which seems to lots of laws but seems to have difficulty dispensing justice. No doubt that was intentional. 

In Shade the Changing Man I see one of the most complex universes Dikto ever took time to concoct. Usually his heroes operate in a version of the very real world in  cookie cutter cities called Hub, River, or some such name meant to evoke a film noir setting. But here we have the Earth as just one setting with Shade's home being the Meta-Zone and between the two a weird wild dangerous territory called the Zero-Zone. There are characters brimming in all of these locations, so many at first that I frequently got lost in the crowd of offbeat names.  

I was reminded of nothing so much as the lush beautiful "Fourth World" fashioned by Jack Kirby for his New Gods adventures. In those tales Earth is just one battleground among several, though a critical one. Here it seems to be much the same. 

Also Ditko creates some of his most visually arresting villains. As wacky as Shade is himself with his visually interesting but sometimes difficult to fathom powers we get the likes of an angry warrior "Zokag" who reminded me of Kalibak with his ferocious ways, their weird color-shifting "Form" who seemed to scare everybody, and the stark white "Cloak" who reminded me a lot of the Ghost from those Charlton Captain Atom comics. 

There's a family drama imbedded in the saga too with Shade's love interest imagining he's hurt her family and betrayed the Meta-Zone.The villain "Sude" who looks like a version of Pac-Man at times makes the most of these misunderstandings. Shade is in fact thought a villain through almost all of the run we have in hand. 

I got the sense that after his battle with the ultra villain "Khaos" that his standing might well be improving and it did in some quarters. Still and all he was pursued by the authorities as a traitor with a death sentence on his head. 

The action moves beyond our hero Rac Shade when he slips into a "color coma" which is just what you'd expect. He periodically changes color as he lies unconscious following his defeat of Khaos. 

The transition is being made in the book and you get the feeling that Shade's days as a marked man are going to end as he undertakes a mission back to the Earth-Zone for elements of the Meta-Zone leadership. He's not been publicly exonerated but his girl friend knows he's an innocent man and so do many others who now stand beside and support him. This shift happens just as the title abruptly ends. 

One final issue of Shade the Changing Man was produced by Ditko and in this one he is waylaid on his way to the Earth-Zone and battles a deadly villain in the Zero-Zone. All the way through in these Zero-Zone skirmishes I got the feeling of deja vu as the fights reminded me of Doctor Strange's forays into the Dark Dimension to take on Dormmamu in the pages of Strange Tales. Of course this is a science fiction seeting but the visuals are much in the same vein. 

Some call Shade the Changing Man Ditko's last great mainstream comic work and I'd tend to agree with them. I was much impressed on this reading at the potential for the characters and the new setting. I know much work was done with Shade and his Meta-Verse when it was inducted into the arcane Vertigo universe. I haven't read any of those stories and cannot comment, but for sure they got their inspiration from the deft artwork and mind of Steve Ditko. 

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Ditko At Atlas-Seaboard!

THE DESTRUCTOR is the book that gets my vote for the best that Atlas-Seaboard had to offer. With true comics giants like Archie Goodwin on scripts, Steve Ditko on pencils, and Wally Wood on inks, this book is an instant classic. The familiar story has a few interesting twists, as a young boy gone bad works smalltime for the local gangs, and ignores the wisdom of his scientist father. The gang lord imagines the kid to be some kind of threat and orders him hit, but the father sacrifices himself to save the boy. Dying, the father gives the boy a potion that heals the boy's wounds and gives him superpowers of all sorts. The boy of course then realizes the errors of his ways and promptly promises revenge on the gangs. He finds a costume and the game is afoot. The book is full of great Ditko action, and it features some lovely Wood finishes. A master-hitman named "Slaymaster" shows up, but the "Destructor" (always found that name a bit of a mouthful) wins out. By story's end the gang lord is killed by his own boys, and the Destructor is set up to continue his one-man war against organized crime. It's a good tight superhero story. A highlight of the Atlas-Seaboard run, there has been a lot suggested about this book being a response to Spider-Man and the parallels are pretty obvious, the most telling thing though is the presence of Spidey creator Ditko. This saga seems like vintage Ditko to me, and typical of his other work for Charlton and DC as well as Marvel. Good Ditko is good no matter where you find it. (Special note: This is the only mainline superhero title of the first wave edited by Larry Lieber, who edited all of the genre books.)

One of the often-overlooked comic book masterpieces of the mid 70's is The Destructor by the all-star team of Archie Goodwin, Steve Ditko, and Wally Wood. All three heavyweights combined their awesome comics might to bring to life a tough-as-nails revision of the superhero, a variation of Spider-Man and The Creeper, but with a serious mad on for organized crime. A small-time criminal becomes imbued with superpowers and sets out to revenge himself on the mobsters who killed his scientist father.

The splash page above is a stunner and one of the reasons many of us who bought it back thought that Atlas-Seaboard might actually be around for the long haul. We were woefully wrong, but we did get two gigantic issues by three of comics' all-time great talents. Read the exciting debut origin issue here.

The Destructor returns in the second issue with Goodwin, Ditko, and Wood still doing top-of-the-line work as our hero battles a hired killer called Deathgrip. Read the complete story here.

THE DESTRUCTOR #2 continues under the multiple hands of Goodwin, Ditko, and Wood, but there seems to have been more haste in the artwork. The story gets Jay Hunter, The Destructor out West where he is manipulated into a battle with Deathgrip, a hitman for the Combine, a criminal organization that wants control of the rackets. Jay runs across a possible love interest and gets himself insinuated in a mod organization so he can destroy it from within. Good intrigue. The second page of that awesome story featured a stunning image of the Destructor in full Diktoesque form with Woodian finishes punching out some assorted thugs. Prime stuff! That pose evokes Spidey for sure, but admittedly there is a somewhat generic look to The Destructor. But not so much as to make completely forgettable.

DESTRUCTOR #3 gives us another installment in this ongoing Archie Goodwin - Steve Ditko epic saga. Gone this issue is Wally Wood, and the artwork seems to have been inked by Ditko. I don't know about that. The story continues with the Destructor still battling thugs from the Combine, but this time under the direction of Dr. Shroud. He sends the Huntress and her attentive sidekick Lobo to take on the Destructor, and they trap him in an elaborate casino/canyon (you've really got to see this one to understand that). Because the thugs fight among themselves, the Destructor lives to fight another day. One thing about our hero, he's certainly presented as a cool character who is willing to sacrifice others to achieve his goals. The anti-hero is popular with Atlas, but in many respects Jay Hunter is the purest example of the disaffected modern protagonist.

THE DESTRUCTOR #4 is a weird, weird comic book. This series began with Atlas-Seaboard's most accomplished creative team (Goodwin, Ditko, Wood), but by the time this vintage urban crime/action/superhero series gets to its fourth issue only Sturdy Steve Ditko remains from the original trio. He's joined by Gerry Conway on scripts and Al Milgrom on inks. We find The Destructor hiding from Combine thugs in a cave somewhere in the Southwest. He dispatches them, but one is destroyed by a mysterious beam. Jay Hunter, our hero, looks up to see some very unusual Ditko creations, The Outcasts. They are The Eye, Kronus, and Sister Siren and they happen to be mutant freaks with telepathic abilities and more, and they are specifically looking for Jay Hunter, because like them he's an Outcast. Or so they say. Just like that, our story turns and the plot threads of the last three issues are largely forgotten as the Destructor is taken to the Secret Citadel. It's a haven built in the 1950's by disaffected folks looking to escape the dangerous world outside. They unwisely worked with an unscrupulous businessman who insists they use nuclear power in their underground city, which leaks radiation, infects their sixty or so children and creates the Outcasts. After killing the businessman and his associates, the parents live out their lives and now thirty years later in 1975, the irradiated progeny are in charge. They want Jay Hunter (strangely called "Jay Raven" in one panel) to join them to protect the city from outsiders. There's a bit of dramatic irony when in a typically strange Ditko panel the Outcasts appear quite devilish when an unaware Jay Hunter agrees to join them. Suddenly there's also a new underground nuclear test that irradiates the city again and our hero the Destructor, blending with the chemicals already in his blood and viola he can suddenly unleash power blasts from his fists. With this new talent, The Destructor agrees to battle for the Outcasts and the story ends. What happens next we'll never know, because this is the last issue of the series.

The Destructor was in many ways, Atlas-Seaboard's most accomplished series, but sadly by its finale it has become a bizarre shadow of itself. The hero has been contorted beyond recognition, and the story's twists and turns are well outside the limits established in the rather intriguing beginnings. I'm not sure The Destructor was my favorite Atlas book, but its fall was easily the most disappointing.

TIGER-MAN is a character that debuted in the B&W books before finding colorful glory. The story of Dr. Hill begins in THRILLING ADVENTURE STORIES #1 and he's a researcher in Africa inspired by the instinct for survival that seems to thrive in animals and people of the region. A few scientific experiments and an injection later he is imbued with those instincts and lots of other powers. He's attacked by a tiger and later gets its hide to use as a totem. He does so months later in the big city when he takes on muggers and rapists. His sister is attacked and killed, and Tiger-Man takes to the streets to seek vengeance. He finds it, and then he promises to keep at it. The artwork is decent Ernie Colon but doesn't have the energy of his Grim Ghost work. The cover for this issue by Colon is one of the strangest in the whole Atlas line, and it seems to me to be a very quickly produced item. 

TIGER-MAN #2 is a real change of pace issue. Steve Ditko takes on the hero and gives him a really dynamic energy he was missing in the earlier chapters. Gerry Conway takes the writing helm, and Tiger-Man seems to become a more conflicted hero, more concerned with the lives of his enemies. 

He encounters the Blue Leopard, a man empowered with the same talents as himself yet set on a revenge mission against Dr. Hill, the Tiger-Man. There are more than a few clues to suggest the Blue Leopard is a Black Panther clone, with several origin details in common with Marvel's kingly hero. Lots of good fight scenes in this one, and a grand Frank Thorne cover.

TIGER-MAN #3 gives us some very muscular and inviting Steve Ditko artwork with Al Milgrom inks. The script by Gerry Conway is rambling succession of coincidences, almost all involving mysterious suicides and attempted suicides. Dr. Hill / Tiger-Man investigates and discovers a mad psychiatrist named Dr. Hypnos who compels people to kill themselves. He pulls this trick on Tiger-Man, but ironically our hero is saved by some crooks who attempt to mug him and so save him from immolating himself. He takes a second stab at Hypnos, grabs his monocle, the source of his power, and compels Hypnos to throw himself off a roof. Tiger-Man's adventures have come to an end with this final issue.

MORLOCK 2001 AND THE MIDNIGHT MEN #3 (formerly known as simply Morlock 2001) is the saga that gets one of the sharpest twists in direction. Steve Ditko with some Berni Wrightson inks gives the book a new look, and the story involves a scientist horribly burned who leads a revolution against the same oppressive government that gave birth to Morlock. Morlock is taken underground where the newly dubbed "Midnight Man" seeks to enlist him in the war. 

The Thought Police attack and the battle rages. Morlock seems to fall, even to be dead as the story closes with the Midnight Man vowing to fight on. Issue #4 might have been retitled I suspect, but this series ends with this issue.

And that's Ditko at the short-lived Atlas-Seaboard operation. Seven glorious issues and he was one of the very few talents to last the whole way. It is notable that Ditko produced not a single cover for the outfit. 

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Ditko's Cannon!

Cannon was a Wally Wood project produced mostly for his military comic strips intended for soldiers in the early 70's. He used his whole studio of up-and-coming talents, but before all that, when it came to bringing Cannon to comic books, he turned to longtime pro and fellow renegade Steve Ditko. Below is a typical Ditko page produced for the above Cannon comic, similar to the work he'd done for Wood at Tower Comics a few years before. 

Cannon is in many ways Wally Wood's most mature creation. That might sound odd given the prurient nature of many of the panels laced both with brutality and with unmitigated misogyny. These rough and tumble adventure comic strips were originally produced beginning in 1971 for The Overseas Weekly, a newspaper for American soldiers stationed across the world. This is a mature audience indeed. I've always considered it the underground version of the THUNDER Agents.

Cannon is a "man's man", which mostly means he uses guns proficiently, is not afraid of a fight and does so, and treats women abominably in a morally ambiguous "cold war" of both personal and international proportions. That's not to say that some of the women he confronts aren't dangerous, but there's little doubt in Cannon's world that women are for screwing, whether you are screwing them or they are screwing you, both figuratively and literally.

The violence in Cannon is rugged, though hardly graphic by any modern definition. This is after all Wally Wood, and his lean craftsmanship shines through always in glorious black and white. The spare orderliness of Wood's designs gives the rugged world of Cannon a handsome veneer which makes it seem less grotesque than it actually is.

I first ran across the Cannon saga in four of Wally Wood's over-sized self-published comic magazines from the late 70's and early 80's. As the covers proclaim, these are for "Adults Only" and that's true enough. The sex and violence, which blends into a sado-masochistic mishmash at times is not for the kiddies. These are comics, but not those kinds of comics.

What they are though is highly recommended and nigh essential reading for any Wood fan. The color Cannon precursor stories produced independently by Wood with penciling help from Steve Ditko in Heroes Inc. Presents Cannon.  

There are two issues, the one at the top of this post from 1969 and a later volume from 1976 from the CPLGang. Both stories, one in splendid color and one in glorious black and white are included. Given the format designed for the Fantagraphics collection of Cannon to showcase the comic strip they reproduced somewhat smaller than the ideal, but it's good to have them. In the first story Cannon defeats an entire island full of Red Chinese soldiers and in the second he battles a small army of Neo-Nazis. 

Cannon is rough, Cannon is tough, but Cannon is worth it.

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Killjoy Was Here!

It's just barely possible the finest and most effective comic blending philosophy and good storytelling in Steve Ditko's canon might be his deliriously entertaining Killjoy. Killjoy (we never know him in any other identity) is a raucous red hero who descends into a wild and action-filled universe to capture criminals, right wrongs and makes sure that everyone knows why.
 

He first appeared to the world in the pages of Charlton's E-Man #2, the obligatory back-up feature turned over to Steve Ditko without apparently much if any editorial direction. He manufactures a slapstick demon of right who leaps and bounds into the comic book pages, using their very structure to hide himself from his enemies. 

He got a second appearance in the rear of E-Man #4 and then it was off to the hinterlands of Steve Ditko's vaunted imagination. He reminds me very much of Deadpool, a hero who seems aware of his four-color status and plays on that to the delight of the readers and himself. 

The two Killjoy adventures from Charlton are reprinted in the very first Ditko Package. 

And a third Killjoy avdventure shows up in the All-New 176-Page Package. It's twice the length of the original outings and sadly nowhere nearly as entertaining. The compression of the back-up space brought out the best in Killjoy it seems. 

If there are other Killjoy stories out there, I'd love to know about them. Mr. A was a hero who felt the need to go on at length about why this or that needed to happen and then he'd take action, or perhaps in some cases no action. Killjoy does it all silently at hyper speed and it's much more fun to watch and still the points are made. To read Killjoy's two Charlton outings check out this very groovy link. 

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Who Is The Question?

When it comes to Ditko heroes there is no question that the epitome is The Question. By this time Ditko had created or co-created Captain Atom, Spider-Man, Dr.Strange as well as this zippy new Blue Beetle. But it's clear to my eye that The Question is the hero Ditko always wanted to create, and actually he did it twice. More on that anon. But to answer the query Ditko poses on his very appearance "Who is the Question?"

Created in the back pages of "The All-New" Blue Beetle, The Question was in fact hard-hitting reporter and ginger Vic Sage. Sage worked in the rough and tumble streets of Crown City, investigating corruption and crime regardless of where it led and who in positions of influence and power might be embarrassed or implicated. Vic Sage spoke his own mind, a mind guided by strict adherence to reason and evidence. He works for Worldwide Broadcasting and is assisted by his tough as nails team of Fred Pine, Al Kert, Bob Hasel, and the lovely Nora Lace. His boss is Sam Starr who stands by Vic in thick and thin. He is harassed by Star's son Syd and daughter Celia. The latter two are looking to find ways to get rid of Sage since his journalism often agitates advertisers and high muckamucks alike and so potential earnings. 

Vic espouses the philosophy of Objectivism and demands that he be treated by its tenets as well. He doesn't expect his employer to keep him out of loyalty but because it's in his ultimate best interests to get the truth out. Likewise his staff are not there because of him, but because they too like all "good" citizens need a world in which the rules are applied fairly. It's a bit much really to swallow and offers up a slender view of mankind. Emotions are seen as needless in the running a just society and in fact compassion and charity are deemed actual detriments as it undermines the clarity with which all folks should shoulder their burden and produce for themselves. 

Aside from philosophy what sets The Question apart from other heroes is his face, or specially the lack of one. Vic Sage gets his Question identity thanks to the work of Professor Rodor who designed a mask which covers the face but doesn't appear to offer up any openings and a handy gas that when released will changed the colors of suits so as to make The Question a hero who can leap into action on a moment's notice. (Much easier than the endless costume woes confronted by Spider-Man.) The Question punches out villains with a fighting style reminiscent of Will Eisner's The Spirit though he doesn't seem to get beat up and pummeled as much. 

After his appearances in Blue Beetle, The Question was featured in a single comic titled Mysterious Suspense #1. This issue was offered up after Dick Giordano had led a migration of Charlton talent, including Steve Ditko over to DC. (Correction: The real story is that Giordano was tipped off about the changes happening at DC by Steve Ditko who had already jumped over to the DCU.)

Some years later DC bought the "Action Heroes" after the collapse of Charlton and tried a number of ways to fit them into the DCU. There was success with Blue Beetle, failure with Captain Atom, and The Question as revised by Denny O'Neil was Ditko's character much at all, save they looked sort of the same. 

Over twenty-five years ago (yikes) DC celebrated The Question and Ditko by making Mysterious Suspense part of their Millennium reprint series. No other Charlton hero was afforded this honor, and likely The Question got it not only for the work of Ditko, but also because the hero inspired Rorschach of Alan Moore's Watchmen series. Sadly, today when The Question is mentioned that's the first thing anyone brings up. I mention it last on purpose to try and bring balance to the universe. To read the one and only issue of Mysterious Suspense go here. 

To get all of the Dikto Charlton Question stories seek out the second volume of Action Heroes from DC's 

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Mr. A - Good Or Evil!

Steve Ditko was born on this date in 1927. Ditko was one of the great original artists in the history of comics, a man dedicated to his philosophy and worldview. He created some of the most iconic images in the history of the form in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man and Strange Tales starring Dr. Strange. He created The Creeper for DC. As the Dojo has explored all year, he was long associated with Charlton Comics, a place where he was left alone to create his comic pages as he chose. He created many characters, but none speak more directly to his Objectivist philosophy than the enigmatic Mr. A. 

(D.1 - 1973 Comic Art Publishers)

One would be hard-pressed to find a more obnoxious hero than Steve Ditko's Mr. A. Created at just about the same time as Charlton's The Question, most folks see Mr. A as Ditko's Comics Code-approved Question unleashed into the wild of Indy publishing where he can really cut loose and express his opinions about justice and merit and who should live and who should die. Let me just say, that if you're a criminal and you're hanging by your fingertips over a deadly precipice don't think the "heroic" Mr. A. is going to give you a hand. That's not his style. If your misdeeds brought you to this dangerous point, then you will just have to solve it on your own...or die. 

How do I know this? Well, that's exactly the dilemma Mr. A. was confronted with in his debut adventure in the pages of Wally Wood's Witzend first issue. A juvenile delinquent named "Angel" is tearing it up with all sorts of ill-mannered and criminal behavior resulting ultimately in kidnapping and attempted murder. Mr. A. stops that attempt, but when Angel needs a hand to save his life after their fight, Mr. A. specifically says he would not be doing that. Through his inaction he allows the criminal to fall to his death. Is that justice? Is that heroism? It's sure cold blooded, that's for certain and sounds more like warfare. 

You see the thing is that in Mr. A.'s universe there is no gray...literally and figuratively. In these stark black and white comic book yarns we are presented with crimes and actions which some, in a charitable nature, might deem mistakes rather than crimes. They might consider the perpetrators to be confused by upbringing or environment which send mixed messages about what is right and what is wrong and the limits of civilized behavior in regard to these concepts. Mr. A. is not having any of that. There is "Good" represented by the white half of his business card and there is "Evil" represented by the black portion. There's gray, no blending or smudging, there are only absolutes determined by rigorous adherence to reason. Emotions and the charity they elicit are for weaklings and milksops. 

At first glance this hard-edged support of the good and condemnation of the evil seems worthy and even heroic. But for all the conversation, the question never even much asked in Mr. A.'s adventures is what is "Good" and what is "Evil". It's sort of assumed we all know that. A lot of it has to do with property rights as far as I can tell, with the stuff owned by those who produce being held sacrosanct and protected from the evil moochers and takers. Little suggestion of a deeper understanding of why those have what they have and those who haven't don't. Like the mythological "American Dream" it's suggested that work will inevitably lead to good outcomes and doing otherwise is just inviting disaster. Suggestion that society might stack the deck is not really confronted or is just dismissed. Like the amateur social engineers who have taken a tiny bit if Any Rand's philosophy to justify unlimited avarice, in Mr. A. the distinctions are just assumed to be obvious, detectible with only a little bit of "common sense" as is all too often evoked. 

Mr. A. lives in an Old Testament universe in which an eye for an eye is the bedrock premise of justice. I suspect that Mr. A would find Jesus Christ's attitudes about poverty and charity and mercy just mewling nonsense having little to do with the rockem' sockem' real world we all live in. Mr. A never smiles, in fact he's incapable of smiling as his face is literally a solid mask evoking classical Caucasian handsomeness. He looks through the eyeholes of his perfect mug onto a landscape less perfected and in sore need of transformation. He's all too ready to pitch in. 

Mr. A. is actually hard-hitting investigative reporter Rex Graine, but unlike his Charlton counterpart Vic Sage, there's no suggestive of fancy gimmicks to change identities. Graine goes to his closet and puts on the stark white gear that announces Mr. A is back in town. His face actually a helmet of sorts to hide his human identity during these times when mere humanity will not do the job. He doesn't have superpowers, merely a dominating will and a creator who sees to it that his unblinking philosophy will win the day each and every time. There's no gray in Mr. A.'s universe and there's no doubt nor growth. He is not a realistic human, but rather he is a concept given human form. Reading Mr. A.'s adventures becomes increasingly difficult over the years as the prose dominates the story, slowing any hint of suspense or narrative momentum. It's rather like forcing everyone t read all the plaques as they journey through the museum. It's enlightening perhaps, but it takes a long time and can wear you out. 

(D. 2 - 1973 Bruce Hershenson)

(D. 3 - 1975 Bruce Hershenson)

(D. 4 - 1975 Bruce Hershenson)

These four independent / underground comics have been in my collection for decades. It was fun to dig them out and give them another go, despite Ditko's relentless philosophy. 

This volume from SD Publications gathers many of the Mr. A comic stories as well as the Avenging World material. Sadly, not all the Mr. A material is in one place. 

Tomorrow, we take up The Question.

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