Ditko In 3-D!

For any fan of the work Joe Simon and Jack Kirby one oddity that always pops up is the single issue of Harvey's Captain 3-D from 1953. What we have is a full-blown superhero adventure, the first costumed hero the team had produced since the ill-fated Stuntman for Harvey many years before. What we have is a comic which makes pretty good use of a trendy technique which from time to time captures the whimsy of pop culture. Sadly, what we don't have is a very good comic book story.

Captain 3-D was one of several 3-D offerings from the company when the technique caught fire in the early 50's. But just as fast as it blazed into being it sputtered out. Harvey comics went away from the idea arguably because the craze was short-lived but also because they came under legal scrutiny for the way in which they used the technology which other comics publishers claimed was poaching. Whatever the reasons, the story of Captain 3-D lasted one single issue.

Briefly the tale is about a young lad named Danny Davis who is given a mysterious book by a mysterious man who is promptly melted into nothingness by another mysterious figure who likewise goes up in smoke, thus making Danny's pleas to the police seem like tomfoolery. But soon when he is alone, he activates "The Book of D" by putting on some weird glasses and out of the pages leaps a costumed hero named Captain 3-D who immediately battles some thugs who are breaking into Danny's digs. After dispatching the baddies, the Captain explains to Danny that the book is a relic of an ancient time and place dubbed "The Land of D" when the Captain's people (of whom he is the last survivor) and the "Cat People" battled for control of the world. Both were seemingly destroyed but not before the Captain was hidden as a safeguard in the book which had been passed down for generations beginning in mankind's prehistoric past. In the two remaining stories Captain 3-D emerges to battle Tigra the queen of the Cat People and a mobster by the name of "Ironhat McGinty" (because he has an iron cap surgically implanted in his noggin no less).

This issue is of particular interest right now because it is among the very first professional comics work of Steve Ditko who was part of the Simon and Kirby staff at the time and in particular was enamored with the work of Mort Meskin.

 

And that was that. To read the complete issue check this, but bring your handy 3-D specs if you want to enjoy it completely.

There was going to be a second issue of Captain 3-D but it was scotched when the bottom fell out of the extremely hot but extremely brief 3-D trend. The artwork for the cover of that never was comic was at long last published in 1999 by AC Comics for an issue of Golden Age Men of Mystery. The issue featured a lot of unpublished art for that book as well other features on the work of Simon and Kirby for Harvey Comics. It seems Greg Theakston had the unfinished artwork for one story from the issue and sent it to Ditko's studio since he had been scheduled all those decades before to ink the Mort Meskin pencils. Ditko though decided to pin up the pages around his studio for others to take their pick to ink and many of the pages went missing. You can see the penciled pages in small format in this issue from copies which were made. 

The character was impactful for more than a few future pros such as Roy Thomas, Bill Black and Grass Green among others. And he proved to inspire other creations as seen below. 

And that sums up how I feel about Captain 3-D too, an interesting curiosity, but less effective because of the special effects than without them. Reading the story sans the 3-D effects the panels are woefully static (for logical reasons) and that undermines the general fluid tendencies of the usual Simon and Kirby effort. Also, the story of Captain 3-D himself is in places robust but overall cumbersome and if it had been given a few more outings would've in my opinion worn itself out purely in narrative terms.

Captain 3-D is a lovely image, a great icon of a long-lost time when we like to imagine life was simpler to understand, but aside from that nostalgic impulse, he's a mildly mediocre hero, and not up to the usual standards of Simon and Kirby. But it did give Steve Ditko a place to begin. 

In the 90's Ditko produced two 3-D comics of his own. Both were written by Jack C. Harris and produced by 3-D Zone. I hope to review both of these later this year. I own one, but I still need to acquire the other. 

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