Ditko Spotlight On Captain Universe!

"The Hero Who Could Be You!" is the tagline used to describe Captain Universe. And that's a hero that sounds ideal for the art of Steve Ditko. 

Captain Universe was created by Bill Mantlo and Michael Golden in the pages of The Micronauts, specifically issue number eight. In that issue an astronaut is overcome by a force which turns him into a distinctive looking superhero who can do just about anything. 

Steve Ditko had played in the Micronauts universe, drawing the first King-Size Annual for the surprisingly successful series from Marvel. And so, when Marvel wanted to spin-off the character Captain Universe into a series, Ditko was an ideal choice. 

Marvel had recently revived the series Marvel Spotlight, and it was an ideal place to try-out a set of stories as offbeat as those involving Captain Universe. The reason is that Captain Universe was not just one hero, but a succession of people given vast power to accomplish good in moments of dire need. In the first story in issue nine we meet the son of the astronaut who first got the power in the pages of Micronauts. When his father is stricken along with everyone else as the Cape Canaveral space center, it's up to young Ray Coffin to save everyone on the planet from the schemes of a Shadowy menace who overtakes people and turns them into zombies of a kind. When that creature threatens to darken the sun, it's a space race to save the day. 

Things get somewhat less apocalyptic in the second story when two sisters become Captain Universe simultaneously. Clare is a detective who has testified against a deadly gangster and the other named Ann is her twin sister, who is married to the district attorney and the mother of two children. When the gangster and his cronies seek to intimidate them, they find the two women more than able to defend themselves and seek ultimate justice. 

The third story in the trio from Marvel Spotlight takes a different turn and a burglar named Monte Walsh is given the Captain Universe power when he's discovered pilfering the digs of a deadly gambling boss and shot. The power allows him to save himself and seek some measure of justice against his attempted killers. But the power becomes less reliable when the burglar seeks to use it for his own criminal ends. This story has several allusions to an earlier Spidey story fashioned during Ditko's heyday. 

Other artists take the reins of Captain Universe stories for a time, but Ditko returns to the character in the back pages of Web of Spider-Man Annual. The first appeared in the fifth annual and tells of the time a professor named Evan Swan is given the power to confront the weird menace of the Quantum Mechanic who seeks to do nothing than eliminate the reality in which the Marvel Universe exists. He succeeds thankfully. 

Konga and Gorgo make a cameo of sorts in 1990 in Marvel's Web of Spider-Man Annual #6. That appearance is Steve Ditko's final take on these two monsters in a story by fan of those 60's comics Tony Isabella. Renaming the two monsters "Kongo" and "Gorga", Isabella has the two Charlton giants appear as a product of the nigh unlimited power of Captain Universe.

 

This time in a story titled "Child Star" it's a kid who gets the power and he uses it to save the world from two demons. The page above shows the appearances of the Charlton monsters in their "Marvelized" forms. 

There are many more stories other than those done by Ditko featuring the character. The most elaborate is by Bill Mantlo and Rick Leonardi starring the Hulk and brings the world to the brink of nuclear devastation. In the pages of Marvel Fanfare, a young boy gets the power to protect himself and others from bullies at school.  In later stories an old man in the ghetto gets the power and later still a schizophrenic on the edge of suicide finds himself empowered. These are fascinating spins on a concept which is open to wide interpretation. But to my mind no one did this kind of story better than Ditko. 

All these stories are found in Captain Universe - Power Unimaginable, a slim collection but a solid one. 

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Machine Man - The Living Robot!

After the departure of Jack Kirby from Marvel for the last time in the late 70's, he left two projects behind. Devil Dinosaur was cancelled and Machine Man was put on hiatus. It returned from hiatus following a high-profile guest-star appearance in The Incredible Hulk.

The series also returned with a new and talented team of creators. Steve Ditko is the other artistic pillar of the early Marvel era and along with Marv Wolfman as a scripter Ditko took on the Machine Man and made him distinctively Ditkoesque.

The first thing the team does is de-power Machine Man, taking away some of his gimmicks and presumably limiting his powers. As it turns out they largely ignore these changes going forward and as with the Kirby books, the Machine Man does pretty much what he needs to do to defeat the villain of the day such as the Binary Bug, a classic Ditko burglar type with a then trend-setting computer motif.

In a story which can only be considered weird, X-51 gives oddball birth to a quintet of humans/gods who attempt to enlighten their "father" before ascending into the heavens.  As I said, this one is weird all the way through.

More standard is the battle Machine Man has with Khan the master of the dirigible home dubbed "Xanadu". The crime lord wants X-51's body for his own purposes to evade mortality, but things don't go as he'd planned.

In the last Wolfman scripted tale, Machine Man has to battle a man pretending to be him (he's green on this cover so it doesn't make sense here)  and working to defend the city and his own reputation.

Tom DeFalco steps in as writer with the fifteenth issue and there is a feeling of greater pace almost immediately. Machine Man matches wits with the Fantastic Four (at least Thing and Torch) while battling a woman who has undergone a terrifying transformation.  We also meet Gears Garvin, a mechanic who comes to X-51' assistance when his legs are damaged.

Gears returns in the next issue when Machine Man must battle a full-blown super-villain named Baron Brimstone, a user of magic maybe and his two henchman who form the Satan Squad. This trio has a real old-fashioned Ditko feel to them.

In the next issue we meet Madam Menace, an arms dealer who covets Machine Man's body for profit. She schemes to get hold of him and loses. Rich Buckler is handling covers on the next few issues.

She returns in the next issue as X-51 comes into conflict with three members of Alpha Flight (Sasquatch, Northstar and Aurora) who are manipulated into the fight by the forgotten Senator Brinkman. This is his swan song as his role comes out and he is disgraced.

Issue nineteen is the last one and sports a handsome Frank Miller cover. Machine Man battle a new villain named Jack O'Lantern who reminded this reader mightily of Green Goblin. This is another slam bang action issue and at the end we have Machine Man reflective about his future.

Machine Man though was now firmly ensconced into the Marvel Universe and he'd show up in sundry places for many years. The final story by Ditko appeared of all places in Marvel Comics Presents and it features art by the great man which was slightly more exotic than his late 70's style. A robot wants access to Machine Man's parts and it's a hoot.

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Ditko Spotlight On Dragon Lord!

One of Steve Ditko's oddest additions to the Marvel Universe in his return engagement was Dragon Lord. Tako Shamata seeks to use control over ancient dragons to exact generational revenge. This creation debuted in Marvel Spotlight #5. (Ditko dominated this series in its short existence.)

It was supposed to be Godzilla that he took over for his vengeful ends. But Marvel lost the license to the great and powerful Big G, so some major monster adjustments had to be made by writer Marv Wolfman and artist Steve Ditko. 

I'm not certain that featuring Godzilla would've made this a better story or not. But certainly, Ditko's replacement called the Wani is a distinctive and worthy replacement. Reminds of those days when Toho couldn't put together Godzilla and Frankenstein in a movie and ended up with two better movies. 

Topped with a handsome cover by Frank Miller, this story has been reprinted and preserved to some degree. 

Turns out there are several Dragon Lords in the Marvel Universe and Ditko has drawn stories featuring two different ones. The second showed up in the pages of Fantastic Four Annual #16 and is a guy who is able to control the Dragon Man. 

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Marvel Spotlight On Ditko!

In the latter part of the 70's and into the early 80's Steve Ditko returned to working for Marvel. Ditko did not want to return to characters he was famous for helping to fashion over a decade before, so he worked on the outskirts of the Marvel Universe and did fill-in jobs. One comic he worked on was one of the final Captain Marvel stories before the famous Jim Starlin graphic novel which resulted in the death of Mar-Vell. The story appeared in the fourth issue of the revived Marvel Spotlight and was written by Marv Wolfman using a plot by Archie Goodwin. Ditko delivers a wild adventure which has Mar-Vell journey to a distant shadow dimension to battle some rough looking creatures. The story feels very much like one Ditko himself might've delivered for Doctor Strange some years before. 

For me it was a treat to see Ditko draw this version of Captain Marvel, a character revised by Jim Starlin years before to resemble in many ways Ditko's own Captain Atom. 

Ditko joined forces with Michael Fleisher to create a fill-in issue for Daredevil. To my knowledge Ditko had only ever drawn DD one time, and that was in The Amazing Spider-Man where the Man Without Fear guest-starred, still wearing his early yellow and red togs. In this one DD loses his memory and becomes a boxer, but when he's approached to take a dive for a criminal, he turns down the offer as did his tragic father long before. Dito even gets to draw that early version of DD's outfit in one panel. 

And finally, Ditko returned to one character he had been instrumental in developing and that was The Incredible Hulk. This story by Bill Mantlo was not a fill-in as it fitted the continuity, but it does give artist Sal Buscema a break on the character. The Hulk comes up against some hunters he doesn't care for and ends up being driven into the depths of a mountain by an avalanche where he encounters a solitary Jack Frost. Frost dislikes being disturbed and he and the Hulk mix it up. 

I'll have more on some of Ditko's other Marvel later outings in upcoming posts. 

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Starman - The Solar Sentinel!

Now I must confess that despite Steve Ditko's involvement with the feature of Starman, I mostly went to the quixotic Adventure Comics of this era for the Plastic Man feature by Mike Barr and Joe Staton. Staton I thought the ideal artist for Plas as my beloved E-Man by Staton and the late Nick Cuti had been partially inspired by Jack Cole's classic creation. But if I went to the dance for Plas, I wasn't to sad to spend a bit of time with Prince Gavyn, better known as Starman, one of a myriad of chaps who have held that title. 

The first was the Golden Age Ted Kight created by Gardner Fox and Jack Burnely for early issues of Adventure Comics, who discovered the power of the "Gravity Rod" and used it to become one of the more powerful superheroes of his time. Later dubbed the "Cosmic Rod" it was loaned to Star-Spangled Kid when a younger generation of heroes took charged of the Justice Society on what was once called Earth-2. What it's called today is anyone's guess. 

Gerry Conway and Mike Vosburg created a second Starman who alternately owes his name to the DC original or Ziggy Stardust or some variation of that. He lasted all of one issue of 1st Issue Special though later he was dusted off and made part of the larger DCU canon as a character who pushed the boundaries of not outer space but sexual orientation. 

The fourth Starman was eventually revealed to have become a superhero as a result of getting a charge of energy from Prince Gavin who was the Starman we are most focused on today. This Starman's career blossomed and wilted in the 1980's as recorded by Roger Stern and Tom Lyle among others. 

And finally (I think) the heritage of Ted Knight is returned to when both of his sons become Starman in turn. One is killed while the other has a reasonably long career in the 90's as reluctant hero. James Robinson was the writer and worked diligently to tie together the threads of a saga of "Starmen" from across a number of decades. 

The Starman that Ditko drew for DC was heavily inked by Romeo Tanghal and created by Paul Levitz. He gets a bit of inspiration visually from Ditko's own Captain Atom, created for Charlton with Joe Gill decades before I believe. Those sparkles on his costume give more than hint of his pedigree. 

The sparkly look was something used by Jim Starlin when he revamped another stellar superhero for Marvel Comics called logically enough Captain Marvel. The common blonde hair might also be a reminder of where these similar heroes hail from. 

Ironically enough (or by careful planning) after a somewhat decent run in Adventure Comics alongside Plas and later Aquaman, Starman's adventures come to an abrupt halt. He was a royal who had the ability to live in space and was tapped by an enigmatic alien to use two wristbands ("Nega Bands" anyone?) to channel stellar energy. He used these powers to protect a queen who was also his sister and to rescue many among them his true love another chick of royal blood. 

All this is undone when after the cancellation of the series the story is wrapped in DC Comics Presents and features Jim Starlin using Mongol as the villain who usurps the throne and kills the queen. Prince Gavyn becomes emperor, changes into blue duds and ends up teaming with Superman to not only defeated Mongol but destroying the empire itself which we learn was literally held together by the stellar force of the crown itself. Once free the assembled planets vamoose and the empire is no more but Gavyn is free to find love at long last. 

After the debut Ditko did not draw anymore Starman covers, but talents such as Jim Aparo, Joe Staton, Rich Buckler, Brian Bolland and Ross Andru did many, with the focus shifting among the heroes who shared the title at the time. Here are the covers from the Starman era. 

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