Ditko's Hulk!

Often overlooked is Steve Ditko's contribution to early stories featuring The Incredible Hulk. Ditko drew the sixth and final issue of the Hulk's first series featuring the menace of the alien Metal Master. 

And during that short but important time when the Hulk was being co-starred in a host of magazines to keep his profile high, Ditko took on old Jadejaws in the pages of The Amazing Spider-Man. 

But most significantly, when the Hulk was given a new series in the pages of Tales to Astonish, it was Ditko who was tapped as the penciller. He was inked by George Roussos, Dick Ayers and Vince Colletta on the series. This was at that point in time when it was not yet public knowledge that Bruce Banner was also the Hulk. 

Ditko stayed with the series through the first eight installments of Tales to Astonish. As expected, Jack Kirby supplied the covers for the Ditko issues. Kirby also stepped in and took over the series when Ditko left. Ditko was the first artist to draw the Hulk's arch nemesis The Leader. 

Below are the covers. 

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The Amazing Neighborhood Spider-Pillow!

I'd imagine most comic book fans of any era not only have burned into their memories the artwork and stories of their golden era but the ads of that time as well. I know that for me comics were such treasures, discovered and acquired at great cost of money, time and energy that these glorious four-color pamphlets were sucked dry of their entertainment content almost completely, and that included the wonky ads they might contain.

One of the weirdest in my time was the ad above for inflatable plastic pillows starring some of Marvel's mightiest.  What struck me at the time and still does is the absolute randomness of the images used in this merchandising effort. I'd imagine when the Stan and the others at Marvel realized the success they'd tapped into with their new comics, they were eager to cash in. Certainly riding trends until they bust, had long been the working model for Martin Goodman.  Now Marvel seemed to be ladling out merchandising rights all around and some of it was profoundly strange.

These pillows for instance.

We have a dynamic Thor portrait by Jack Kirby and Vince Colletta. I don't recognize the exact source for this one but I'm sure someone can tell me.

Likewise this Ditko image for Spider-Man, which is a bit more subtle in how it integrates the artwork onto the total pillow for a clever effect. 

Here's a look at another version of this ad, this time with newcomer Captain Marvel thrown in for no discernible reason save to jazz up the image.

Weirdly I found this product starring Sub-Mariner as rendered by Gene Colan and Vince Colletta. It looks like it ought to be part of the same merchandising push, it certainly has that random art quality.

These are two handsome plastic pillows with proper Jack Kirby imagery and seem a bit more classically composed. I doubt they are part of the same push, but are delightful in their own way.

I think I've seen the Thor pillow in real life somewhere, but I forget now where that would've been. I don't remember ever really wanting these items, but I sure remember seeing that delicious ad.

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Ditko's Iron Man!

Iron Man is credited to Stan Lee and Don Heck. Heck along with Jack Kirby and later Gene Colan all had hefty runs on the character. But a crucial but brief tenure on the series was held down by Steve Ditko. Ditko debuted on the Tales of Suspense series under a Kirby cover when Shellhead confronted the weird menace of Mr. Doll. 

To combat Doll's strange voodoo-like curse, Iron Man adopted a new sleeker armor. Designed by Ditko, this red and gold armor became the standard look of the character for many decades with various small changes over time.

In the next issue Ditko drew a story in which Iron Man battles a deluded Angel. This battle is strangely even as clearly Marvel thought they might have a future star in the high-flying X-Man. 

 

Marvel was getting excellent at cross-promotion of its comics, using every series as a chance to suggest another character to a potential reader. Paul Reinman inked both issues of Tales of Suspense that featured Ditko's art. And just like that, Ditko was gone, but not forgotten. 

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Doctor Strange - Master Of The Mystic Arts!

Doctor Strange was created by Steve Ditko. Stan Lee said as much from the very beginning of the series. While the Amazing Spider-Man has many fathers -- Lee, Ditko, and even Joe Simon and Jack Kirby perhaps, there's no denying that Ditko came up with the notion of Strange and he pushed Lee to let him do it. The series appeared with little fanfare in the back pages of Strange Tales (appropriate) where at the time the Human Torch was holding down the lead feature. Strange began his magical career in a small way, an enigmatic man in dark hues who possessed a vaguely Asian look and who left his Sanctum to sally forth into the world to defeat mysterious menaces. 

Slowly the strip picked up steam and Strange became more fully developed, eventually getting an origin which made him a selfish American surgeon who sought a way to heal himself through magic, and who is transformed into a selfless defender of mankind. Restricted to only a few pages in the back of the comic and getting only a small cover push, Doctor Strange proved resilient. Eventually after his first fight with the other dimensional menace Dormammu, Strange came into possession of his famous red cloak of levitation and his magic amulet, the Eye of Aggamotto. 

As the series progressed, Ditko's artwork matured and in a utterly bizarre seventeen-part battle with Baron Mordo, then the agent of Dormammu, Doctor Strange became a fully functioning part of the Marvel Universe. By this time the Human Torch had departed, but was replaced on the covers by Nick Fury Agent of SHIELD. Despite his long tenure in the series, Strange was still not seen by Lee as a character who could sell a book. This despite the fact that Ditko had seen fit to crossover his two creations in the second Spider-Man annual.  Eventually the day came when Ditko left Marvel and Doctor Strange. 

In that final issue Doctor Strange was at last given full reign on the cover. Soon after Marvel would adopt a policy in all its split books that allowed the features to switch up covers, but by that time Ditko was off working for Charlton and Tower and other companies. Perhaps if Lee had seen fit to give Ditko's creation more of a push he might've felt better respected, but we'll never know. 

Although he's not even on many and when he is he's rarely featured and is most likely drawn by Jack Kirby, (At least Kirby did a decent version of Doc Strange, unlike Spidey who he could not draw at all for the most part.) here are the covers for Doctor Strange's Ditko years. 

Doctor Strange proved to be one of Marvel's more resilient heroes, and to date even has two major theater features to his name as well as a TV movie from decades ago. Ditko created something very compelling in those secretive back pages of Strange Tales so long ago. 

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Marvel Masters Of Suspense!

These two hefty volumes title Marvel Masters of Suspense hold between their covers the complete non-superhero work of Steve Ditko for the company. The first volume showcases Ditko's earliest work for the company when he returned to comics work after a long break because of a breakdown in his health which caused him to return home to Pennsylvania to recover. He drew mystery tales and even a western. His first tenure at Atlas ended when Martin Goodman discovered a glut of unpublished material and ordered all of it be printed before commissioning more. So Lee was forced to slash the staff. So Ditko returned to Charlton Comics where he went on to co-create Captain Atom. 

These earliest stories in this first volume still show an artist trying to meld his inspirations into an original style. Most of the stories though come from Ditko's later tenure when he was working for both Charlton and Marvel. 

The second volume contains some of the best work Ditko created for Marvel, some say the best of his career. Ditko is an artist, not unlike Kirby, who developed fans throughout his career, and they seem to like what he was doing best when they discovered him. I'm no different. But to my eye, Ditko is still developing in these stories, becoming a completely original talent having fused his influences into an original style. The stories by Stan Lee are ideal for Ditko's amazing talent to render the "everyman". These are small stories, almost always tucked away behind a Jack Kirby story about the latest giant monster from space, beneath the sea or the ground, or a product of mad science. These stories by Lee and Ditko owe more to The Twilight Zone than the movies inspired by King Kong and Godzilla. (Ironically at about this same time Ditko was drawing Konga and Gorgo for Charlton.)

Lee was always looking to strike out in different ways and when the comic Amazing Adventures featuring a new hero named Doctor Droom lost traction it was converted into Amazing Adult Fantasies. It was a vehicle just for those cozy Lee and Ditko yarns of mystery and weird intrigue. And for the first time Ditko was given a chance to make a book truly his, even including the cover images. Below are those covers. 

But alas, this comic too failed to find a sufficient following and faced cancellation. But before they could give it the heave-ho, Lee decided it might be a place to try out a new superhero he'd concocted in tandem with Steve Ditko. Perhaps you've heard of him. 

Despite being cloaked beneath a "King" Kirby cover, this new hero in the fifteenth and final issue of Amazing Fantasy (the "Adult" was removed because some fans said it made them ashamed to be seen with the comic) marked a turning point for Stan Lee and Steve Ditko. More on this Spider-Man in a few weeks. 

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