DC Ditko Mystery Tales!

In the late 1970's and early 1980's Steve Ditko turned his attention to work at DC. Charlton was drawing back from the marketplace and Ditko needed places to draw comics, and despite his independent work, DC was a good place to get a check. In addition to some creative series which we'll get around to next month, Ditko also drew many stories for the myriad horror and science fiction comics that DC produced during this era. In comics such as House of Mystery, House of Secrets, Ghosts, Weird War Tales, Secrets of Haunted House, Mystery in Space, Time Warp and Unexpected Ditko brought to life many a monster and creepy crawler. These stories are collected in The Steve Ditko Omnibus Volume One. Actually, the first two short stories in this collection are from 1964 from two issues of Strange Adventures. Then we leap to the later material written by such DC stalwarts as Jack Oleck, Jack C. Harris, Len Wein, Paul Levitz, Michael Fleisher, Arnold Drake, Steve Skeates among others. Ditko even writes the last story in the volume himself, a wacky yarn named "Em the Energy Monster". 

Sadly, Ditko only drew one cover for DC's haunted books during this era, for House of Mystery #277 seen above. Below are the comics in which Ditko stories appeared and the covers are by a host of talents such as Jack Sparling, Mike Kaluta, Berni Wrightson, Neal Adams, Dick Giordano, among others. But most are by the great Joe Kubert who was the master of DC covers during this time. 

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Above is the cover for The Steve Ditko Omnibus Volume One. With Shade the Changing Man getting the cover attention, you'd never realize wealth of weird tales inside by one of the genre's finest. 

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The Hawk And The Dove!

A comic for a our times, ripped from the headlines of the day. The Hawk and The Dove was a curious piece by Charlton alumni Steve Skeates and Steve Ditko, a tale of two brothers caught in a struggle which was at that time both private and public. The United States warred with itself about the war, the Vietnam War (we just called it "the War" back then) about the validity of it and even more about the sacrifice of life for a cause which seemed abstract and remote. We fight today across the globe, but because we don't demand the that the youth of our time commit to that struggle, we are able to glide along calm cool and collected that others will do the fighting we deem necessary. It's an eternal debate, not that war is a necessary evil, but that we need advocate evil here and at this time.

That was the battle between the brothers Hall. Hank was a "Hawk", an advocate for violent intervention and his brother Don was a "Dove", one who argued for peace in our time. They were split ideologically and when they were offered the chance to acquire the power to pursue their beliefs by the supernatural powers of Order and Chaos they do so, becoming two sides of a coin dedicated to justice. In the debut issue in particular, one can see Ditko's Objectivist philosophy informing the desire for logic and not passion to dictate society. 

According to reports, Steve Skeates wanted to show that both methods could reap justice and that Dove's peaceful approach was often as effective as Hawk's more aggressive approaches. But he claimed that editorial often switched it up so that Dove came across as not just regretful for violence but downright weak in the face of a threat. Instead of showing a balance between two attitudes, each with some measure of merit, it became in the eyes of Skeates a rejection of peace and a advocacy for violence.

Skeates worked with Gil Kane when Ditko left DC and after Skeates left the book, Kane wrote as well as drew it. After the book's cancellation Hawk and Dove became a sometimes part of the Teen Titans lore and many years later things changed even more, but that' s for another day.

For all their flaws these stories deserve a place on the modern bookshelf. It seems they have been collected in an enormous Teen Titans volume, but I'd love to see them available for a less impressive price in a more easily read tome. With work by giants of yore like Ditko and Kane and Cardy, it seems an easy bet to me.

Here are the covers.

Steve Ditko left the book after the second issue. He also left DC entirely after an all-too brief tenure. 

Gil Kane and inker Sal Trapani join forces with Steve Skeates to keep the series alive and running. To be honest I think Kane's more fluid version of the duo is actually more visually interesting than Ditko's. 

Gil Kane becomes both the writer and artist on the series. This issue was inked by Wally Wood. 

In an apparent attempt to help the Hawk and Dover comic gain traction with readers, the duo crossover with the Teen Titans both written and drawn by Neal Adams. 

After rescuing their dad from a kidnapper, the team question whether continuing as Hawk and Dove is a useful thing. This is the final issue. 

(All the early Hawk and Dover stories are contained in this handy paperback.)

(This collection only contains the three stories Ditko worked on.)

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