Happy Birthday to the great Steve Ditko, who would have turned 93 today.
Ditko drew — and possibly wrote (Stan Lee on credits, but that sometimes is overstated) — this neat little science fiction back-up story in the third issue of Iron Man.
These SF and horror stories would soon become rarities as publisher Martin Goodman and Editor Lee replaced them with a new line-up of superheroes, including a certain web-crawler that would bring Ditko more notoriety than anything else he would create.
The Amazing Spiderman #1 had just hit the newsstands. The rest as they say…
Marvel did a nice job reprinting all of Stan Lee’s and Steve Ditko’s horror and SF stories in this two-volume series.
Redo of Tales of Suspense #59, undated (approx. 2008)
The late, great Darwyn Cooke
produced a number of these reinterpretations and homages of classics during his
all too short lifetime.
I asked him about this one
time and he told me he did them to “relax.” Relax? Wow. Think Albert Pujols
walking into the batting cage prior to a game. Bam. Home Run. Bam. Another.
Bam. Another…
Chic Stone originally inked this milestone splash, one of Jack Kirby’s best known from his Captain America run. Darwyn’s version makes some tweaks — for the better. Most notable are the subtle changes to the face. Cap’s eyes now engage the reader more directly, and overall, his facial expression is clearer and more confident and feels more accurate to Kirby’s vision.
Once upon a time, Darwyn and
Marvel talked about an origins series, sort of the Marvel version of his
amazing New Frontier series at DC. That is definitely a project I’m certain would
have been a classic as well.
For more about Darwyn and the New Frontier, click here.
For more about this classic Captain America tale, click here.
Key appearances of Captain America during the Silver Age revival: Strange Tales 114 — the “first” one — is a cheat. (It’s an imposter, not Cap); The actual first appearance is Avengers #4, quickly followed by his own series in Tales of Suspense. His first solo cover is TOS #70, and he finally breaks into his own series — continuing the numbering from Tales of Suspense — with Captain America #100.Darwyn’s brilliant New Frontier at DC. Now imagine the Marvel version too.
