just for kids anymore), and Stan went on the road from campus to campus—eventually even appearing at Carnegie Hall—to preach the comics gospel according to Marvel. Beyond Stan’s marketing prowess, he and the artists created an incredible collaborative environment. Working in the “Marvel Method,” Stan provided his pencilers with a story synopsis and let them work out the beats and action through the 20- to 22-page stories, for which he then provided dialogue. Most of the artists working at Marvel with Stan at that time were never better. Their collaborations with Stan brought out some of their very best art, including Kirby and Ditko, Heck, Dick Ayers, Gene Colan, Gil Kane, and John Romita. Their work with Stan on that first decade of Marvel Comics set a benchmark for superhero comics that—for some readers—has never been topped. While Stan is still “Chairman Emeritus” at Marvel Comics, he has gone on to become one of pop culture’s leading spokespersons. His cameo appearances in all the Marvel movies have garnered him a name recognition beyond the pages of the comic book heroes he co-created, and he has appeared on television in shows such as The Big Bang Theory and Chuck, and has had two reality series, Who Wants to Be a Superhero?, and Stan Lee’s Superheroes. He has been a producer or executive producer on all the Marvel movies, TV shows, and animated series. Now approaching 90, Stan remains as vital and creative a force in and out of comics as ever, developing new characters and concepts with his own company, POW! Entertainment, and working with publishers such as Image Comics (Blood Red Dragon, with Yoshiki), BOOM! Studios (Soldier Zero, The Traveler, Starborn), Archie (Stan Lee’s Mighty 7), VIZ (Ultimo), and others, along with movie and TV projects. And Stan has his own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame! These early heroes Stan co-created with Kirby, Ditko, and Heck have all demonstrated incredible staying power. Fifty years later, Spidey has just survived “Spider-Island” in a recent storyline and his ongoing adventures continue under writer Dan Slott and artists Humberto Ramos, Giuseppe Camuncoli, and Stefano Caselli, along with a new series, The Avenging Spider-Man by Zeb Wells and Joe Madureira and the recently rebooted Ultimate Comics Spider-Man by Brian Michael Bendis and Sara Pichelli. The Incredible Hulk just relaunched with a new first issue by writer Jason Aaron and artist Marc Silvestri. Both Thor and Iron Man are currently under the watchful eyes of writer Matt Fraction and artists Pasqual Ferry (Thor) and Salvador Larroca (Invincible Iron Man), besides being part of the ongoing adventures of The Avengers. All four characters are appearing in huge, big-budget movies this year: Spidey in Amazing Spider-Man, a reboot of his big screen adventures; and Hulk, Thor, and Iron Man in The Avengers. The Marvel Age of Comics that had its beginnings in 1962 has never really ended, and those heroes created 50 years ago will seemingly go on forever.
34 COMIC-CON ANNUAL 2012
THE AMAZING STEVE DITKO BY BLAKE BELL
e. , when he worked on Spider-Man and Dr. Strang Ditko in his studio in 1965, during his Marvel prime
“Too bad someone like him can’t be an idol for teenagers to imitate.”—Amazing Spider-Man #33 Steve Ditko is the co-creator and original artist of the Amazing Spider-Man. Co-creator Stan Lee is immortalized in pop culture history as the strip’s writer, but in fact, Ditko wrote the last 14 issues of his 38-issue run, and plotted even more. No doubt, Lee’s contributions to the success of the strip (including, for each and every issue, scripting the banter so fondly remembered as one of the strip’s signature elements), and to the success of the Silver Age of Marvel Comics, are many. Still, the drivers that made Spider-Man a truly unique book—in fact, a revolutionary comic book—can be attributed to Steve Ditko. Ditko’s idiosyncratic visuals, his empathetic characterizations, and his sense of costume design all pumped new life into a medium overrun by mythical figures that stood like marble statues . . . and had as much personality. Another aspect that made Ditko truly unique was his fight to maintain the Spider-Man strip’s integrity, which made him the first artist of his generation to control the narrative arc of a superhero strip. Also unique was Ditko’s decision in late 1965 to walk away from a multimillion-dollar franchise approaching the peak of its popularity based primarily on his influence. Often derided for his unwillingness to participate in comic book fandom’s cult of celebrity, often chastised for his rigid adherence to an unpopular philosophical viewpoint, Ditko is the only artist in the history of comic books to consistently live by his personal and professional principles: “I never talk about myself. My work is me. I do my best, and if I like it, I hope somebody else likes it, too.”
Ditko, born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania on November 2, 1927, came to New York City in 1950 with one goal in mind: to be a comic book artist. That made him unique from day one. First published in 1953, Ditko settled in at Charlton Comics for the majority of the 1950s. Charlton paid a pittance but offered Ditko something no one else could: the least editorial interference in the industry. After a brief stint at Marvel in 1956, Ditko returned in late 1958. Years of collaborating on Twilight Zone–inspired stories cemented Ditko’s status as Lee’s favorite collaborator (evidenced by the allLee/Ditko anthology title Amazing Adult Fantasy). When Jack Kirby, co-creator of The Fantastic Four, handed in five pages of pencils for a concept named “Spiderman” (no hyphen)—a teenager with a magic ring that transformed him into an adult hero—it didn’t match what Lee had in mind. He wanted something different than Kirby’s grand flare. He wanted what only Ditko could produce. What would make Spider-Man different from any strip prior was that when the main character received his superpowers, his life became worse. Captain America went from a 98-pound weakling to an Adonis, beloved by a nation. Peter Parker went from bookworm to hated and misunderstood vigilante, dogged in his personal life by the specter of the costumed hero’s responsibilities. What Stan Lee perhaps didn’t anticipate was the depth of thought that Ditko put into the narrative. Lee, in charge of Marvel’s editorial direction since he was a teenager, had overseen the development of the formula inherent in the superhero genre since the early 1940s. In Spider-Man, he thought