Once more, Steve Ditko

As I mentioned last week, I’ve been on a real Steve Ditko kick since Comic-Con, devouring the three hardcover volumes of 1960s era Ditko work I picked up there. I’ve re-read the old Doctor Strange stories he did for Marvel, his Captain Atom and Blue Beetle comics for Charlton, and best of all, the entire run of his Ayn Rand-inspired hero The Question, also produced for Charlton. All of which reminded me that I have two paperbound Ditko books boxed and stored in a portable storage unit in front of the house. Wish I could get to them right now, but that’ll have to wait until after our home remodeling project. Those two books contain, I believe, all of Ditko’s Mr. A stories from the late ’60s and early ’70s. To play with the Randian vernacular a bit, Mr. A made The Question look like a whim-worshipping skank. He was a black-and-white Objectivist through and through. And here’s what’s neat: there’re some nice samples of Steve Ditko’s Mr. A work available for view online, including, in full, the character’s first ever appearance in witzend #3 (1967). The Mr. A material comes in three parts — here, here, and here. Whether or not you’re sympathetic to the Objectivist life view, you’ll probably enjoy this.