THE FOUR COLOR GRIMOIRE
MEDITATIONS ON COMIC BOOK DAEMONS
This is part of No Gods But My Own, Volume 2. Read this if you’re just joining in.
A/NOT A
THE BRUTAL DICHOTOMIES OF STEVE DITKO
An ideal man creates a measuring standard. Without a measuring standard nothing can be measured or judged. But everything can be measured. Disease and sicknesses are measured by a healthy organ or body. All measurement requires a proper standard. With it, one can measure down to atoms and up to the stars and the changes in the character of a man.
- Steve Ditko, from the movie Masters of Comic Book Art
For his many contributions to the medium, Steve Ditko stands among the other artistic titans in the pantheon of greatest comic book artists. Known mostly for his work during the early days of Marvel Comics, where he co-created Spider-Man and Doctor Strange with Stan Lee, Ditko crafted page after page of art that embodied both delicacy and anxiety in equal measures. He was also one of the most prolific creators in comics, with credits in hundreds of different titles across almost as many publishers.
Ditko was a recluse, choosing to avoid his fans and admirers while toiling away at his art and writing his tracts on the business of comic books and Ayn Rand’s Objectivist philosophy. He viewed art as nothing more than an expression of his point of view and his name as merely a brand to sell his work more efficiently. While I fundamentally disagree with Ditko's rigid philosophy, I feel that there is great value in exploring his uncompromising point of view and how that is reflected in the characters he created and the stories he told.
One of the great mysteries of comics in the sixties was why Ditko left Marvel when he was still one of their most popular artists in the bullpen. It's been a great source of dissension and debate over the years but some believe it was because Ditko couldn't stand to compromise his philosophy by working on stories about vulnerable heroes. Marvel and Stan Lee took great pride in imbuing deeper humanity in their costumed heroes and this was a direct contradiction to the Objectivist view of the hero as paragons of strength and virtue.
In Ditko's world there is only action or inaction. There is no room for waffling or indecision. A hero takes action against evil or they are no longer a hero. That inability to destroy the wrongs in the world, whether it be from the recognition of the variety of human experience or sympathy for the villain, revokes the status earned by the measuring of action.
This philosophy goes far to explain the characters he created and worked on with regularity at Charlton Comics, even through his tenure at Marvel. At Charlton, Ditko was given far more creative freedom than he was allowed at Marvel and would use that lack of artistic restraint to tell stories more in line with his way of thinking. Some stories served as nothing more than mouthpieces of Ditko's Objectivist ideas and none of those were more transparent than The Question.
In the crime-addled Hub City, an outspoken and aggressive investigative journalist by the name of Vic Sage plied an idiosyncratic form of justice. His turn to vigilantism was inspired by a story Sage had been investigating, involving the illegal sale of a chemical known as Psuedoderm, a liquid bandage that took on a skin-like appearance but proved toxic when used on open wounds. When the inventor went ahead with selling the product in third world nations, despite the risk to human health, Sage decided to act. With the help of the inventor’s business partner Sage donned a mask made of Pseudoderm to obscure his face entirely and change his hair color, protecting his identity as a famous journalist. Donning a bright blue trench coat and this mask that renders his face featureless, Sage became the hero known only as The Question.
The Question was an unusual hero for its time. Inspired by Ditko’s Objectivist ideals, The Question would fight crime according to a ruthless code of ethics that sometimes lead to brutal punishments for the criminal. In one particular story, The Question allowed a pair of criminals to be washed away in a surge of sewage because his convictions would not allow him to help anyone who committed a crime. Instead, The Question left to inform the police of the apprehended men and pointed them in the direction of where they would eventually be deposited by the waters with no concern for their lives or safety.
Despite the brutality of The Question, Vic Sage would always maintain his poise and position as a journalist. The two identities would influence each other in the collection of information but not in how action would be taken on it. Sage would report, The Question would act. Sage had grace, The Question only had brutality.
The Question's cruelty would not survive Ditko's time with the character. Later, the team of Dennis O’Neil and Denys Cowan would alter his underlying philosophy, transforming it from the stark Objectivism into a stew of different western traditions and martial arts practices. Even later, writer and artist Rick Veitch would bring him back to his more lethal treatment of criminals but changed the motive behind it, making Sage a self-taught urban shaman who would be driven to more brutal means by his warrior ethos instead of an objectivist philosophy. Another addition Veitch brought to the character was in the form of hallucinogenic trances caused by the chemicals of his mask. The city would now “speak” to The Question through synchronistic visions and snippets of overheard conversations on the street.
This was only the first of a trend in Ditko’s creations. Not only did the Question serve as a vessel for Ditko’s philosophical views on how crime should be punished, the character also embodied a stark dichotomy in how the hero and alter ego should be portrayed. The Question has no real identity. His mask conceals everything about him that is not the hero he is supposed to be.
This is another dimension of Ditko’s view of Objectivism. An object is what it is. A hero is only a hero, containing whatever inherent properties a hero must have to be considered that. The same goes for the alter ego. Sage was a journalist, someone who needed to be impartial and based entirely on logic. The Question could go beyond that without betraying the properties of Ditko’s view of the job of a hero.
Repeating the basic formula he devised with The Question, Ditko moved to DC Comics and created The Creeper. Though The Creeper would not be as much of a direct soapbox for Ditko’s philosophies, many of those ideas would still filter through.
Like The Question, The Creeper was the story of a media figure who found himself transformed in order to expose and battle the corruption around him. Jack Ryder was a disgraced talk show host who was fired for criticizing one of the sponsors of his show and refusing to betray his ethics to apologize. The Chief of Network Security hired Ryder to search for a missing scientist that his CIA contacts had been looking for, knowing that he was a decent detective with strict ethical scruples. The scientist, Dr. Yatz, had been captured recently by a local gangster with Communist ties.
Ryder decided that the best way to find Yatz was to infiltrate a masquerade ball at the gangster’s home. The clerk at the local costume shop was only able to sell Ryder leftovers from previous orders and he pieced together an eclectic costume involving yellow tights, green trunks, and red gloves and boots. Ryder finished off the disguise with yellow make-up, a green wig, and his own red sheepskin rug which he utilized as an unconventional cape before heading off to investigate.
Ryder found the missing doctor at the party but only after he suffered grievous injuries and had to be healed by a special healing serum created by Yatz. The serum not only saves Ryder's life but also gives him superhuman strength. The doctor then placed a strange device that could rearrange the molecular structure of matter into one of Ryder’s wounds, making it so he could instantly change in and out of his costume because his clothing would suddenly be weightless and invisible.
With his inventions hidden within Ryder, Yatz decided to burn his laboratory to the ground in hopes that it would prevent his work from getting into the wrong hands. While destroying the evidence of his work, Yatz was shot and killed. Ryder escaped but was blamed for the catastrophe. The police dub the absurdly dressed intruder The Creeper and the name stuck. Though Ryder was able to bring the true culprits to justice, he embraced The Creeper costume and persona.
Even more than The Question, The Creeper embodies Ditko’s obsession with the separation of hero and the humanity obscured by their disguises and personas. The Creeper can alternate between presenting himself as Jack Ryder or The Creeper with nothing more than the push of a button because of Dr. Yatz's device. One moment he is an outspoken talk show host who profits from drama, the next moment he is a flamboyant hero with a strict code of justice and fair play.
The binary state of hero and non-hero is another dichotomy presented in these stories by Ditko. In many of the stories starring The Creeper he is framed as the villain, not because he does villainous things but because the corrupt world around him creates the narrative of unwavering justice as being wrong. In a black and white world where evil is the standard, good will always be framed as a hindrance instead of a boon.
A is A, a thing is what it is.
- Steve Ditko, from the movie Masters of Comic Book Art
Ditko's ultimate statement of his philosophical views was also where the binary of hero/non-hero completely falls apart. In Mr. A, Ditko created a character that speaks in Objectivist diatribes and wears a mask that is nothing more than a mold of the grimacing face of Mr.A's alter ego.
Mr. A made his first appearance in the underground comic witzend in 1967, premiering right around the same time as The Question. That timing isn't a coincidence. Ditko himself said that The Question was nothing more than a tame version of Mr. A, one that would pass through the Comics Code Authority, a watchdog group that had once been tasked with ensuring comic books didn't contain contents that might "corrupt the youth of America."
The timing of Mr. A's first appearance isn't the only similarity with The Question. Like both The Question and The Creeper, Mr. A was a reporter underneath his mask, driven to vigilante justice for reasons all his own. Rex Graine was a newspaper reporter known for his uncompromising principles and stubborn resolve. There was no origin story to explain why Graine turned to masked vigilantism but this only further illustrates the stark Objectivist ideal that Mr. A represented. He was what he was. Nothing more, nothing less.
Donning his mask and a pair of metal gloves, Graine fought crime while orating long tracts of Objectivist theory. Mr. A wore a white suit, symbolizing his presence as a pure hero and the ideal man that other men should be measured against. To further that symbolism Mr. A would present those he fought with a card with one side left a stark white while the other was colored a deep black. Unlike Ditko's other creations, Mr. A had no issue with death. For those who would do harm to others, Mr. A had no sympathy and would always make sure that punishment was swift and would always fit the crime. Like his calling card, there was only good or evil, black or white.
The monologues of Mr. A are sometimes directed toward other characters but mostly they are placed in captions so that they directly address the audience instead. I don't believe these are intended as third wall breaking speeches as much as they are Ditko himself trying to explain his thoughts on the world from the only medium for which he had been provided a public platform. These comics are Ditko telling us morality tales and modern fables that are truly no more visceral than those written by Grimm brothers.
I wanted to explore these characters and the man who created them to illustrate the extremes of rigidity of thought, not only in the fictional characters but also in Ditko himself. It is hard to find examples of people as devout in their personal beliefs as Steve Ditko. The man lived and breathed by his Objectivist ideals no matter what it cost him personally or professionally. He created these characters as extensions of his lived ideals and not heady theories that tickled his fancy.
According to writer and philosopher Robert Anton Wilson one should try embodying the belief systems of others to better empathize and understand others and yourself. I agree with the sentiment and feel that there is plenty of use in applying that to both artistic or occult work. Ditko and his characters exuded a sense of certainty and faith in their beliefs that is difficult not to admire.
There seems to be an eternal debate in esoteric circles as to whether or not you are a valid magical practitioner without certain practices or traditions, with many people getting caught up in a fundamentalist occultist track that embraces a learned elitism that parallels philosophies like Objectivism. I do have to agree on one point in that there seems to be only one answer to the problem: you are either A or you are Not A. Your world may be the black and white of traditions or the shades of gray that embrace everything else with these stories illustrating an extreme example of one side of that kind of argument.
Ditko said an ideal man creates a measuring standard and that's exactly what he tried to express in his art. He was illustrating his vision of an ideal and wanted us to measure ourselves against it.
We all have these rubrics for measurement, just as Ditko did. We judge either on a sliding scale or in brutal dichotomy.
Do we follow tradition or make our own path?
Is your practice legitimate or illegitimate?
A or Not A?
Magic or Not Magic?
Or do we find another way altogether and allow for a greater spectrum to wash out the rigid extremes?
SUGGESTED READING
Action Hero Archives, Volume 2 by Steve Ditko (DC Comics, 2007)
The Question, Volume 1 issues 1-36 by Dennis O’Neil and Denys Cowan (DC Comics, 1987-90)
The Question, Volume 2 issues 1-6 by Rick Veitch and Tommy Lee Edwards (DC Comics, 2004-05)
The Creeper by Steve Ditko (DC Comics, 2010)
Avenging World (The Collected Mr. A) by Steve Ditko (SD Publishing, 2021)
That’s all for this installment of The Four Color Grimoire. Tune in again next week for THE DREAM QUEST OF RICK VEITCH!
I want to thank each and every one of you for sticking around and spending time with me and my comic book diatribes. Your presence is appreciated.
Until next time,
EJM