Ditko's First Superhero?

All comic fans know that the Silver Age of comics began when DC made a concerted effort to revive the superhero genre by redesigning The Flash in Showcase Comics. It was a success, soon spinning off into a renewed title. They then followed suit by reviving a newly realized Green Lantern which was equally successful. Then followed things like the Justice League, etc.

Estranged from his editor at DC, Jack Kirby had retreated to working at Martin Goodman's outfit (which was then not called "Marvel"). He had been trying to talk his editor is allowing him to create superheroes at the nascent Marvel the way they had done it at DC (including Kirby's Challengers of the Unknown). Finally, with Goodman threatening to shut down the comics arm of his publishing business, Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko were given the task of creating, writing, and illustrating a raft of new superhero characters.

Kirby, of course, created most of what we would later call the Marvel Universe; and Steve Ditko also made tremendous contributions.

But Spider-Man and Dr. Strange were not the first superheroes that Steve Ditko created for a publisher. A full year before Kirby changed everything with his Fantastic Four, his co-worker had already had a hand in creating a new superhero for Charlton Comics:

Captain Atom.

Captain Atom was a classic superhero transformed by radiation into something more than human. In his case, he was Allen Adam, a technician who, accidentally launched into orbit in an experiment craft, has his body destroyed, but whose existence is altered by radiation so that he is able to reform his atoms and consciousness. His powers were explained as being of nuclear energy origins and he quickly becomes a super-powered agent for the US government. (If this sounds familiar, Alan Moore slightly altered the story for his own version of Captain Atom as Doctor Manhattan in the comic book THE WATCHMEN.)

The creation is officially shared between writer Joe Gill and Steve Ditko. But I have always wondered about the details and know nothing of them. I can only surmise from the collaborations between the two how much credit should be attributed between them. Sometimes it is obvious in Ditko stories that are credited to Gill that he, in creating the dialog, had almost no idea what Ditko had written--for the dialog sometimes bears no relation to the illustrated story! This is not the case with the Captain Atom tales, with the dialog generally being logical to the sequential storytelling, if somewhat campy and sophomoric.

But one thing that does stand out in these stories is the right wing politics and subtle philosophy that comes through. This aspect of the comics makes them classic neo-Fascist Ditko polemics. Yes, most politics in late 50s and early 60s comic books was right wing, but Ditko's take on politics is almost unique in the industry. That wacky sense of the sociopath as hero does glimmer between the cracks. And so I am left wondering if the writing was actually all Ditko, with only the dialog being from Joe Gill.

It would, of course, be a familiar story for Ditko and Kirby very soon after.

My personal copies of Space Adventures starring Ditko's Captain Atom.

Space Adventures 34, the second appearance of Captain Atom.

Space Adventures 35.

Space Adventures 36.

Space Adventures 37.

Space Adventures 38.

Space Adventures 40.

Space Adventures 42.

Before Marvel

In late 1959 and early 1960, at least a year before Jack Kirby talked Lee into allowing Kirby to create a new line of superhero titles for Marvel Comics, Steve Ditko was already doing that for the folk at Charlton Comics.

Charlton was a strange outfit. They did lots of comics, but I've never been able to figure if comic book publishing was ever profitable for them. They were mainly a printing company who churned out magazines. And they did comics to keep the presses running between jobs of producing the magazines which made them the real money. From what I hear it was easier to maintain the presses if they were constantly working.

The reputation at Charlton among creators was not wholly positive. They paid very low rates to creators and it was company policy not only to not return the artwork to the artists, but to destroy that very artwork once its purpose had been served in the printing process. But apparently there were some small advantages to working with them. They paid on time (even if the rates were low), they created a lot of work for writers and artists, and they didn't interfere much editorially with the folk making the comics. This would have been key for a guy like Steve Ditko.

Ditko seemed to be all about working. He was a creator who was being paid to illustrate. He had bills to pay and family to support. From everything I've read, he enjoyed the relative freedom of working for Charlton, and he did work for them right up until they closed up shop forever.

One of the characters Ditko created (or co-created) for Charlton was Captain Atom. The official history is that Joe Gill and Ditko created it together. But I've never read either of these guys opinions and history of Captain Atom. The character ran for a long time in various incarnations and was one of the superhero properties bought up by DC when they glommed all of Charlton's copyrighted intellectual property at auction. Captain Atom also was the source of Doctor Manhattan in the Alan Moore graphic novel, THE WATCHMEN.

So even before Kirby had succeeded in talking Goodman and Lee into allowing him to revamp Marvel into a superhero publisher, Ditko was already doing the same (to a lesser extent) over at Charlton.

My copy of SPACE ADVENTURES #36, with Captain Atom!