Author: Graeme McMillan / Source: WIRED
Let’s get the obvious out of the way first. Yes, Steve Ditko is the man behind Spider-Man and Doctor Strange, both of which he co-created with Stan Lee. And, sure, he’s a comic book artist and writer whose work displays a trippy aesthetic unlike anything in comics before or, truthfully, after his time.
Ditko is known for drawing some of the best hands in comics, too. But those are are just the bold-print facts wonks list off in comic-book shops—and Steve Ditko was so much more than that.In addition to his work on Peter Parker and Stephen Strange, Ditko, whose death at age 90 hit the news late last week, also introduced the most iconic Iron Man suit of all time: the first armor in red and gold—a color scheme that would come to define the character. He also refined the helmet design from “a bucket on someone’s head” to its sleeker incarnation. Ditko also, reportedly, was the one who decided Bruce Banner would transform into the Hulk in times of emotional stress and anger, instead of just when provoked by the multiple triggers the series had been using.
Ditko parted ways with Marvel in 1966. There are still multiple versions of the story behind his exit, ranging from disagreements over the direction of Amazing Spider-Man (and, specifically, the yet-to-be-revealed identity of the Green Goblin) to a general mismatch of attitudes between Ditko and Lee. Regardless of what happened, Ditko moved on from the publisher and continued creating. He alternated work for horror publisher Warren’s Creepy and Eerie anthologies…
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