This month was the last that Steve would appear as the regular artist on Spider-Man and Dr. Strange (he had left the Hulk strip some months before). His work had been just spectacular. Something deep inside of me resonated everytime I saw his work.

To the best of my knowledge I first encountered Steve’s work in the back-up story, “The Gargoyles” in Tales of Suspense #46. I next encountered his work in The Amazing Spider-Man #16 and The Amazing Spider-Man Annual #1 (they both went on sale June 1964, when I was 10 years old). I eagerly followed his work through his Marvel years.

After he left Marvel, I picked up his work wherever I found it: Blue Beetle, T.H.U.N.D.E.R. Agents, The Creeper, The Hawk and the Dove, Shade the Changing Man, Man-Bat. I bought his solo publications Mr. A and The Avenging World. But nothing matched his Marvel years for me.

Steve Ditko is the reason I became an artist!

I never understood his fascination with Ayn Rand and her philosophy of selfishness. He just came across as being some kind of law-and-order nut to me.

But his living legacy: the Atlas Era tales of “supernatural irony” (my favorite phrase for describing them), Spider-Man, Dr. Strange and yes!, the Hulk. His work on those series will live with me forever; and I am so glad for the motivation and inspiration to rediscover those great works that this Marathon has allowed me to do. For me, later Marvel stories are lifeless, plastic, and dead. They won’t live for me the way his Marvel work does. It’s the greatest! Always and forever!

Anarchy and Chaos are the natural state of the human race. Civilization is unnatural. It is a whim of circumstance. And Chaos must always ultimately triumph.