Chapter 3. Steve, Shade, the Changing Man, & The Odd Man

During the first half of the 1970s, most of Steve’s work had been for Charlton, which had always been his favorite publisher. They didn’t pay that much, but they allowed him the most creative freedom. He’d also done some work for the newly formed Atlas/ Seaboard company. In late 1974, DC’s managing editor, Joe Orlando, had taken note of a sword-&-sorcery trend springing up in comics. Marvel’s Conan and Kull had been doing well for a long time and Joe wanted DC to have a counterpart. DC had a Beowulf title, but Joe was looking for something more original. Paul Levitz, Joe’s assistant editor and general righthand man at the time, jumped at the chance and created the Stalker series. Joe immediately tapped Steve Ditko as the artist.

When I had first met Steve, that’s what he was doing. He had come in to drop off his latest penciled pages for Stalker. My office soon became a haven for Steve. He was not a recluse, but he was a very private, and perhaps shy, person. He really didn’t want to hang out in the DC bullpen with all the other freelancers while waiting to hand in art pages to Joe, so he used my office chair as his sanctuary. This is how we became friends. Whenever he came to DC, he would duck into my office and wait there until Joe was free to meet with him. He would show me his artwork for Stalker even before he showed it to Joe, who was the Stalker editor.

Recognizing what an asset Steve was, the upper echelon of DC wanted to keep him happy. While he was in the midst of doing Stalker, they also had him do a Creeper issue for First Issue Special, DC’s latest “try-out” magazine, in the tradition of Showcase from years earlier.

Issue #8 finally revealed the origin of the M-Vest and how Shade obtained it. Steve had his own theory about “origin stories.” First of all, he never called them “origin stories.” He called them “legends.” He also felt they were sacred. He believed creators shouldn’t “waste” a good legend on an unproven character. This is the reason that most Steve Ditko characters first appear full-blown. Their origins (or “legends”) were not usually revealed until three or four stories into the series. Steve once explained this to me in reference to Doctor Strange over at Marvel. Doctor Strange was introduced in Marvel’s Strange Tales #110 in July of 1963. There was no fanfare, no mention on the cover, no origin, no introduction of any sort. The first adventure pitted Doctor

Strange against Nightmare, who would later be developed into a major super-villain. Five months later, in Strange Tales #115, the origin of Doctor Strange was finally revealed, accompanied with the typical Stan Lee hype as to how “…It could only happen to the offbeat Marvel Comics Group…with three published stories of Doctor Strange…we forgot to give you his origin!” Of course, no one had “forgotten” anything. This was just an example of Stan Lee’s blustering hype. Steve just wanted to wait and make certain the character would continue (he had already skipped a couple of issues) before producing a proper origin tale. This is why we had to wait so long to learn Rac Shade’s origin. Ironically, Shade did not continue.