Comic Book Legend & Spider-Man Co-Creator Steve Ditko Passes Away

Steve Ditko, the legendary comic book artist whose work with Stan Lee on Spider-Man and more helped change the landscape of the industry, has passed away. TMZ reports Ditko died of a heart attack in his New York City apartment. He was ninety years old.

According to the site, Ditko was found dead in his apartment on June 29 after a social worker who had not heard from him went to check on him. The cause of death was listed as arteriosclerotic and hypertensive cardiovascular disease, and it is believed he passed away two days earlier.

Ditko had a monumental influence on the direction of comics during Marvel’s formative years. After starting off his career in 1953 and working at Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s studio, Ditko began working for Atlas Comics — Marvel’s predecessor — in late 1955. He contributed stories to titles like Strange Tales, Tales of Suspense and Tales to Astonish, as well as Amazing Adventures. The latter series become popular enough to get reformatted and renamed as Amazing Adult Fantasy.

It was this title where Lee and Ditko created one of Marvel’s most famous characters in Spider-Man in 1962. Lee was originally going to work with Kirby on the character but they disagreed on character design, and thus Ditko was drafted. Ditko became the regular artist on the character in his own series, The Amazing Spider-Man, and Ditko helped create iconic villains like Doctor Octopus, The Sandman, The Lizard and more.

A year later, Ditko and Lee co-created Doctor Strange for Strange Tales #110 in July of 1963. Ditko’s surrealist and psychedelic work on Doctor Strange drew immediate acclaim and a strong following among fans. He also designed the Hulk’s nemesis The Leader, the metaphysical entity Eternity, and many more characters.

Eventually, Ditko and Lee’s relationship became strained. The two clashed on story elements, and Lee left more and more of the plotting details to Ditko to the point that Ditko received plot credit starting with issued #25. The two didn’t speak for some time at the end of their work together, with intermediaries bringing script pages and art back and forth as well as handling communication of changes that needed to be made. Ditko abruptly informed Marvel that he would be leaving after issue #38. He never explained his issues with Lee, though he did do an interview in 2002 where he disputed the claim that he left over disagreements about the ultimate identity of the Green Goblin.

After leaving Marvel, Ditko went back to work for Charlton Comics, where he began to create characters influenced by his belief in Ayn Rand’s objectivist philosophy. These include Mr. A and The Question. He also worked for DC Comics where he created characters like Shade, the Changing Man; Hawk & Dove; and the Creeper. He would eventually return to do freelance work with Marvel on titles like The Micronauts, Captain Universe, Machine Man and more through the late 1990s. He also co-created Speedball with Tom DeFalco, and Squirrel Girl (now a major part of the Marvel Comics universe) with Will Murray.

Ditko eventually retired from the comics industry in 1998 and was noted for avoiding interviews and public appearances, saying in a 1968 interview, “When I do a job, it’s not my personality that I’m offering the readers but my artwork. It’s not what I’m like that counts; it’s what I did and how well it was done. I produce a product, a comic art story.”

On behalf of 411, our condolences to the family, friends, and many fans of Mr. Ditko. The comic book industry would be nowhere near the same without him, and he will be missed.