captain atom – Coke ⊕ Comics

INTERLUDE: Captain Atom #83, Story B

The Blue Beetle

Featuring: Blue Beetle
Release: August 9, 1966
Cover: November 1966
12 cents
Concept and art: Steve Ditko
Script: Gary Friedrich
7 pages

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Daredevil #23	Reading order	Sgt. Fury #36

Guess that wraps up the first episode in the life of the new Blue Beetle! Wonder what Dan Garret would say if he could see me today?

I’d like to see what Steve Ditko is up to since leaving Marvel. And in 1966, he introduces a new version of the Blue Beetle.

Let’s review the history of the Blue Beetle before we dive in.

Blue Beetle was created in 1939 by Charles Wotjkoski and introduced in Mystery Men Comics #1, published by Fox Comics. Wotjkoski was credited as Charles Nicholas. The GCD suggests Will Eisner may have been involved with the scripting. I can’t intelligently weigh in on that.

Dan Garrett is a police officer who occasionally dons a mask and calls himself Blue Beetle to handle cases in his own way. Blue Beetle is considered a fugitive from justice.

INTERLUDE: Captain Atom #78

The Gremlins from Planet Blue

Featuring: Captain Atom
Release: October 1, 1965
Cover: December 1965
12 cents
Steve Ditko, Joe Gill, Rocke Mastroserio, and Joe D’Agostino
19 pages

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Space Adventures #33, Story B	PRELUDE
Amazing Spider-Man #33	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #72, Story B

But he was not as before when he emerged from the atomic fireball! No… he was charged with unlimited nuclear power… and this power enabled him to hurtle through space at fantastic speeds! Almost indestructible, with superior vision, hearing, and strength, he became the champion of good men… and the enemy of evil everywhere!

With his time at Marvel coming to an end, Steve Ditko started putting out work for other publishers, beginning with a return to the superhero he created for Charlton Comics, Captain Atom. His very first superhero creation.

This was published concurrently with Amazing Spider-Man #32 and Strange Tales #140, the month before climactic stories in each series, and 6 months before his final issue of each series.

Captain Atom had been on hiatus since Ditko’s departure in 1961, though Charlton had recently been reprinting the old Captain Atom stories.

His return sees him facing off against aliens sabotaging our space program. These aliens seem powerful enough to attack en masse and defeat Earth pretty easily, but subterfuge is their method.

One scientist, Professor Jupe, notices the disasters are too frequent to be random. This scientist has a lovely daughter Leah who will catch our hero’s eye. Both will find themselves captives of the aliens.

We get a recap of Captain Atom’s origin and some details of his powers. Captain Atom is charged with unlimited nuclear power, can hurtle through space at fantastic speeds, and is almost indestructible, with superior vision, hearing, and strength.

PRELUDE: Space Adventures #33, Story B

Introducing Captain Atom

Featuring: Captain Atom
Release: January 1960
Cover: March 1960
10 cents
9 pages

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	INTERLUDE	Captain Atom #78
Amazing Spider-Man #33	Reading order	Tales of Suspense #72, Story B

Meet Captain Adam… the Air Force career man who knew more about rocketry, missiles, and the universe than any man alive… a specialist of the missle age, a trained, dedicated soldier who was a physics prodigy at eight, a chemist, a ballistics genius! In short, Captain Adam was an invaluable space-age soldier even before that memorable day at Cape Canaveral, Florida, when an Atlas missile was being readied for blast-off… with an atomic warhead inside… and Captain Adam making the final last second adjustments!

GCD credits the story to Joe Gill and the art to Steve Ditko. They say Ditko’s signature appears, but I can’t prove that. Maybe someone has better eyes than I do. UPDATE: My readers do have better eyes than I!

I’m curious what happens to Steve Ditko after he leaves Marvel. And the answer can be found before he even leaves Marvel. About 6 months before his last Spider-Man and Dr. Strange story appear, his work starts showing up from other publishers. The first work to grace newsstands is a return to his character, Captain Atom, published almost concurrently with Amazing Spider-Man #32, part of the story that reads like Ditko’s last Spider-Man story.

I thought it would be good to check out that story, but for context I thought it would be worth first going back to the creation of the character, which came out over 2 years before the first Spider-Man story.

We’ll retroactively place this in the reading order alongside the comics concurrent to Captain Atom’s return.

Before Spider-Man and Dr. Strange, Steve Ditko teamed with writer Joe Gill to create Captain Atom. Let’s check out his first adventure from 1960.