I, Fanboy
I am in the midst of reorganizing my comic book boxes, a task that must periodically be performed, but I am finding this go-around particularly satisfying as it has enabled me to put together a Jack Kirby/Steve Ditko DC box. Kirby was the father of damned near the whole Marvel Comics universe, co-creating with Stan Lee the Fantastic Four, the X-Men, and the Avengers, et alii, in the 1960s and way back in Dubya-Dubya-Two co-creating Captain America with Joe Simon. Ditko was the co-creator (along with Stan Lee) of Spider-Man. Lots and lots of other writers and artists helped make Marvel what it is, but Kirby's, Ditko's and Lee's creations are the foundation upon which the rest is built.

Kirby and Ditko also did a lot of work for DC Comics, Kirby's most famous creations being the entire "Fourth World" of Darkseid, Orion, New Genesis, Apokolips, et alii, and The Demon (Jason Blood/Etrigan). Ditko's most notable DC characters are the second Blue Beetle (the late, lamented Ted Kord) and The Question (Vic Sage), both created for Charton Comics but later bought lock, stock, and barrel by DC and integrated into the DC Universe, and The Creeper (Jack Ryder), a DC original. In my new Kirby/Ditko box I've got the black and white trades of Kirby's The New Gods, Mister Miracle, and The Forever People; the two color trades of Kirby's time on Superman's Pal Jimmy Olson; the various New Gods revivals; Walt Simonson's brilliant Orion; John Byrne's Blood of the Demon; Denny O'Neil and Denys Cowan's The Question*; and Len Wein and Paris Cullen's Blue Beetle, among sundry others. Soon to be added to the Kirby/Ditko box, courtesy of my fat Delphi bank, are three vintage Silver Age issues of The Demon, written and drawn by Jack "King" Kirby himself, and four vintage Silver Age issues of Steve Ditko's Beware the Creeper. Woot!

And fear not, I'm not blowing all of my money on comic books when I should be saving up for the move to Texas, The Demon and Beware the Creeper were available at a crazy discount. I couldn't afford to not buy! So, hoo-rah for me.

*The Question by O'Neil and Cowan is an excellent series, the only problem being the complete abandonment of the Objectivist principles on which Ditko constructed The Question. You don't have to like or follow Objectivism to recognize that The Question was created as a character with a very clear and distinct moral point of view. Since Messrs. O'Neil and Cowan were unwilling to honor Ditko's, and thus The Question's, moral stance, I really wish they'd written and drawn a series just like The Question, but starring someone other than The Question. I'm no Objectivist, but I long to return The Question to his Randian roots.