If I were to describe Zach Kruse’s talk at the Andrews University Department of English’s annual Waller Lecture on Oct. 28, I would call it “interesting,” “informative” and “extremely well attended.” The lecture, which was originally to take place in Buller 250, attracted so many attendants that the event was forced to move to Newbold Auditorium, where even then, the seats nearly filled up.
Kruse, who studies American comics, film and literature at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, is an engaging, charismatic speaker with an extremely deep knowledge on everything comic book-related. His lecture centered around the history of social justice and political activism in the American comic book, particularly on the art and career of Steve Ditko (whom you may know as the co-creator of Spider-Man and Dr. Strange).
The first half of Kruse’s talk contextualized Ditko’s career by presenting the history of the comic book as a form of political resistance. Many classic superheroes, including Superman and Captain America, began as anti-Nazi propaganda (which I use in the neutral dictionary definition form), and the genre evolved over the decades to match the changing interests of the American public. During the Korean War and the Vietnam War, for instance, the comic book genre was frequently employed to disseminate anti-war ideology. However, moral outrage at the perceived negative effects of comic book violence on children’s development led to the creation of the Comics Code Authority, a coalition of publishers that highly regulated what content was allowed to be printed. While ostensibly created to prevent depictions of violence, the CCA wound up restricting any controversial political messaging.
Comic artists found ways to get around the rules of the CCA (for instance, printing anti-Vietnam war comics as magazines instead of comic books, thus sidestepping the comic book printing industry in favor of the less regulated magazine publishers), but the complicated history of political activism and comic art deeply informed Ditko’s career. Ditko believed in the comic book character’s “right to kill,” arguing that death in fiction serves a philosophical purpose that cannot be replaced by other means (can you really have an anti-war story without confronting the senselessness of death in war?). He was also intentional about including people of color in his comics—Kruse noted in particular that Dr. Strange was originally an East Asian man from Tibet, and Ditko often included Black supporting and side characters (although, crucially, no Black protagonists). Many of these characters (including Dr. Strange), however, were late re-inked as white when Ditko no longer controlled them.
Over time, Ditko became increasingly engrossed in philosophical ideas about one’s internal sense of self, identity and human complexity. He drew these ideas in his comics and wrote about them in political magazines, eventually creating “Spider-Man” and “Dr. Strange” to work out some of his frustrations on the page. This period in Ditko’s career was his most influential—it was during this time that Ditko wrote that Spider-Man is not Spider-Man because of his suit or his powers but because of who he is. Ditko’s revolutionary choice to describe the superhero as not a set of powers, but as a representation of humanity, is his dominating legacy.
Kruse’s lecture was a fascinating deep dive into the history of comic books and the mind of one very influential thinker and artist. To learn more about the legacy of Steven Ditko, check out Kruse’s book “Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity.” Kruse is also working on a documentary entitled “Ditko.”
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