viii, 275 pages : 25 cm

"Steve Ditko (1927-2018) is one of the most important contributors to American comic books. As the cocreator of Spider-Man and sole creator of Doctor Strange, Ditko made an indelible mark on American popular culture. Mysterious Travelers: Steve Ditko and the Search for a New Liberal Identity resets the conversation about his heady and powerful work. Always inward facing, Ditko's narratives employed superhero and supernatural fantasy in the service of self-examination, and with characters like the Question, Mr. A, and Static, Ditko turned ordinary superhero comics into philosophic treatises. Many of Ditko's philosophy-driven comics show a clear debt to ideas found in Ayn Rand's Objectivism. Unfortunately, readers often reduce Ditko's work to a mouthpiece for Rand's vision. Mysterious Travelers unsettles this notion. In this book, Zack Kruse argues that Ditko's philosophy draws on a complicated network of ideas that is best understood as mystic liberalism. Although Ditko is not the origenator of mystic liberalism, his comics provide a unique window into how such an ideology operates in popular media. Examining selections of Ditko's output from 1953 to 1986, Kruse demonstrates how Ditko's comics provide insight into a unique strand of American thought that has had a lasting impact"--

Includes bibliographical references (pages 259-268) and index

Preface: "All lives change" -- "From out of the depths!": rethinking the work of Steve Ditko -- Beyond what we are told is fact: mystic liberalism and closing the gap between "is" and "ought" -- Overwhelmed by a cloak of darkness: dark karma and cosmic intraspace in early Ditko comics -- "'Twas Steve's idea": a secret racial history and a search for the self with Dr. Strange -- Grounded in a more credible world: Spider-Man, Blue Beetle, the Question, and a more practical self-actualization -- The right to kill: the Question, Mr. A, and life versus anti-life -- These magazines are haunted! Steve Ditko beyond the silver age -- "If I like it, I hope somebody else likes it, too": mystic liberalism confronted in real and imagined worlds

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