Here's an odd little Twilight Zone-ish tale from Steve Ditko around the time Spider-Man was getting started. Love the splash (the letterer's delight!) and the layouts are fine but the art itself is fairly pedestrian for Ditko who was perhaps saving his best for Spidey.
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Neat little story! I have most of the Ditko weird, sf, and monster stories. Where did that story appear? I have almost ever issue of the pre-hero Marvels but I can't recall reading that one. Either it's from an issue I don't own, or one I forgot. Jasper is obviously modeled on Buster Keaton.
Was Ditko full libertarian at that point? I wonder if he bristled at the notion of "someone" sacrificing themselves for the betterment others?
I admire Ditko's work and acknowledge all the great drawings he has made. But dammit, the guy could not draw convincing cars. Not 1960s cars, not 1930s cars.
I remember when an early SUV called the Scout appeared. It was notable for being box-shaped and totally generic-looking. A fellow Spidey fan showed me a picture and said, "At last! A car that looks like Steve Ditko drew it!"
Ditko has not to my knowledge ever been a full libertarian — for example, the Question crusaded against those who sold prohibitted drugs. What Ditko became was a sort of Objectivist. The set of Objectivists and that of libertarians has an intersection, but neither is a subset of the other. Libertarianism itself is absolutely silent on the question of whether voluntary self-sacrifice is good, evil, or neutral, and one can find libertarians who advocate voluntary self-sacrifice.
And, actually, Rand's position on when one might reasonably die to save another is rather less simple that a bald rejection. It turns upon such things as how one feels about life without that person.
Meanwhile, I think that the characters in this story should have hauled that car out of the ravine or whatever it were, and restored the thing!
Mr Smith— The Grand Comics Database locates “Jasper's Jalopy” in Strange Tales #103 (Dec '62) and in Astounding Stories #130.
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