Mr. A

Steve Ditko's Mr. A #1

by Steve Ditko

Genres: Comics

36 pages

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Stephen J. "Steve" Ditko was an American comic book artist and writer best known as the co-creator of the Marvel Comics heroes Spider-Man and Doctor Strange.

He was inducted into the comics industry's Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990, and into the Will Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 1994.

Reviews

[E · Rating 1 out of 5]

You will either despise Mr. A or agree with him. As with the character's own philosophy, there is no middle ground. There is no grey area where Mr. A is concerned. He leaves no room for hedging.

Mr. A is awful wonderful. It is full of vile, Rand-fueled angst, a prime example of teenaged sophistry—how embarrassing for Ditko that he was in his forties when he made this! It is pure nonsense from cover to cover.

It opens with...

Any man who claims the right to another's efforts or life automatically renounces the concept of rights, and their protection of his right to his own legitimate efforts and life.

and only gets better from there! (At one point, our hero monologues that "diseased means cannot bring about healthy ends" with a lack of irony typical of Randists and libertarians everywhere.)

Mr. A isn't really enjoyable even if you approach it as one would a trainwreck. It's dialogue heavy and just boring. The art and typeset is bad. Every character is an absurd Chester Gouldish caricature and mouthpiece for Ditko ("You devil, why did you make me understand what I always wanted to only vaguely feel?"). The whole thing has the subtlety of burning satire or a Chick tract.

[Rick Ray · Rating 2 out of 5]

Of the numerous iconic characters created by Steve Ditko (Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Captain Atom, Shade, the Changing Man, etc.), none quite belong to him as uniquely as Mr. A. Unlike the majority of his work - most of which was with Marvel & DC - Mr. A remains the one property that solely belongs to him. And as such, Mr. A serves as a vessel through which Ditko was able to posit his views on Objectivism, as interpreted from the works of Ayn Rand. As described by Ditko, Mr. A's true abilities are "deliberately knowing what is right and acting accordingly." In a tagline to one of the stories collected in this issue, Mr. A's merits are introduced as "what happens to a man when he refuses to uphold the good?"

The Objectivist position requires defined good and evil, and the various Mr. A adventures collected here are just that. In a sense, these are satirical superhero comics, spinning common tropes under the guise of black-and-white morality. The satire burns out quickly though, since it's completely unsubtle and particularly unappealing after a few pages of reading about a morally unincumbered vigilante taking down reprehensible villains. The first story does its best with one of the lackeys in a kidnapping plot showing remorse, but in Mr. A's eyes, this guy is just as guilty since he fails to act on it.

But what really drags these stories down is Ditko's verbosity. These are dialogue heavy, with a tedious typeset and overly rigid artwork. Ditko's magic is completely lost on these banal situations depicted in Mr. A, indicating how critical it was for him to be in a position to craft more eccentric sequences. The lack of subtlety in the storytelling only compounds how dull every other part of this production actually is.

[Curtis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Worse than I expected.

I didn't go into this thinking that I would agree with Ditko's objectivist position but I did at least think it would be an entertaining comic. It isn't. Ditko not only hits you over the head with his philosophy but keeps hitting you with it, over and over again, until you're just bored of hearing it.

There's never any ambiguity or excitement. Both of the stories I read (before abandoning this) unfolded with a tedious inevitability. Much of the dialogue was unnecessary and could've been cut. Other parts barely even made sense. Not a single character ever comes across as a believable, three-dimensional person.

The essay at the beginning is utter garbage. The philosophical ideas put forward are mostly made up of sophistry that is supposed to sound clever but really, really isn't. I really feel that Ditko could've done so much better by employing even the smallest amount of subtlety but he doesn't.

The artwork, which is nice at times, is the book's only saving grace but nowhere near worth wading through the absolute tripe written on every page.

[Philmore Olazo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can truly get behind what Ditko is trying to say. That good and evil are absolute and clear values, and no evil act must ever go unpunished.

Mr. A, also known as Rex Graine. Mr. A operates as a vigilante, serving as judge, jury, and executioner in his relentless pursuit of justice. Throughout his adventures, he confronts various crimes, both major and minor, and ensures that those responsible face punishment, whether through legal means or his own brand of justice.

Morality as black and white, with no room for ambiguity, is a central theme in "Mr. A." This uncompromising stance on right and wrong drives the character's actions and motivations. However, the story does lead to a sense of preachiness.

I couldn't stop thinking about Mr. A's unilateral decision-making regarding the severity of punishment for wrongdoing. Just who is he to decide such things?

Overall, this comic presents a thought-provoking exploration of morality and justice through the lens of a vigilante. I think he's too interesting to be forgotten.

[Kevin Sebastian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Little metal man