In the latest issue of Wizard (#124, January 2002) there is an article that touts the "Marvel Renaissance" including Joe Quesada's efforts to convince Alan Moore, Todd McFarlane and Neil Gaiman to do work for the company. The same issue features a section on Steve Ditko in which Ralph Macchio recalls the time Ditko suggested the possibility of working on Spider-Man again. Now, you can't read those two articles without putting them together, can you? Joe Q., if you're listening, here is what I'd like you to do:
Get on the horn and call up Steve Ditko. Tell him you'll pay him lots of money and give him his very own Spider-Man mag. We'll call it "Steve Ditko's Spider-Man" (if it's all right with Stan) and let him plot, write and draw any Spider-Man stories he wants. If he wants to pick up where he left off with "Amazing Spider-Man #38", he can. If he wants to ignore all the previous continuity, he can. If he wants to write Objectivist-oriented tales better suited to the Question and Mr. A., he can. If he wants to change the identity of the Green Goblin, he can. Whatever he wants. Carte blanche. Free rein. Call it the "Ditko-verse". I mean, who's going to complain... the Comics Code?
Just think of it, Joe. You want to pull off a coup? This is it. Repeat it to yourself. Mull it over and over in your mind. "Ditko and Spider-Man. Ditko and Spider-Man." Now pick up the phone and call him. What's the worst that can happen? He'll tell you "Not interested." But think of the other possibilities, Joe. Just think about them.