I know I've been promising Mr. A for awhile but this is a tough one for me because you can't discuss Mr. A without getting political and CGC is certainly not a political forum but here goes. Mr. A is perhaps unique in the history of comics in that it is the baring of a writer's most cherished beliefs in comic form. But this is not just any writer, Steve Ditko is a comic legend. Frank Miller is another example of a highly regarded writer whose outspoken views have made it to the comic pages but as far as I'm concerned Ditko's views are far more extreme than Miller's and Ditko wouldn't even take offense since in the comic he praises extremism. His views essentially parrot those of the Russian born author and philosopher Ayn Rand.

Ayn Rand's views are not some dusty relic in a museum. The 2012 vice presidential candidate from Wisconsin claimed to have entered politics after he was inspired by Ayn Rand. The junior Senator from Kentucky was literally named after Rand. Atlas Shrugged is on the second of a three part movie trilogy. What Ditko did was take the literal views of Ayn Rand and transpose them on Mr. A unvarnished. So what were Ayn Rand's view and thus Mr. A's views?

To understand the thinking of Steve Ditko and his creation it's illustrative to contemplate the picture below which was a preview of the never released issue #3. Mr. A will be battling "The Polluters" as in the polluters of the mind. Starting from left to right the words drawn on the head move from good to evil. In the good category we naturally have freedom, justice, truth and... self interest?!?! Moving towards evil we get pragmatism, subjectivism and compromise. Mirroring the views of Ayn Rand, Steve Ditko believes that the world can be neatly divided into good and evil and you don't make associations with evil regardless of the situation. For instance he would have stood resolutely against détente with the Soviet Union in the 80's. But this raises the question of who is good and who is evil. In Ditko's mind this is not a subjective concept since subjectivism is evil. We might list countries like North Korea, Iran and Saudi Arabia as evil but what about a country like Turkey or Mexico or China? You can only be good or evil, black or white. And what does it mean to be evil? Are the people evil? Is the leadership evil? Can you help the people but not the government? Ditko is able to avoid these nuances by creating a world as black and white as his own views.

Moving into really evil section irrational appears twice. This may be to emphasize the evil of irrationality or it may be just a mistake since one of the words in the middle section is skep. The two most important evil words are collectivism and sacrifice. Mr. A probably rails against collectivism more than anything else and we're not talking about just Communism. We're talking about any group of people even two (does this include marriage?). Collectivism is the opposite of individualism which is in the good section. Note that Steve Ditko tended to create loner characters. One exception might be Hawk and Dove but they seemed to hate each other. Mr. A does not have an associate, a sidekick or seemingly even a friend. He is a true objectivist hero.

Probably the most shocking evil for comic readers is sacrifice and Ditko means sacrifice in precisely the way one would think he does. Note that one of Ayn Rand's most famous books was "The Virtue of Selfishness" and believe me there is no intended irony in that title. Self interest is a virtue while sacrifice is evil. Sacrifice would be putting aside ones own wants and desires to help others. Habitat for Humanity... evil, Doctors Without Borders... evil, helping to give food to the needy at a soup kitchen... evil, military service... evil (unless you're doing it for your own self interest). Justice League of America? Oh my god, you've combined collectivism AND sacrifice. Super evil. I used to go into the inner city to tutor children... evil. This is not a misreading of Ditko's views. Mr. A stories are extremely verbose and repetitive. He goes on and on and on about the evils of working together. United We Stand... evil.

Next Journal I'll get more into Mr. A himself

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