Pacific Comics

On this day in 1981, the Rocketeer, a high-flying two-fisted hero created by the legendary Dave Stevens, made his first full appearance in comics. But the Rocketeer isn't a hero of 1981, he's a hero of 1938. In a very real way he's the product of both time periods, and united them in a manner that would influence many comics to come.

All things considered, Steve Ditko has had a pretty strange career. I mean, he co-created Spider-Man and Dr. Strange and Squirrel Girl, and went solo to create the Question, Blue Beetle, and Shade the Changing Man, and even nowadays, he's still going, quietly producing creator-owned work from a studio in Manhattan. But that stretch in between is where it really gets weird. In the '80s and '90s, he did everything from Mr. A to Chuck Norris Karate Kommandos. And then there was the Missing Man. In a career that was full of characters so odd that one of them was even called Odd Man --- and he lived up to the name, I assure you --- the Missing Man might have been the weirdest. And as the name implies, it's not what's in the stories that's so weird, it's what's not.