Steve Ditko Reader #[1]

In "Dead Reckoning," space cop Airman Andor responds to a disturbance on a remote station, where an irate elderly man accuses his young, blonde maid, Kyt, of stealing a treasure map. When the man attacks Kyt with an electric whip, Andor shoots him in self-defense—then, after a sudden, intimate moment, quits the force to follow the map’s trail to the asteroid Klaxon.

In "No Bars Could Hold Him," the legendary escape artist criminal The Great Gordoni faces his ultimate challenge: a cell designed with so many keys that solving it should take twenty years. With only his wits and a mysterious knack for the impossible, he begins the painstaking task of finding the one key that will set him free.

In "The King Of Planetoid X," the curious minds of a galactic federation marvel at how one ruler maintains perpetual peace across his realm—until the truth emerges: the king’s subjects are not people, but obedient robots. The story unfolds with quiet intrigue, probing the nature of authority, obedience, and what it truly means to rule.

In "The Juggernauts Of Jupiter," the peaceful Jupertians face a dire threat as the warlike Neptunians launch an invasion. With a swift gesture, the Jupertians conceal their radiant cities beneath the surface and deploy colossal orbs to defend their world.

In "They Must Be Like Us," a skeptical professor's theory that extraterrestrials must resemble humans is put to the test when alien visitors arrive—appearing as a pair of lifelike humans and a mechanical robot. As the professor confronts the strange reality of their arrival, he must question what it truly means to be alive.

In "The Creature From Corpus III," a towering alien frog from the dying planet Corpus III arrives on Earth with a desperate mission: to claim an aquatic world for his people. He spies a pair of monstrous Gorgos wreaking havoc on a Chinese island and tries to command them, only to find they answer to no one. When his attempt to eliminate a curious paleontologist in a diving suit backfires, the Gorgos turn on him—crushing him in a single, brutal grasp.