While his work with Spider-Man often takes center stage, some of Steve Ditko’s most iconic art came into the world (and onto the walls of college students around the world) after he created Doctor Strange in 1963. His surrealistic and almost hallucinogenic style became a staple of the Sorcerer Supreme’s books. Naturally, when the good doctor made the jump from the page to the silver screen, Ditko’s trademark visuals had to accompany him. But for Strange’s latest headlining cinematic outing, Raimi took one step further. As he told /Film’s Jacob Hall in our recent interview, the first of many universes seen in “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” is named after Ditko.

Your Spider-Man fandom was well-documented when you first made those movies, but were you a Doctor Strange fan growing up? How much of those early comics were you reading at the time?

Mostly I started with the Superman comic books and then I graduated to the Batman comic books. Then my brothers were reading the Marvel comic books, which were a little too complex for me until my brother pulled me and said you got to read Spider-Man, which I did love, but he also would read Doctor Strange, occasionally. He became like my fifth favorite superhero.

Those early Stan Lee and Ditko Comics, they’re wilder, cerebral. They’re really psychedelic. How much of that impression did they make on you at the time? 

Tremendous impression. I’d never anything like his illustrations for those fantastic worlds, so much scale and scope was put into those illustrations. Sometimes you’d open up a two-page Ditko landscape piece and it was incredible. In fact, if you saw the first 20 minutes of our movie, that universe where the movie starts is really based on what we call the Ditko-verse.

It’s certainly a fitting tribute to one of the titans of the comic book industry, especially one that created Benedict Cumberbatch’s Master of the Mystic Arts. If you’re looking to honor Ditko and take a trip to the Ditko-verse yourself, departures begin when “Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness” premieres in theaters on May 6, 2022.