The Creeper in DC Universe Halloween Special '09 #1 (December, 2009)

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"What Creeps Out The Creeper?"
Story & Art by Duncan Rouleau


Join the Spooktacular Samhain Celebration at this coven of blogs!

GHOSTS ANNUALS

1. "Bough Breaks" @ Batman: Gotham Knights Online
2. "Haunts" @ The Flash: Speed Force
3. "Dead Calm" @ The Aquaman Shrine
4. "The Distance Gone" @ Diana Prince is the New Wonder Woman
5. "Ghosts' - The Corpse Corps!" @ Green Lantern: Corps Conjecture
6. "The Death Sentence" @ Superman: Great Krypton!
7. "Heart's Afire" @ Martian Manhunter: The Idol-Head of Diabolu
8. "Life Itself" @ The Captain's JLA Homepage

HALLOWEEN HEROES

• "Shrinking From The Past" @ Power of the Atom
• "Ragman - Ripped to Shreds!" @ DC's Tatterdemalion of Justice
• "Legend of Driq" @ Indigo Tribe
• “Zor!” @ The Spectre of Siegel & Shuster: Mythmakers
• "Shoe Shine.. Back from the Dead" @ Firestorm Fan
• "Role Model" @ The Vixen of Justice League Detroit
• "Seeing Ghosts" @ Boosterrific
• "Swamp Thing's Ghost Dance" @ The BLOG from the BOG
• "What Creeps Out The Creeper?" @ DC Bloodlines
• "Happy Halloween" @ I Am The Phantom Stranger

Showcase '93 #12 featuring The Creeper (December, 1993)

Is it still Christmas Eve at 3 A.M.? That's how the story goes, with the Creeper sitting on a payphone in Boston in the snow, talking to a phone sex operator. "I just don't believe anyone called Paula Passion would spend her Christmas talkin' dirty to guys like me! ...So... where exactly do you stand on abortion? Foreign aid? Infrastructure investments? Saxophones? You into sax, Paula?" She hung up on him. "And I thought a democratic administration would make a difference! Ha ha ha... guess not!"

The Giggling Ghoul made his way to a bar with a friendly tender named Chalky, where he announced, "The road to enlightenment is pitted with moist orifices!" The Creeper was invited to partake of the cheap karaoke set-up, on which he tortured the Tom Jones hit "Delilah." Chalky asked him to give it a rest, especially in light of the hostage situation on the news.

Dave was an unbalanced religious nut with a gun pointed at his wife and infant child while voices in his head told him to kill. Snipers on adjacent rooftops were just waiting for a clear shot. The Creeper shimmied down an air vent to the apartment's basement, then worked his way upstairs while singing the Bee Gees' "Stayin' Alive."

The Leaping Looney leaped loonily through Dave's wooden door, and was mistaken for the Demon. "Hey, I resent that! I'm much better looking!" A beating later, Dave was subdued, and his wife plead with the Creeper not to hurt him. "Don't worry. My strict moral code won't let me kill him!" The Macabre Manhunter then pushed the wife and child out to the hallway to keep them safe around the undoubtedly jumpy snipers outside. The Creeper poked fun at her perfume and outfit while making a racket within the apartment.

The Creeper explained to Dave that all the cops outside were all wound up, and he feared they might take that pressure home with them and abuse their loved ones. "You're going to relieve that tension-- Good luck, guy!" The Giggling Ghoul had bound Dave to a makeshift wooden dolly with his gun hand extended. Then, the Creeper hoisted Dave up from his feet, and the snipers did the rest. As his wife screamed, the Creeper explained, "Honey, he was a maniac. He was going to kill you. By his own strict code, it was his duty to die! Christmas? Sheesh! Who'd have it?

The Warbling Weirdo returned to his bar, where he sang "Dirty Water" by the Standells.

"A Cold Night in Hell" was A Tale of a Happier Holiday Time by Keith Giffen (Plot/Breakdowns,) Alan Grant (Dialog,) and Ted McKeever (Art/Colors)

The Creeper's Top 10 Covers

As part of my ongoing effort to figure out Steve Ditko's Creeper character, who remains elusive to me despite years of exposure, I decided to compile a slightly different top cover list. I want to keep this one strictly top 10, which due to the many divergent takes on the character, makes this probably my least inclusive countdown to date.

The Creeper was one of the many quirky characters created by Ditko who were vaguely reminiscent of Spider-Man, but without capturing even a fraction of the Amazing Arachnid's audience. I suspect this was for the same reason Jack Kirby never seemed to bottle lightning on his own... the need for a balancing collaborator. Stan Lee was the perfect writer for both men as evidenced by the birth of the Marvel Universe between the three. Joe Gill was nowhere near Lee's equal, but he worked well with Ditko on their early Charlton collaborations. At DC, Ditko was saddled with ideologically opposite scripters like Steve Skeates and, on Beware the Creeper, Denny O'Neil. This likely prompted Ditko to begin scripting his own work, which often seemed nothing but objectivist sermons. I suspect the Creeper got caught in the middle of two very different mindsets, but it was O'Neil who carried on with the character at various points for about a decade.



Shortly after his series' cancellation, the Creeper was played in a pseudo-adversarial fashion against the Batman and other heroes, which sums up most of his '70s appearances. I feel this proposition had a lot of potential, in the same way pairing off Daredevil and the Punisher did in the 1980s. Both may be vigilantes fighting a lonely war against crime, but there is a conflict in methods that would naturally cause the characters to butt heads. Also, making the Creeper a quasi-villain retains his essential queer menace, where playing up his clownishness, well...

The Creeper was linked to the Joker through a guest spot in the Clown Prince of Crime's solo series. While probably seen as a natural then, I think it hamstrung the Creeper as being the "good Joker," an untenable contradiction. If the Creeper is truly mad, he's a danger to everyone around him, which is what makes the Joker so sexy. If the Creeper isn't as dangerous as the Joker, and he cannot be as even an anti-hero, then he's just another disturbed super-hero plagued with duality, a dime a dozen in this industry.



If anyone could faithfully retain the essentially weirdness of Steve Ditko's Creeper, it was Keith Giffen, who teased the proposition throughout the '80s and '90s. Unfortunately, Giffen was on of the chief proponents of the "Creeper really is crazy" revision of the character, which could have worked if anyone had bothered to give him at least a mini-series to work with. Instead, the Creeper's primary role during these years was as one of a team of scrubs tasked with battling Eclipso in his two series from that period.

Beginning around the same time as the '90s Creeper series, the character once again played aggravating foil to the Batman in a series of animated style appearances playing the character as a goofy anti-heroic off-brand Freakazoid/Joker. Given my druthers, I'd take Ambush Bug in that sort of role, and I think it does the Creeper a disservice to turn him into an awkward comedic foil, not to mention a dayglo eyesore.

10) Beware the Creeper #2 (July, 2003)

A short lived female Creeper turned up at Vertigo in the early '00s. It wasn't a bad series, and each issue had an eye-catching cover by Cliff Chang. However, the artist was still developing his talent, and the writing bypassed Creepy for bohemian, which didn't quite work. I do like that this Creeper is almost asexual, almost completely covered in a thick, misshapen material.

9) The Creeper #3 (December, 2006)

Justiano was a rather good choice to handle the Creeper, as he brought I vibrancy long missing from the character. From the gummy death's head grin to that untamed mane, not to mention the ridiculous level of furious detail, that's a Creeper alright.

8) Beware the Creeper #5 (February, 1969)

Something I've never seen anyone address is the sexuality of the Creeper's appearance. I think the yellow is supposed to be part of a costume, but as depicted, the Creeper is a nearly nude jaundiced dude. Does that do anything for the ladies (or a supposed 10% of the gents?) Perhaps one thing the Creeper should have taken from the Joker playbook was his ambiguous sensuality, at least based on this curiously homoerotic cover. Peep the identity challenged Proteus preparing to reveal himself to his frienemy, tied up and dripping wet in an underground dungeon.

7) The Creeper #4 (March, 1998)

Part of what's cool about this cover is that it's actually somewhat creepy, which one would think a Creeper should be. Another is that there's a sense of melancholy to the madness, which does a better job of evoking mental illness than a cackling buffoon. Mostly though, I like that it features Jack Ryder as a grim protagonist inextricably linked to "The Macabre Manhunter" without it necessarily relating to the nuttiness Ditko would have probably loathed from later interpretations of his character.

6) Justice League of America #70 (March, 1969)

I find this one of the most interesting covers from a writer's perspective. Ditko clearly intended the Creeper to be a sane man unsettling his foes with a madman persona, in the vein of the Shadow or the Spider. However, creators since at least the '80s have made the Creeper a legitimate basket case, involving psychosis-inducing drugs and multiple personality disorder to explain "The Leaping Looney." Most recent, creators have even gone the supernatural route, having the Creeper persona turn up as an actual demon from hell possessing Jack Ryder. Going back to the early days and seeing the Creeper as a literal puppetmaster with the mental facilities to manipulate the JLA seems a far more intriguing concept than the tired old Jekyll and Hyde routine.

5) The Creeper #1 (October, 2006)

I usually find this type of watercolor in comics pretentious (hello David Mack,) but it works here by externalizing the Creeper's madness in this incarnation (as it could be argued the original conception was nothing but external, performance "madness.")

4) Beware the Creeper #2 (August, 1968)

This paranoid piece does a great job of showing that the threat of Proteus, the Creeper's shape-shifting archnemesis, could come from anywhere.

3) Beware the Creeper #6 (April, 1969)

If you want to try to one-up Steve Ditko on his own series, Gil Kane would be on the short list of names to call. Caught in an inescapable death trap and preparing to die, the Creeper's grin is gone, which more than anything establishes the dire fate he faces.

2) Beware the Creeper #3 (October, 1968)

An exciting work as only Ditko could deliver, showcasing "The Giggling Ghoul" leaping at some sort of ritualistic cult.

1) Showcase #73 (April, 1968)

An easy choice, as this is the Creeper's debut appearance, and the single most famous image of the character. It also firmly establishes him as a weirdly maniacal nighttime avenger caught between the law and the underworld. Nobody is going to light a signal to call on this guy.

1989 Mayfair Games DC Heroes The Creeper Character Card

I don't get the Creeper. To a large degree beyond my control, I was exposed to a lot of Steve Ditko as a kid. I thought his work was weird, stiff and kind of unpleasant. I preferred John Romita Sr. on Spider-Man, Frank Brunner or Gene Colan on Dr. Strange, and if exposure was unavoidable, a heavy handed inker like Wally Wood over Ditko himself. Even his occasional appearances in bizarre venues like Cracked Magazine were unsettling. I had similar uncertainty when it came to Gil Kane, who I grew to love, and Jack Kirby, who I came to respect. I certainly learned to appreciate Ditko, and I especially adore his trailblazing run on Strange Tales, but I'm just not into anything I've seen from the '70s up (especially if Ditko lacked a writing partner.)

The one Ditko creation that I find in no way creepy is the Creeper. I guess it's one of those instances where an unintentionally funny guy tries to tell a joke, and it's just stilted and sad. I often think Ditko was just trying to recreate his Marvel successes through something of a scientific process. Industrialist/inventor Ted Kord was the kind of man Ditko likely imaged Peter Parker would grow to become... a productive member of society like pre-reveal Norman Osborn. Captain Atom, Shade the Changing Man, and even ROM Spaceknight traded in trippy visuals similar to those of the Master of the Mystic Arts, but unambiguously grounded in science fiction instead of the metaphysical. Hawk and Dove had bright, iconic super-hero costumes and dynamic, acrobatic fighting styles, but they were hardly twice the Spider-Man. It seems like the Creeper was intended to plumb the eerie depths of Ditko's heyday on Spidey, but I think a word more immediately associated with the Creeper is garish. He's an ugly character with a miserable design and a secret identity with an untenable worldview whose principles its own founder betrayed. The Question is creepy because he's supposed to be an admirable hero while preaching borderline sociopathic objectivist nonsense, while the Creeper is just a bellicose buffoon.



From my criticism, you might think I hate the Creeper and/or Steve Ditko. Absolutely untrue. Ditko was one of those rare comic book creators with the strength of conviction to make political and moral stands, offering controversial opinions and using his art as something more than a paycheck for fantasizing. One of the major failings of The Hawk and the Dove was that rather than confronting '60s youth with hard, cold conservatism, liberal scripter Steve Skeates forced words into the characters' mouths and bias into the narrative that made the book just as pandering and pointless as every other wannabe hip crap on the stands. Ditko's heroes still spoke in absolutes at a time when guys like Green Lantern were becoming wishy-washy wusses. You need contrasts and extremes to point the way toward or away from directions as necessary. I'll take Ditko and Gill's giddily jingoistic Captain Atom over O'Neil and Adams' preachy, meandering Green Arrow stories seven days a week and twice on Sunday. Besides, nobody outside of maybe Charles Burns can draw hallucinogenic visuals like Ditko.

Unfortunately, none of this helps the Creeper. Jack Ryder was maybe a bit right wing, and Keith Giffen got some mileage out of making him a Morton Downey Jr. stand-in for a while, but it never really fit with the Creeper persona. Maybe if the alter ego were some sort of were-Marxist, but Ditko created the Creeper very much in the Shadow mold of hard-nosed vigilantes who only pretended to be madmen. There was an attempt to play the Creeper as suffering from the effects of mood-altering drugs tied to his transformation, but that only allowed him to be dismissed as something of a junkie. Some have tried to play him as a good Joker, but the whole point of the Clown Prince of Crime is that he's an unpredictable anarchist maniac. Heroes can't just randomly torture/maim/kill anyone with the misfortune to cross their path, and if they only direct their violent tendencies against the deserving, they're just a much sillier take on the Punisher.

So I say again, I do not get the Creeper. Dichotomy can be fascinating, but rather than a walking contradiction, he's more of a shuffling negation. Everything that could/should work about the Creeper is diluted or muzzled by another aspect. His powers and abilities are just a bit too potent for him to mingle with the more realistic nighttime rooftop set, but too weak to hang with the big boys, and he looks terribly out of place in either company. When you're such the odd man out that a pack of misfits like Justice League International or the Outsiders don't even suit you, there's no place to ever call home.

• 1989 Mayfair Games DC Heroes Character Card Blank & Checklist

1968 DC Comics Showcase #73 "Beware The Creeper" House Ad

DC promoted the event of a popular artist moving into their stable with "Steve Ditko Strikes Again!" I suppose that would be a strike in the baseball sense, as like Jack Kirby, none off Ditko's DC creations ever caught fire like the Marvel ones. In fact, I'd say the Charlton heroes DC bought about fifteen years later have profited them far more than the Creeper, Stalker or Hawk & Dove... although the Vertigoized Shade the Changing Man had a longer run than any of them. I'm hoping I'll have some Creeper up here for October, although perhaps not in the manner you may expect...

Secret Origins starring The Creeper #18 (September, 1987)

A pair of schmucky goombah mobsters whined about the impact a muck-racking reporter was having on their illicit businesses through his column, Jack Ryder's Hot Seat, buried in the Herald Examiner newspaper. The narcissistic snoop heard all of this, as Ryder had conned his way into their offices to plant a bug. Figuring that alone was worth a Pulitzer, "or at least an Oscar," Ryder was driven to crash the hoods' Halloween party in order to take his column "to page one!"

The capo Manny's house was packed with druggie friends of his actress wife in costumes, so Jack Ryder's tan trench coat would have stood out like a sore thumb, had he made it that far. Sneaking through a servant's entrance, he was promptly knocked out by the thuggish Galt, and turned over to Manny's lieutenant Moe. Ryder was overdosed with drug that could trigger severe psychosis, dressed in a queer costume as "The Dancing Creep," and turned loose as a party favor. "Do with him as you like, ladies and gentlemen-- he's yours to enjoy-- or destroy!" A mob of fists indicated the latter (although silhouettes and lapsed time could be interpreted differently,) a form of torture that sickened Manny.

The battered Creeper was escorted to a car, then dumped in the woods. Galt made a game of giving Ryder a chance to escape, then prematurely gunned down the doped up reporter. Left for dead, Ryder was recovered by Professor Emil Yatz, whose scientific theories saw him laughed out of academia. Publishing his concepts through "cheap science fiction magazines," Yatz caught the imagination of the mob. Their funding allowed the professor to create a device that would store inorganic materials at a subatomic level, then manifest them with the touch of a button. Yatz realized this could be used for crimes, like bank robbers instantly altering their appearance to escape justice, and fled with his prototype. Yatz continued observing his former employers, and acted to save Ryder's life as a result. Yatz implanted the prototype inside Ryder, which possessed the additional ability to miraculously heal wounds. However, Yatz had to act fast to avoid brain damage, so that the Creeper costume and the drugs in Ryder's system were coded into the device.

Galt was on to Yatz, who was accidentally shot dead when he again put himself in harm's way to save Ryder. Galt knew his boss would be peeved, and was set on killing Ryder, who managed to duck into a hiding space and activate the device. The Creeper blinded Galt, then left him to die in a lab explosion. "hee hee..."

The Creeper returned to the still raging party, switched out the lights, and belted out a thunderous string of laughs. While continuing to roll on his high, the Creeper launched into an assault on the party-goers, then pursued Manny out of the house. At some point, the Creeper appeared to have "broke Moe's back," and showed his gratitude for being given a nigh-indestructible body by seeing Manny to a "gruesome end."

Jack Ryder wrote his own front page headline scoop, or rather the Creeper did, as Ryder's mind was a blank before his waking up at a typewriter. In the months that followed, Ryder would learn more about his other self, created through a mix of Yatz's science and mind-altering drugs. "A self that lives in a twisted, twilight world between sanity and psychosis... A self that stalks without fear of injury to himself or to those he pursues... A self that can only be called-- THE CREEPER"

"Before and After Science" was by Andy Helfer, Keith Giffen & Rick Bryant, based very loosely on Steve Ditko's original story.