The Creeper by Steve Ditko
Creators
Steve Ditko, Denny O’Neil and Various
Reprints
Showcase # 73
Beware the Creeper # 1-6
1st Issue Special # 7
World’s Finest # 249-255
Cancelled Comic Cavalcade # 2
DC Comics
Hardcover, 288 pages
ISBN- 9781401225919
Is this Blog turning into the Steve Ditko Show?
You’d be forgiven for asking that question. I do seem to have mentioned him more than any other creator over the short history of this enterprise. But don’t worry, I’ll be getting back to Jack Kirby again soon and maybe even Kurt Busiek or another Batman Chronicles review. Promise.
Now I’m not a gambling man, but were I obliged to place a bet on whether DC would release a Ditko collection featuring either The Creeper or Shade: The Changing Man, my money would have been firmly on Shade. Mostly because of the reasonably long running and re-imagined Vertigo series, that raised Shade’s profile. So I was a tad surprised when a collection of The Creeper was produced, with, as far as I’m aware, still no news on a Shade collection. But on reading the intro to the Creeper book, I think I know why. It turns out that there was a Creeper limited series a couple of years back written by Steve Niles (of 30 Days of Night fame), which I was entirely ignorant of. I do read modern comics, but I don’t tend to keep up with solicitations of new series, I just read whatever’s in my pull list and look for reprints of older work as a rule. No doubt that the Niles written series provided a huge boost to a character that would be largely unknown to a modern readership, raising the Creeper’s profile and paving the way, at least to some degree, for this reprint of Ditko illustrated strips.
Well, however this collection came about, I’m a happy chap.
What we’re given in this collection is a complete run of all stories featuring the Creeper that were pencilled by Steve Ditko. There are various other creators involved in either writing or inking, but with the exception of a few pages from one issue, every panel in this book was drawn by Ditko, with some of the stories written by him too.
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| Page from Beware the Creeper # 2. Note that the sound effects for the fight panels are actually images from the billboard behind the subjects. |
It’s worth noting that this doesn’t provide a complete reprint of Creeper stories. There were various issues printed between the ones collected here that Ditko had no involvement with. You won’t find those comics here. If you’re interested in a complete chronological reprint for this character, you may wish to hold on for the Showcase Presents volume dedicated to the Creeper. It was announced, and should have seen print by now, but it hasn’t been published yet. As to why, well, your guess is as good as mine. Could it be because the hardcover didn’t sell as well as hoped, so DC doesn’t think there’s a market for the Showcase Presents? I don’t know.
So, as noted above, this is not a complete archive for the Creeper. But Ditko’s work on this character was done in chunks between the late sixties to the late seventies and it’s a credit to Ditko’s timeless and consistent approach, because it doesn’t feel bitty when read. Each Ditko chunk is a complete arc, covering from a six issue run down to a single eight page strip, with no loose ends left for completion by another penciller. So we aren’t left hanging due to Ditko not finishing any intermittent arcs, thankfully.
At the head of this post you see a list of the comics reprinted in this volume. They’re listed in the order that they were printed, therefore that’s the order that they’re re-printed in this volume. With that in mind, I’m sure it’s no surprise that Showcase # 73 features the first appearance and origin of Jack Ryder and his alter ego The Creeper. For anyone not familiar with the genesis of the character I don’t intend to give anything away, but really, how bizarre. Bizarre characters, bizarre names (Angel Deviln), bizarre body-modification (gizmo insertion to the abdomen), and of course, one of the most bizarre costumes ever created for the comic book page. It turns out that that weird mane thing across the Creepers shoulders is exactly what it looks like, a sheepskin rug, no joke, Ditko actually tells us so in the narrative. Don’t misunderstand me, this is visually, one of the most compelling reads ever, but it is odd and for this character it works, particularly when Ryder creates a screwball persona for the Creeper, to keep his enemies off-balance, and sells himself as some kind of super-natural being that refers to the gangsters as “Mortals”. It is a lot of fun, and I think that is the key to the Creeper, fun.
It’s one of, if not the most playful series that Ditko has been involved with since Spider-Man. It’s refreshing to read a Ditko main character crack wise and joke, granted it’s not all written by Ditko, but even the stories that are, show a lighter lead man in Jack Ryder than you could ever expect to see in Vic Sage (The Question) or even Ted Kord (Blue Beetle II). As an aside, in regard to any relationship between The Question and The Creeper, at the time that the Creeper was created, the Question was still very much owned by Charlton and would be for several years to come, there is however, a noticable similarity between the professions, uncompromising nature and certain elements of the origin stories of Creeper and Question. The significance of this, if any, is open to question. The overall quirkiness of the Creeper does seem to suggest that DC were looking for their own version of Spider-Man, and while there was a great writer assigned to the Creeper from his early appearances (Denny O’Neil) there was never quite enough substance to push him into the top tier with Spidey. The Creeper is a lot of fun, great to look at and an interesting protagonist for self contained stories and arcs such as this collection, but history shows us that there is not enough of the soap-opera in this character for a long term monthly title. But that’s fine, not every character needs to grind along ad-infinitum, sometimes you get more when you only see a guy once in a while.
By far the highlight of this collection is the six issue run of the Creepers own title “Beware the Creeper”. Every aspect peaks for these few issues. Ditko’s strong and self-assured pencils reach out to the reader, not necessarily in level of detail or showiness, but with pure storytelling ability and clarity. I was particularly amused by a page from Beware the Creeper # 2 (see image above), where sound effects for a fight scene are provided by a billboard in the background. Didn't I tell you that Ditko was playful for this one. Denny O’Neil’s writing on these few issues is the strongest of anyone’s in this collection, O’Neil takes Ditko’s loose ideas and processes them into a personality that you can believe in, not necessarily one you could understand and certainly not one that it's possible to identify with, but then as I said earlier, I don’t think that’s the point of the Creeper. The Creeper is a hypnotic flashing light show, that may or may not have artistic merit. But you can’t help enjoying it.
One area that detracts from the later stories (those after Beware the Creeper # 6), is the lack of a strong villain. Throughout the Ditko/O’Neil run on Beware, there is the presence of Proteus, a chameleon like character that is used to good paranoid effect. Ditko makes good use of his ability to portray fear and paranoia, with his recurring imagery of a figure surrounded by faces being particularly appropriate for this (see cover below). This strong villain adds to the readability of the issues, which makes it all the more noticeable when reading further into the book, that the villains are rather tame and boring, and when there is a character with a longer term potential, they seem all too easily defeated.
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| Cover from Beware the Creeper # 2. Recurring Ditko motif of subject surrounded by heads. Note the mis-coloured boots, left as is for this collection. |
What DC have provided with this volume is a well packaged hardcover collecting all of the Ditko drawn appearances of the Creeper, and as far as I’m concerned (no surprise here) the world is a better place for it, the original Creeper appearances are certainly out of my price range, so I’m grateful for this volume. By far the strongest parts of this book are the stories written by Denny O’Neil, but the good far outweighs the not so good and Ditko’s illustration is remarkable, concise and clear throughout.
I’d also like to mention that despite my previous post regarding black & white reprints of Ditko’s work sometimes being preferable, I don’t think that this is the case with the Creeper. As I said earlier, a large part of the Creepers appeal is the absolutely over-the-top visual nature of this particular character. There is a B&W reprint of an unpublished Ditko strip in this volume and the truth is that the creeper just isn’t as satisfying without the emerald hair, scarlet mane and jaundiced complexion. Make of that what you will.
Mad Thinker Reads……
Ditko. Always Steve Ditko.
M.T.
