Beware The Creeper the title says and it's no small warning. The Creeper was one of Steve Ditko's remarkable and memorable additions to the DC universe when along with other Charlton talents such as Dick Giordano, Pat Boyette, Sergius O'Shaugnessy, Steve Skeates, and Jim Aparo landed on those halcyon "House of Krypton" shores. The cover above is my favorite image of the Creeper, his posture all bent and the water oozing and dripping, a deadly "Menace" looming behind him. Ditko did his heroes proud with this one especially Will Eisner.
But before that debut issue, we were first told to
Beware the Creeper in
Showcase #73. In this issue WHAM tv reporter Jack Ryder runs afoul of a bunch of thugs led by Angel Devlin and in the course of his adventures gathers the odd bits of his bizarre costume and meets Professor Yatz who is the man who uses his new inventions to give the Creeper his new powers. A fluid is injected into the wounded Ryder to save his life and a device is implanted beneath his skin which allows him to alter his appearance with the press of a button.
I'd seen the Creeper in other comics drawn by Neal Adams and Dick Dillin, but the first time I was able to read this debut story plotted and drawn by Ditko and written by Don Segall was when it was reprinted in on of those juicy giant 100-Page Detective Comics issues which made DC so alluring at the time.
It would many a few decades before I got my mitts on the Showcase issue itself as well as the original Beware the Creeper run.
The Creeper's main enemy in most of the issues of the original series was Proteus. Proteus was a man who could be anyone, could alter his features and sneak up behind you at a moment's notice. Proteus seems to have been killed after their first encounter but that doesn't prove to be the case and in stories written by Sergius O'Shaugnessy (Denny O'Neil).
"The Isle of Fear" finds the Creeper on a long-lost island remarkably close on which an old society has been put upon on modern criminals eager for a safe haven from the law.
As Creeper's fight against Proteus continues he gets new cast members such Rip Cord who join regulars his boss Bill Brane and self-absorbed weathergirl Vera Sweet, who sometimes afflicts Jack and at other times gives him a hand in his investigations.
It's notable that Denny O'Neil seems to take on more of the plotting and scripting control as he sheds his "Sergius O'Shaugnessy" identity. Inkers join up such as Mike Peppe and give Ditko's pencils a different and frankly less effect look. For the most part, this era of Ditko always looks better when he inks himself.
In the sixth and final issue of the original run under this handsome Gil Kane cover we have only a part of a Ditko issue with journeyman Jack Sparling finishing up this final
Beware the Creeper tale, at least for the time being. I an only imagine that Ditko has once again sought greener pastures as he leaves Hawk and Dove too, in the capable hands of Gil Kane it's to be noted.
But Steve Ditko will return to DC and to the Creeper, but more than a few years will pass. More on that tomorrow.
Rip Off
Ditko's work on Creeper and Hawk and Dove fell off because of a resurgence of Tuberculosis, which he'd had to contend with back near the beginning of his comics career. I don't know if the book would've survived, because there was a slew of great experimental books at DC at the time (Bat Lash, Anthro, Angel and the Ape) that were cut off after only six or seven issues. The waning days of Showcase were full of interesting new ideas.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I've ever heard that about his TB recurring. Thanks for the insights. I've always just assumed that he backed off the projects for the reason he often did, a lack of satisfaction with editorial or some such. I was just latching onto comics when those comics were hitting the stands and while I didn't get most of them (until years later) the ads were branded into my young memory.
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