Beware The Creeper!

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. 

In 1975 the mavens at DC Comics decided to give The Creeper another try-out on the newsstands and to that end the seventh issue of 1st Issue Special was pressed into service. This featured a story drawn by the Creeper's creator Steve Ditko. One curious detail about the cover above is the tiny detail of the dog and fire hydrant. (You can almost see them.) This cover was designed by Carmine Infantino and handed to Ditko to finish and to show his displeasure with such an arrangement he has that pup show its disrepect to that hydrant in the natural and time proven fashion. 

In this singular issue Creeper finds himself battling the Human Firefly, a hood just busted out of prison and aching to remake his reputation. The Firefly was a vintage Batman villain first and last seen in Detective Comics #184 from 1952, about the time Ditko was first breaking into comics. The script for the story was by Michael Fleisher, and Mike Royer inked Dikto's pencils. But Ditko wasn't done with his creation, he had more Creeper stories to tell. 

The try-out sparked a revival in the back pages of World's Finest beginning with issue #249. 

The Creeper was rarely featured on the covers, though his smiling yellow mug and lustrous green motop was nestled alongside the logo with the other back-up features face in this densely packed dollar comic. All the stories were written and drawn by his creator Ditko. 

The stories in these issues have a much broader comic feel than the original series had shown nearly a decade before. The Creeper is working for Cosmic Broadcasting as part of a security team. 

Joining his cast are his boss Sam Hagen along with spry blonde dame named Fran Daye and a galoot named Dump. One odd detail is that a fly always seems to be hovering around Dump's head. 

The Creeper comes up against new baddies like The Disruptor and a lug called simply the Monster. He also has to deal with the return of Angel Devlin who was instrumental in the origin of The Creeper in his very first story. 

Apparently there was some thought to busting the Creeper out into his own comic again, but the infamous DC Implosion put the skids to that idea. The issue of Showcase #107 would have allowed The Creeper to return to his place of birth but it was only seen in the Cancelled Comic Cavalcade #2 for many years. Creeper does rate an appearance on both of the CCC covers though. 

This is a wild wild issue with two double-page splashes and a cameo by Ditko's Odd Man. (The Odd Man was touted to have a back-up feature, but the implosion ended that aspiration.) 

And that's a wrap on The Creeper, at least as produced by his maker Steve Ditko. The Creeper did prove somewhat popular and did get around for some time by dint of other talents. 

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The Hawk And The Dove!

A comic for a our times, ripped from the headlines of the day. The Hawk and The Dove was a curious piece by Charlton alumni Steve Skeates and Steve Ditko, a tale of two brothers caught in a struggle which was at that time both private and public. The United States warred with itself about the war, the Vietnam War (we just called it "the War" back then) about the validity of it and even more about the sacrifice of life for a cause which seemed abstract and remote. We fight today across the globe, but because we don't demand the that the youth of our time commit to that struggle, we are able to glide along calm cool and collected that others will do the fighting we deem necessary. It's an eternal debate, not that war is a necessary evil, but that we need advocate evil here and at this time.

That was the battle between the brothers Hall. Hank was a "Hawk", an advocate for violent intervention and his brother Don was a "Dove", one who argued for peace in our time. They were split ideologically and when they were offered the chance to acquire the power to pursue their beliefs by the supernatural powers of Order and Chaos they do so, becoming two sides of a coin dedicated to justice. In the debut issue in particular, one can see Ditko's Objectivist philosophy informing the desire for logic and not passion to dictate society. 

According to reports, Steve Skeates wanted to show that both methods could reap justice and that Dove's peaceful approach was often as effective as Hawk's more aggressive approaches. But he claimed that editorial often switched it up so that Dove came across as not just regretful for violence but downright weak in the face of a threat. Instead of showing a balance between two attitudes, each with some measure of merit, it became in the eyes of Skeates a rejection of peace and a advocacy for violence.

Skeates worked with Gil Kane when Ditko left DC and after Skeates left the book, Kane wrote as well as drew it. After the book's cancellation Hawk and Dove became a sometimes part of the Teen Titans lore and many years later things changed even more, but that' s for another day.

For all their flaws these stories deserve a place on the modern bookshelf. It seems they have been collected in an enormous Teen Titans volume, but I'd love to see them available for a less impressive price in a more easily read tome. With work by giants of yore like Ditko and Kane and Cardy, it seems an easy bet to me.

Here are the covers.

Steve Ditko left the book after the second issue. He also left DC entirely after an all-too brief tenure. 

Gil Kane and inker Sal Trapani join forces with Steve Skeates to keep the series alive and running. To be honest I think Kane's more fluid version of the duo is actually more visually interesting than Ditko's. 

Gil Kane becomes both the writer and artist on the series. This issue was inked by Wally Wood. 

In an apparent attempt to help the Hawk and Dover comic gain traction with readers, the duo crossover with the Teen Titans both written and drawn by Neal Adams. 

After rescuing their dad from a kidnapper, the team question whether continuing as Hawk and Dove is a useful thing. This is the final issue. 

(All the early Hawk and Dover stories are contained in this handy paperback.)

(This collection only contains the three stories Ditko worked on.)

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Ditko's Get Smart!

Get Smart was a spoof which had much fun at the expense of the super-spy fad of the 1960's which had been kicked off by the James Bond movies and television shows such as The Man from UNCLE and The Avengers. Agent 86 was Maxwell Smart, a clumsy secret agent portrayed by Don Adams. The show was a product of the minds of Mel Brooks and Buck Henry. As was their wont, Dell Comics attempted to adapt the successful series to comics. And during that brief run, two issues of the comic book were drawn by Steve Ditko. 
 

At the time Ditko was working with Sal Trapani who was arranging work for himself, Ditko and Dick  Giordano at various outlets, Dell being first and foremost among the publishers seeking talent. The trio had produced Nukla for Dell and now here was Ditko trying his hand at comedy as can be seen by the interior cover one-pager above. Get Smart was a very brief stop in Ditko's journey after he left behind his great Marvel work. I'm not aware that this material has ever been reprinted. I'd love to get hold of it at a reasonable price. 

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Hands Of Steel!

Here is a delightful drawing of Judomaster and Tiger (along with the Smiling Skull and Blue Beetle as well) by Frank McLaughlin, the creator of the "Scarlet Smasher". He produced this gem for the Charlton Neo folks. It was printed in The Charlton Arrow #2.

The image combines elements of two of McLauglin's finest covers for Judomaster, as well a dandy cover image from Steve Ditko. 

Here is a gem of an image from 1987. Frank McLaughlin's Judomaster seems contented in this scene alongside Dick Giordano's Sarge Steel. The duo is a small part of a panorama of DC superstars from many original sources as can be seen in the fantastic poster below.

I'm lucky to have a reprint of this mighty image in The DC Vault: A Museum-A-Book which came a few years back. There's a true who's who of industry giants (both fictional and real) in this delightful image.

This month is all about Judomaster and Sarge Steel, two characters who are closely linked in the heyday of the Charlton Action-Heroes. 

But don't worry Ditko fans, as he will be getting some attention as well, as we take a look at his brief but impactful tenure at DC in the late 60's. 

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Thunder Agents Archives Volume Seven!

I haven't the strength to revisit the whole meandering odyssey of the THUNDER Agents after their Tower days were done. The saga of their ownership is a confusing and at times quite dark tale. A chap named John Carbonaro got the rights from Tower to publish the T-Agents (although some say that those rights never existed and remained with Wally Wood and afterwards his estate -- it's murky). 

Carbonaro's first foray with the Agents was in the form of a black and white magazine which lasted exactly one issue. It was put together by Pat Gabriele and featured some decent art by Mark Texeira. The Adams and Kirby art advertised was vintage stuff from years gone by. It's not a sterling effort by any means, but it was new THUNDER Agents. 

Next Carbonaro took the Agents into the direct sales marketplace under his own brand of JC Comics. We got a few new tales of decent quality and a reprint series under the "Hall of Fame" title. The second issue featured a brand-new Steve Ditko cover starring Noman. 

Somehow this was tied into Archie Comics, and the short-lived run was finished under their banner in an issue of Blue-Ribbon Comics. This comic featured a new Noman story by Ditko. 

And that brings us to Deluxe Comics, the stories reprinted in the seventh and final volume of DC's THUNDER Agents Archives series. Another fellow named Dave Singer and former associate of Carbonaro claimed that the Agents were in public domain and set about to use them in a brand new spanking line despite Carbonaro's objections and eventual lawsuit. Singer seems to have been a dodgy character at best and though he promised big money to big name talents such as George Perez, Dave Cockrum, Keith Giffen, Steve Englehart and others his promises were more impressive than the reality. 

So after a couple of stunning issues the talent began to walk away and the books trudged along. There are some really sweet stories in these, such as nifty hard-edged Raven stuff from George Perez, fan-pleasing artwork from Dave Cockrum and some really weird but fascinating stuff about Lightning by Giffen. There is a definite grimness to some of it, but for the most part the characterizations rang true since most of the creators were drawn to the work by their fondness of the original Tower Comics. The storylines even recognized the old Tower days and built upon them. 

Some of the stuff had real fanboy appeal such as the exceedingly physical encounter between Dynamo and the Iron Maiden. The two had danced around one another in the 60's but here in the 80's that dance took a highly erotic turn, something the old Comics Code would not have approved of I have little doubt. Undersea Agent is incorporated into the T-Agents properly and after he's forced to be voyeur to the Dynamo-Maiden love scene he might have wanted to change his name to "Unsee Agent". 

Despite great covers right to the end, the books insides became less and less impressive. Though Perez is still around there is even in his art an unfinished quality. 

The fifth and final issue has some Jerry Ordway art and its quite handsome and the story picks up embers from the Tower days yet again, but it's too little to late. Other stories in this issue are not nearly so professional in their aspect and the writing seems to be handed off to lesser known names. Singer's venture falls apart even as his claim to the Agents turns to ashes in the courts. 

The THUNDER Agents tumble around for several more years becoming guest-stars in several Indy books before Carbonaro is able to land a deal (of sorts) with Bob Guccione's Penthouse outfit.

He has a guy named George Caragonne in charge of them now and he  proves another less than reliable fellow. There is a stunning story done with Paul Gulacy and Terry Austin but only the first chapter of three ever sees publication in an issue of Omni Comix due to the suicide of Caragonne among other factors. The Agents are in limbo yet again  until many years later DC picks them up and later still IDW takes a stab at them. 

A few more pages of the Gulacy material gets published in The THUNDER Agents Companion from Twomorrows but it's still less than satisfying not see the whole story, which may or may not still exist. This Twomorrows book has been a ton of fun to read as I've tumbled along with the Agents on this read. There are many many interviews and profiles of the talent involved with the creation of the T-Agents over the many years. The book is a bit out of date now having been published in 2005 or thereabouts. But it still makes one hunger for more good THUNDER Agents stories and I for one believe there are more of those to tell. 

Note: Only the Deluxe material and the single story for Omni Comix is included in this particular Archives edition. 

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