Random Back Issues #74 - Creeper #4

The Creeper eating an alarm clock seems like it would cause digestive problems for Jack Ryder when they transform back, ala the question of, if the Hulk eats a bunch of beans and turns back into Banner, does it rupture Banner's (much smaller) stomach?

Huh, Googum reviewed this issue about two months ago, and it's the one I pulled from for Sunday Splash Page #116.

Having escaped the mental hospital he was in, and Proteus' (a shape-shifting scientist guy, not to be confused with the X-Men villain) attempts to experiment on him, Jack Ryder's trying to figure out what to do next. He's staying in a friend's apartment while she's away, but as you see, the Creeper's not a morning person. He only wants to be out and about when it's time to par-tay.

Up and awake, Ryder looks over some notes that recap the first three issues, including the part where he realized the origin story Ditko originally gave him was some more pleasant fantasy his mind concocted to protect himself. Not sure about that creative decision, but OK.

Jack's gotta pay the bills, so he goes looking for a reporting job, starting at the Daily Planet. He tells Perry White the paper can use a little fresh blood, but is told he'd either be writing obituaries, or supervising the office morgue. Which triggers a flashback to Ryder's own death.

Prior to this series starting, Ryder went hunting for a story in Parador, 'Numb little suckhold postage-stamp South American armpit of the world,' that was in the midst of a revolution. Ryder and the Creeper agreed the yellow guy was better suited to handle this. He wasn't ready for starved, crazed hyenas lurking in the jungle, who killed and ate the Creeper.

Or they tried to, because they apparently couldn't digest him, and the Creeper's parts were barfed up into a mass grave, and gradually merged back together. At which point the Creeper dug himself out, turned back into Jack, and the reporter staggered naked through the jungle until he crossed paths with an anthropologist named Miriam Leary.

Nearly having a breakdown during the interview does not get Jack the job. He doesn't have any more luck at any other newspapers. Including one run by a cigar-smoking publisher who wants proof a certain menace, no doubt wall-crawling, is a threat to decent people.That's OK, he didn't want to work in newspapers again, anyway! He wonders, though, if his past is holding him back. Returning to his family home, he marches into the woods, where as a boy, he once encountered a mysterious skeletal creature. Possibly the "Creeper" his mother warned would eat him if he didn't behave. The creature shows up, and Jack switches to the Creeper, who quickly dismantles it. The Creeper assures her that it'll take care of punishing bad boys from now on, and the ghost, or psychic echo, fades away after telling Jackie he's a good boy.

All of that is somehow useful for Jack's mental state. Closure, I guess. He returns to his friend's apartment and there's a message waiting with an offer from a magazine. (There was also a message from the anthropologist, but the machine cuts off too quickly and we never did learn what that was about.)

[3rd longbox, 13th comic. The Creeper #4, by Len Kaminski (writer), Shawn Martinbrough (penciler), Sal Buscema (inker), Sherri van Valkenburgh (colorist), John E. Workman, Jr. (letterer)]

Sunday Splash Page #116

"You Aren't Supposed to Mention She Shaved," in Creeper #4, by Len Kaminski (writer), Shawn Martinbrough (penciler), Sal Buscema (inker), Sherri van Valkenburgh (colorist), John E. Workman Jr. (letterer) 

Another late '90s DC series, Creeper ran for 12 issues, if you count the DC One Million tie-in that also served as the last issue. Kaminski makes a number of changes from Ditko's version of Jack Ryder and the Creeper (although maybe someone else made them in the couple of decades in between Ditko's last work on the character).

Ryder is closer to a shock jock provocateur journalist, albeit one with a knack for finding interesting stories. More critically, the bizarre behavior the Creeper exhibits isn't an act any longer, as he's now some alternate personality, or some aspect of madness that lurks within Ryder the experiments he underwent gave a way to surface. One that runs in the family, since the skeletal version up there is some remnant of his deceased mother's mental illness.

Yeah, I don't know either.

While revising that aspect of the character, along with a healing factor and the idea that his laugh actually causing a reaction in the brain similar to fingernails on the chalkboard, Kamisnki revises the origin entirely while bringing Proteus back into the mix. The origin as present in Showcase, has the "by the seat of your pants" energy of the era. Where things keep happening at a fast enough clip that the momentum keeps you from contemplating things like why the scientist has expertise in two such disparate fields, or why a costume shop only has a box of scraps available. That's not acceptable in the Nineties, so now that version is an attempt by Ryder's psyche to fashion what actually happened into a more palatable memory.

Eh, I don't know. It works for this series, where Kaminski focuses a lot on the relationship between Ryder and the Creeper, their differing perceptions of things, and how each of them needs some of what the other brings. Most of the issues are done-in-ones about Ryder pursuing a story, and needing the Creeper either for fisticuffs or because his madness perceives something Ryder missed. Except the longer it goes, the more Ryder feels himself losing whatever tenuous control of the situation he has, feeling more reliant on the Creeper. Which pushes him to try and control the Creeper any way possible. Which goes about as well as you'd expect.

Shawn Martinbrough draws most of the series, with Sal Buscema. His Creeper is more wild and rabid. This angular, almost skeletal appearance, overly large smile contrasted with a hunched over posture and with scraggly hair. Ryder's almost rigid by contrast. Broader body, solid, restrained. The guy trying to hold back a tide of something and feeling the toll, going by the lines on his face and the deep shadows. The shadows make for a stark contrast between light and dark, the two halves of Ryder in opposition to each other, even when they're ostensibly working together. The Creeper is planning things, but Ryder doesn't know what until after the fact. He just has to roll with it.