Showcase #73
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeShowcase #73 marks the debut of the Creeper — Jack Ryder, a Gotham City television journalist who is accidentally transformed into a cackling, hyperkinetic superhero — making it one of the last genuinely new Silver Age characters to emerge from DC's tryout anthology before the Bronze Age reshaped the line. Steve Ditko's decision to plot the story himself and hand only the scripted dialogue to Don Segall represented a rare, early transplanting of the 'Marvel Method' into DC Comics, a production approach that had defined his celebrated Spider-Man and Doctor Strange runs. The Creeper's deliberately unsettling visual design — a yellow-and-red costume with a wild fur-like cape, green wig, and maniacal laugh — pushed against the clean heroic aesthetics then dominant at DC, and the character's ambiguous, chaotic persona anticipated the morally complicated antiheroes who would come to define the following decade. Though the Creeper never achieved the mainstream popularity of Ditko's Marvel creations, he endured through multiple revivals and retcons and became a recurring figure in the Batman corner of the DC universe.
In "The Coming of the Creeper!!" from Showcase #73 (1968), a kidnapped scientist, a fired TV host, and a mob boss’s society ball collide in a bizarre twist of fate. Written by Steve Ditko and Don Segall, with art, inks, and lettering by Steve Ditko, the story follows Jack Ryder as he dons a strange costume and becomes a vengeful figure driven by a mysterious healing serum and a molecular transmitter. The Creeper’s violent emergence is both chaotic and calculated, setting the stage for a relentless pursuit of justice — and a haunting laugh that lingers long after the first page. Cover by Steve Ditko.
When TV host Jack Ryder is hired to investigate the kidnapping of Professor Yatz, he stumbles into a twisted game of shadows and sabotage. Donning a makeshift costume for a mob boss’s gala, he’s stabbed and thrust into Yatz’s hidden cell—only to awaken as the unpredictable, laughing Creeper, armed with a healing serum and a molecular transmitter. The Creeper’s first rampage is chaotic and terrifying, but his true mission has just begun.
In Old England, a man grows uneasy as he notices his ancestor’s portrait alternates between holding a wine glass and a dagger—a subtle shift that seems to foretell death within the family. The quiet dread of the old estate deepens as the painting’s gaze feels increasingly alive.
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Steve Ditko arrived at DC Comics in 1968 after Charlton editor Dick Giordano made the move there, bringing several members of his creative stable with him. Ditko — fresh off his landmark, now-departed runs on Spider-Man and Doctor Strange at Marvel — was the lead creative force on the Creeper: he plotted and drew the full story, with Don Segall providing the finished dialogue, mirroring the Marvel Method he had practiced with Stan Lee. The issue was edited by veteran DC editor Murray Boltinoff, and a brief biographical feature inside the issue introduced the creative team, though Ditko himself characteristically declined to share personal information. A contemporary house ad trumpeted Ditko's arrival at DC with the phrase 'Steve Ditko Strikes Again!' — believed to be among the first DC house ads to use a creator's name as a marketing point in that era.
Trivia · 8 facts
- First appearance and origin of the Creeper (Jack Ryder), created by Steve Ditko (plotter/artist) and Don Segall (dialogue scripter), published March–April 1968 (on-sale January 23–24, 1968).
- Jack Ryder is established as a mouthy Gotham City television talk-show host who is fired, then hired as a network security investigator; he gains his powers when the dying scientist Professor Yatz implants a molecular transmitter in his wound and injects him with a healing serum during a Communist-spy infiltration mission.
- The issue also contains a house-ad teaser for the returning Enemy Ace feature (Hans von Hammer) in Star-Spangled War Stories, and promotional material for Hawk and Dove — accounting for those characters being indexed; Superman, Clark Kent, Supergirl, and Kara Zor-El appear only in house-advertisement pages within the issue, not in the Creeper story.
- Steve Ditko plotted and drew the story in a manner described as an early and possibly unique use of the Marvel Method at DC Comics — he worked out the full plot visually before Segall scripted the captions and dialogue.
- The cover of the issue — a dynamic action image of the Creeper dodging gunfire across Gotham rooftops — was also drawn by Steve Ditko, and an in-issue editorial feature ran brief bios of both Ditko and Segall; Ditko's bio famously consisted only of the quote that his work speaks for itself.
- Editor Murray Boltinoff oversaw the issue; the story continues directly into Beware the Creeper #1 (June 1968), the character's own solo series, written by Denny O'Neil with Ditko plotting, which ran for six issues.
- The origin story was reprinted in Detective Comics #443 (November 1974) and later collected in The Creeper by Steve Ditko hardcover (DC, 2010), which also includes Beware the Creeper #1–6, 1st Issue Special #7, and backup stories from World's Finest Comics #249–255.
- The Creeper shares a striking visual kinship with the Joker — green hair, yellow complexion, maniacal laugh — but no narrative connection was originally intended; the two characters did not meet in the comics until The Joker #3 in 1975, seven years after this debut.
Cast · 5 characters
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Reprints
↩ Reprints House of Mystery #25 (1954)
Reprinted in Detective Comics #443 (1974), Kamandi #5 (1976), The Creeper by Steve Ditko #[nn] (2010), Relatos Fabulosos #108
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