February 7, 2007

REVIEW
THE CREEPER #6 :
MASS MURDER IN YELLOW & GREEN
DC Comics 2007

The Creeper #6
Story: Steve Niles
Artwork: Justiniano
Colors: Chris Chuckry
Inks: Walden Wong
Cover art by Justiniano
Cover dated March 2007

Gavin: "Now Gav find skin to eat! "
Creeper: "I really wish you hadn't said that."
(pause)
Creeper: "Sorry, Kid." (kicks Gav off cliff into submerged minefield.)
(Page 8)

This is the final issue in the miniseries of six from Steve Niles and DC Comics, and after the disaster of issue five which seemed both unedited and unnecessary to this linear and predictable storyline, Niles and original series artist Justiniano are back together with a better than expected (to me) finale. Creeper/Jack Ryder come to terms with their condition brought on by Dr. Yatz and his experimental serum, though they are probably going to be haunted by the issue's cover which might have been designed by Sigmund Freud. Yikes!

Since DC Comics cares not a whit for the reader (or potential reader) who picks up #6 who has not already read #1 thru #5, there is barely any explanation for the mayhem going on here starting from the first page of green and yellow mob violence. If you read the last issue of Creeper, you'll probably remember how you've come to such a ridiculous impasse in this tale, and if you did not read the last issue, DC Comics wants you to spend your money with Marvel Comics. Or perhaps this is their way of advancing the industry wide goal of deep-sixing the pamphlet comic book altogether and thus offering nothing but trade collections at chain bookstore.

This final issue of The Creeper explains that the Yatz serum was contaminated by The Joker, hence an explanation for the Creeper's skin and hair color (but not the row of huge abdominal muscles and the red fringe growing off his back, not to mention the red booties and the green shorts!) but the Joker's involvement is no surprise at all since this has been what Niles has hinted at with capital letters since #4.

Via Batman, trooping in again like a Greek chorus, we learn that the Joker has turned the arrogant, pompous Dr. Yatz into just another Joker smile-gas victim. Yatz had fled the island in Gotham Bay with his Joker buddy, leaving behind his lab and a prison full of experiment victims which were in the process of escaping, all of them yellow-skinned and green haired like the Creeper (and Joker). The irony of turning the doctor into a smile-gas victim is mild compared to what I had expected. I'd have vastly preferred hulk-like murderer Gavin, Yatz' original guinea pig for the serum, to have turned on Yatz and gave him a little mortal comeuppance.

Speaking of Gavin, Creeper kills him by shoving him off a cliff into a submerged minefield that surrounds the island. And it's remarkable that there even are any mines there left to explode, since Gavin had been hurling the hundreds of escaped prisoners infected with the Yatz serum off the island into that same minefield, killing them in a series of explosions that hardly brings any attention from the Gotham police, coast guard, police patrol boats, nothing, nada. Who were all these people kept prisoner on Yatz' island? No idea, they only existed long enough to be turned into serum-victims and attack the Creeper - - in issue #5 we had seven and one-half pages of Steve Scott's artwork showing the prelude to this showdown between Creeper and the crazed mob. In issue #6 Gavin solves the problem with explosions that take up only one panel. Mass murder on this scale is sure to bring about a major police investigation, right? Imagine all of the families in Gotham looking for missing members, but clearly by the end of this series writer Steve Niles hardly cares for his creations and that is transmitted effectively to the reader.

Justiniano artwork for The Creeper #6. Chris Chuckry colors.

It's curious that the World's Greatest Detective (aka Batman) does not pause to wonder about the fate of all those people hurled into Gotham Bay and detonated, but when he shows up to converse with the Creeper and hand over a vial containing an antidote for Jack Ryder's condition, he mentions and notices nothing concerning the explosions and all those missing dead people. Did the people vaporize in the explosions? Will the shoreline of Gotham be covered in dead body parts? Is the whole island now contaminated, along with Gotham Bay, with the blood of the victims, causing a dramatic contagious epidemic of Creeperocity? No implications of this story-line are mentioned, just that Batman caught Joker and locked him up for the hundredth time, Yatz is apparently in custody, and all the dead people are not even memories.

Rather dramatically, by issue number #4 the density of story (for example, see issue #1, which crowds in quite a lot of material) had fallen off, and with #5 and #6 there's very long extended 'action" scenes, as if the writer (Niles) had abdicated involvement and it was up to the artist, inker and colorist to cover the gap with some flashy movement.

There are logic problems that I can't catch up to in this series, which may or may not be the fault of writer Steve Niles (and DC editor Joey Cavalier), but they certainly got in the way of making sense of the tale. About the "condition" that the Creeper/Jack Ryder are in - - why doesn't the shape-shifting, dual-personality state also affect Gavin, the original experiment victim, and what about the whole prison full of men (I saw no women in the group)? Why are they shape-shifted into grotesque monsters, while Jack Ryder develops an athletic body that might belong to some Olympic swim champion? When Ryder "switches" back and forth between Creeper/Ryder, his clothing also switches. How does a chemical injected into the body do that? (Speaking of which, in issue #5, Yatz shoots Batman up with something - - he naps for a bit and wakes up refreshed... why isn't Batman another shape-shifting yellow and green lunatic?)

Justiniano's artwork and page design are manic and enjoyable to look at (Walden Wong is responsible for the inks). The colors by Chuck Chuckry are well done and well worth noticing. It's a disappointment that the story is not as precise and as well-organized as the artwork effort. Justiniano's figures leap and cavort with intense, goofy energy, and Wong's ink lines are long and curving brush strokes that make for strong, almost poster-like design effects on some pages. Shadow and light effects on (especially) human faces show great attention in Chuckry's colors.

My real disappointment with this series has been that writer Niles was not able to convince me for even for a moment that Ryder/Creeper wouldn't work out their time-sharing problems. Obviously Jack Ryder and Creeper are related by more than just the effect of the drug Yatz used on them, Creeper actually seems like an exaggeration of Ryder's personality, and the muscle-bound body a staple result of comic book pharmaceutical dabbling. I can accept these conflict issues easily enough, but not the pedestrian, clock-like way in which they were presented. Batman drops in and out of the story like a messenger boy who can tidy up the plot when needed, but who has no power (as a detective or hero) to actually affect the story. Gavin, who Niles' builds as a sympathetic victim, though one with a childlike homicidal instinct, is unceremoniously eliminated from the tale, just as the original premise of organized crime complications having to do with the money that sponsored Dr. Yatz' experiments in issue #1 also simply vanished. Nile's does turn to the problem of the relationship between Ryder and Vera which began in the earlier issues, making for something that has no meaning except as a contrast between Ryder before the drug, and Ryder after the drug. None of these characters ever come to life, but exist as cardboard character types, doing almost exactly what you expect as the story moves along exactly as you expect.

My reviews of Creeper 1 and 2, Creeper 3, Creeper 4, and Creeper 5.

Creeper Wants to Be Loved at DC Comics.

[BELOW] FROM ISSUE SIX

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