What is the history of The Creeper (from "Beware the Creeper" DC comics)?

The Creeper is a DC Comics superhero created by Steve Ditko. He first appeared in Showcase #73 (1968).


His real name is Jack Ryder, a television news reporter who was demoted due to his outspoken nature. Relegated to network security, he protected a scientist who gave him two devices. One enabled him to instantly heal from any wound and gave enhanced strength and agility, but at the cost of somewhat unbalanced personality. The other enabled him to instantly change into the costume of a green-haired, yellow-skinned, and red-furred wildman; the costume, "imprinted" on the device and thus capable of being summoned and dispelled at will, was originally adopted by Ryder while rescuing the scientist from kidnappers.


Following his debut in Showcase, the Creeper was given his own series Beware the Creeper, written by Dennis O'Neil (and plotted by Ditko for the first issue only), which lasted only six issues. (The storyline begun would be concluded in Super-Team Family #2 in 1975/76).


Apart from issue #7 of First Issue Special (in 1975), and back-up series in Adventure Comics #445-447 (in 1976), World's Finest Comics #249-55 (in 1978-79) and The Flash #318-323 (in 1983), all the Creeper's subsequent appearances have been guest roles. Over the years, the Creeper's personality underwent changes by different writers; at times his deranged behavior was depicted as only an act to frighten criminals, while at other times he seemed genuinely psychotic. DC gave the Creeper another chance in a solo entitled The Creeper, lasting 12 issues including the one millionth, Len Kamisnki focused on the break down of Jack Ryder's sanity as influenced by the Creeper and making many references to the previous continuity.


A subsequent retelling of the Creeper's origin revealed that the scientist surgically implanted the devices (or device, since some accounts claim that it is a single device that can both enhance physical ability and re-create any object whose "imprint" is stored in its circuitry) in order to save Ryder's life after he was attacked and drugged by the criminals he was investigating; because the scientist was unaware of the drugs in Ryder's system, he inadvertently recorded the "imprint" of the drugs at the same time he recorded the "imprint" of the costume. Thus the same device that re-creates Ryder's costume when he becomes the Creeper also re-creates the drugs in his system, explaining the Creeper's odd personality. Apparently, the drugs were so overwhelming that it was impossible to completely cleanse their effect from the Creeper's system, and the Creeper gradually descended into ever more intense irrationality, while Jack Ryder, instantly free of the drugs' influence the second he changed back to normal, suffered no such condition. Eventually, Ryder came to believe that he and the Creeper were two entirely different people instead of two character roles played by the same man; he also held this belief in his Creeper persona, which became increasingly disdainful of "Jack Ryder." The Creeper once regained his rationality while bound by Wonder Woman's magic lasso, but the implications of this have never been explored.