Tag Archives: Steve Ditko

September 3, 2022 · 12:40 am

THE CREEPER: ANOTHER STEVE DITKO HERO

This weekend’s light-hearted, escapist superhero post here at Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the often-mishandled DC character the Creeper, from Spider-Man co-creator Steve Ditko.

showcase 73SHOWCASE Vol 1 #73 (April 1968)

Title: The Coming of the Creeper

Villains: Soviet Major Smej and Angel Devlin

Synopsis: Jack Ryder is a crusading television reporter and commentator for WHAM-TV in Gotham City. Ryder’s maverick style always has him in trouble with sponsors like Clayton Wetley and his own boss at the network – Bill Brane.

Jack RyderJack gets tipped off about the abduction of Vincent Yatz, a scientific genius who recently defected from the Soviet Union to the United States.

Investigating, Ryder discovers that Major Smej, a Soviet spy, has allied himself with the criminal gang of Angel Devlin to abduct defectors and return them to the U.S.S.R. for punishment. Angel uses a half-angel half-devil costume schtick for his villain gimmick.  

creeperOur hero learns that Devlin will be covertly turning the captured Yatz over to Major Smej that night using a costume party attended by the rich and powerful as cover. Jack Ryder throws together a costume from leftovers he buys at a costume shop – the yellow, green and red sheepskin cape/stole ensemble that will become his Creeper outfit going forward.

At that costume party, Jack’s nosiness gets him roughed up and fatally stabbed by the costumed Angel Devlin and Smej’s men. Bleeding out, he is kept out of the sight of the bigwig guests by getting locked up with the scientist Vincent Yatz. Continue reading →

5 Comments

Filed under Superheroes

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

April 16, 2020 · 10:56 pm

STALKER (1975-1976): FORGOTTEN SWORD & SORCERY SERIES

Stalker 1STALKER – With the WITCHER series such a sensation right now, Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the forgotten 1970s sword, sorcery and fantasy series called Stalker.

The art was by the legendary Steve Ditko and the story by Paul Levitz. In a time when comic book companies keep rebooting the same unpromising characters over and over I am amazed that DC Comics never gave this intriguing series a second chance.

First off, a lame joke – Who DOESN’T love a sword they could pole-vault with? That baby is ridiculously out-of-proportion yet awesome at the same time.

Sometimes I wish Stalker’s sword really HAD been that big in the actual stories, but he’d have needed to carry it in a sheath slung across his back. If he kept it in a sheath attached to a belt around his waist it would be dragging on the ground behind him everywhere he walked. Anyway, on to the story – ALL FOUR PARTS ARE COVERED BELOW.

The Premise: In a fictional world as filled with fantastic beings and mind-bending geography as anything from Conan the Barbarian, Lord of the Rings or Game of Thrones a nameless warrior called Stalker tries to recover his stolen soul from the demonic warrior-god Dgrth. The narration tells us this is “a war that will rend a world from its gods,” really drawing us in.   

Stalker 1STALKER #1 (July 1975)

Title: QUEST FOR A STOLEN SOUL

Synopsis: The story opens at Castle Loranth as Stalker uses all the preternatural skills that the god Dgrth has granted him to get past the walls and kill the guards. Our red-eyed hero penetrates to the hall where Baroness Loranth is holding a grand feast and hurls a knife at her chair. Attached to the knife is a note telling her that one year and one day hence Stalker will kill her as revenge for the wrongs she did to him in the past. Continue reading →

16 Comments

Filed under Superheroes

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,