10 Utterly Ridiculous Comic Book Characters

The Creeper is a wacky Silver Age character that creators have tried unsuccessfully to make edgier as the decades have gone by. Created by Steve Ditko and Don Segall for Showcase #73, the character would be linked to the Joker despite the fact the characters wouldn’t even meet for seven years.

In his initial origin, Jack Ryder was a brash talk show host who had to infiltrate a masquerade party to find a missing doctor. Cobbling together a hideous yellow costume with green trunks, red gloves, and a red sheepskin rug as a cape, Ryder fought some of the henchmen of the mobster hosting the party and was injured. He also found the missing Dr. Yatz. The doctor injected Jack with his last sample of the experimental formula that gave him several abilities including rapid healing. Thus empowered, Ryder attacked the mobsters, acting like an insane, laughing monster. One of them called him a Creeper and he adopted it.

In subsequent retellings, Ryder has been injected with drugs before his transformation into the Creeper as an explanation for his insane behavior. Another has tried to make him into an actual demon. One retelling suggests that his own mother’s schizophrenia made his descent into the Creeper inevitable. One said that his laughter causes his victims' actual physical pain.