Creeper

Jack Ryder was an outspoken Gotham television journalist whose confrontational style made him as many enemies as admirers. While investigating Dr. Vincent Yatz and his experimental nanocell treatments, Ryder became caught in a criminal attempt to seize Yatz’s research. Yatz injected him with the unstable treatment to keep it out of their hands, and Ryder was subsequently shot and left for dead. The nanocells rebuilt his body instead, transforming him into the yellow-skinned, green-haired Creeper. Ryder discovered that he could summon the transformation at will and began turning the Creeper’s frightening appearance and manic behavior against Gotham’s criminals. His early activities brought him against Proteus and eventually into contact with Batman, who came to recognize him as an unpredictable but genuine crimefighter.

The Creeper’s activities eventually expanded beyond Gotham. He fought alongside other heroes and was considered for service with the Justice League, later joining the Shadow Fighters during the campaign against Eclipso. Eclipso’s possessed hyenas tore him apart during the fighting, but Ryder’s regenerative powers eventually restored him from the remains. The experience worsened the division between Ryder and the Creeper, with the transformed personality becoming increasingly independent and difficult to control. Ryder underwent psychiatric treatment and later used a drug in an attempt to separate himself from the Creeper, only for the creature to fragment into several manifestations of his own psyche. Intervention from a future Creeper eventually reunited them while removing part of Ryder’s self-loathing, leaving the two personalities more capable of functioning together.

Ryder continued working as a journalist while operating as the Creeper whenever his investigations placed him near corruption or violence. After traveling alone through Kahndaq, he was recruited by Alfred Pennyworth into a new incarnation of the Outsiders, using his civilian identity as part of the team’s operations while continuing to unleash the Creeper when direct action became necessary.

Appearance: The Creeper has vivid yellow skin and a tall, extremely muscular build with massive shoulders, a broad chest, thick arms, sharply defined abdominal muscles, a narrow waist, and heavily developed thighs and calves. His eyes are pale yellow beneath dark brows. His hair is dark green, swept back in thick uneven locks around the crown and sides of his head. An enormous neck-ruff of deep crimson-red surrounds his shoulders and extends far behind his body in thick, sweeping locks, with long pointed ends and dense layered strands that create a huge mane-like silhouette. His torso is completely bare, exposing heavily defined pectorals, serrated abdominal muscles, prominent obliques, and thick musculature across the shoulders and upper arms.

He wears tight dark green briefs with a finely textured surface and a high-cut shape along the hips. His forearms and hands are covered by long dark red gloves that extend almost to the elbows, with shaggy red cuffs around the upper edges. The gloves fit closely around the fingers, which are long and sharply curled at the tips. Matching dark red boots cover his feet and lower calves, with thick fur-like red trim circling the tops. The boots have close-fitting shafts, subtle horizontal creasing around the ankles, and rounded reinforced feet.

Personality: Jack Ryder is abrasive, stubborn, fearless, and almost compulsively willing to provoke people when he believes something is being hidden. His personality as the Creeper magnifies that disregard for restraint into cackling, erratic behavior that makes it difficult for opponents to predict whether he is joking, attacking, or deliberately trying to frighten them. At different points Ryder struggles to determine how much of the Creeper is an act, how much comes from his altered mind, and how much belongs to an independent presence inside him. Despite those problems, both sides share a strong hatred of cruelty and a willingness to throw themselves into danger when someone else is being victimized.

Batman becomes one of Ryder’s most persistent allies, although their methods clash because Batman values control while the Creeper deliberately weaponizes apparent insanity. Vera Sweet remains an important connection to Ryder’s civilian life and repeatedly finds herself drawn into the consequences of his transformation. Dr. Vincent Yatz is responsible for the treatment that first unleashes the Creeper, while Proteus becomes one of Ryder’s most disturbing enemies because of his connection to the uncertainty surrounding the Creeper’s true origin. Alfred Pennyworth later trusts Ryder enough to recruit him into the Outsiders, giving the Creeper a place within a coordinated team despite his reputation for unpredictability.

The Creeper possesses superhuman strength, speed, reflexes, stamina, and agility, allowing him to leap across rooftops, climb difficult surfaces, and overpower ordinary opponents with ease. His most extraordinary ability is accelerated regeneration. Severe gunshot wounds and other catastrophic injuries can heal rapidly, and his body has regenerated even after being torn apart to the point that he was believed dead. His distinctive laugh can become physically painful at close range and has an unnerving effect that compounds the fear created by his appearance and behavior.

Ryder can transform between his ordinary body and the Creeper form, with the transformed state possessing the enhanced physical abilities and regenerative properties produced by his altered physiology. Jack is also an experienced investigative journalist and capable hand-to-hand fighter, while the Creeper favors an acrobatic, deliberately chaotic style that uses sudden leaps, awkward angles, and seemingly reckless movement to make conventional fighters struggle to anticipate him.