I still wish this had run for longer.

I had to rewrite this opening since I rescheduled this from last week, but today we have a book I can't remember if I bought new off the racks, or shortly thereafter. I feel like the print runs were pretty healthy for the time, though, so you may be able to find one: from 1998, the Creeper #4, "Past Tension" Written by Len Kaminski, pencils by Shawn Martinbrough, inks by Sal Buscema.

The recently returned Jack Ryder may have a brittle detente with his alter-ego, the Creeper, but that's not helping him find a job, as his reputation haunts him: Perry White calls him "an attitude with legs," for starters, before his best offer of either working in the Planet's morgue or writing obituaries. The phrase triggers a flashback for Jack, an alternate version of his death in South America in Eclipso #13, eaten by hyenas. (That issue also features the death of Peacemaker, but not of Mark Shaw!) Indigestible, the assorted parts of the Creeper's body eventually reconstituted, but too weak to dig itself out of its grave, Creeper had to transform back into Jack Ryder, and digging himself out of a mass grave did not do his psyche any favors. Jack briefly falters in front of Perry, before going on to be shot down at other interviews, including a cigar-smoking mustache enthusiast of our acquaintance! Jack is apparently not hard-up enough for work to start looking for pictures of Spider-Man...

Jack decides he might need to confront the ghosts of his past before he can move forward, including a possible secret origin of the Creeper: a boogeyman his delusional mother used to threaten him with. After she died, Jack went into the woods near his home, to see if the Creeper was really there, and may have seen something--a memory? A nightmare? Or worse, a premonition? Revisiting the woods, Jack is again confronted by the boogeyman Creeper, but "these days I know somebody a whole lot creepier."

The Creeper dismantles--somewhat literally--the boogeyman, seemingly recognizing it as Jack's memory of his mother. Still, the Creeper shows remarkable compassion, assuring her this was "retirement" and that he would make sure punishment was still dished out. Creeper, then Jack, sit by her side as she fades away, as if she were never there. Jack wonders if his mom's delusions hadn't somehow laid the ground for the Creeper, and returns to New York and the welcome surprise of some job offers waiting for him. 

We've previously blogged #7, #9, #1,000,000; I wouldn't be surprised if we see more eventually.