As was the case with countless movies in the 80s, I watched Creepshow when I was far too young. Still, I adored it. The homage to the EC horror comics of the 50s, with its lurid colours, often tongue in cheek horror and twist endings was my introduction to George A. Romero, and made me a fan years before I saw his iconic zombie movies.

So it’s cool to see Creepshow coming back to comics (again), as it feels like it’s a natural fit for the medium. Of course, the movie (and its less well regarded sequels) aped the style of horror anthology comics, so that’s what we have here. Except with Super Creepshow, we have a further twist to the formula; two tales which put horror-infused spins on superhero origin stories.

Kieron Gillen’s story, Creeping, drawn by Rossi Gifford, offers a grim, body horror take on Spider-Man’s origin. It’s a bit obvious with its use of the time-worn metaphor of teenagers releasing fluids and giving into their primal urges, and the narration is a little awkward at times. Gifford’s art is somewhat overly stylised to the point where a few panels are simply messes of lines and gore, too. However, in general it’s an effectively nasty tale, and Gifford’s character design is fantastic. There’s also a great twist too.

Speed Freak, Ryan North’s riff on the Flash, initially has a much more lighthearted vibe, but in a few ways is remarkably similar to Giffen’s story (the revenge on the bully scenes in each tale feel very repetitive, even if they do play out very differently according to the protagonist’s powers). Derek Charm’s art is certainly clearer than in the previous story, from a storytelling perspective, and it has one hell of a creepy ending. It didn’t gel with me quite as much as Creeping though, which I found to be the more satisfying horror story overall.

In general then, it’s not bad, but far from essential. It’s a nice idea, but neither of the stories here really live up to the potential of the concept, and I do wonder if both tales could have used a bigger page count.

Also, and this is my fault, I grabbed the die cut cardboard cover variant as you can see in my photo, but I really should have gone for the standard cover, which is a ghoulish homage to Spider-Man’s first appearance in Amazing Fantasy #15. Ah well, at least I have the cardboard Creep staring at me now, eh?

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