We’re continuing our trek through the pages of CANCELLED COMIC CAVALCADE #2, a collection of material intended to be published by DC in the late 1970s but which got spiked from publication due to the DC Implosion that saw 40% of teh line cancelled. The two issues of this series were hand-copied and distributed to contributors as well as to the Library of Congress in order to preserve DC’s copyright to the material.
If I’m not mistaken, had it seen print, SHOWCASE #106 would have been the first time that a feature that had graduated to its own regular series after a SHOWCASE try-out returned to the book’s pages. After all, the first Creeper story had appeared in SHOWCASE #73 back in the late 1960s. And like this story, it too was crafted by the character’s originator, Steve Ditko.
The Creeper had been appearing during this time as a back-up strip in the pages of WORLD’S FINEST COMICS, but somebody apparently thought the hero held enough appeal to be worth giving a full-issue spotlight. Strangely enough, when this story was written off, it was never thereafter repurposed into material for that WORLD’S FINEST COMICS spot, and remained unpublished until 2010’s THE CREEPER BY STEVE DITKO hardcover.
The dialogue here is credited to Ditko, but a lot of it really doesn’t sound like his voice. So I suspect that editor Jack C. Harris edited his copy heavily.
Strangely enough, Ditko includes a cameo appearance by another of his creations, the Odd Man. But the context is peculiar. Here, he’s simply a character in a pilot that’s being shot in the broadcast studios where Jack Ryder’s news show originates.
The Tom Brevoort Experience 
Other than to create a new villain, I wonder why he never used Weather Wizard instead? But I could say the same about The Planeteer/Alexander the Great ( Alexander Mason ) [ Superman#387 ( September 1983 ) ] instead of Doctor Polaris.
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Because, even if Ditko knew who the Weather Wizard is, he wouldn’t fit in this story.
If you take Storme out and slot in WW, he’s not a weatherman who feels wronged by Sunny Daye, so he’s got no motivation. He’d just head back to Central City and his own interests. Villains aren’t just a set of powers, they’re a set of motivations, and Ditko wanted to tell a story here about someone with this set of motivations.
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Hence your reason for creating Supercharger [ Amazing Fantasy#17 ] as a Spider-Man foe when he already had Electro. But you would think that when your 2 Batman Thinkers look virtually alike ( except one is in a wheelchair, but both bald with big heads ) [ Detective Comics#125 ( July 1947 ) wheelchair version ( also he died — but so has Luthor & Joker ) ] & [ Batman#52 ( April-May 1949 ) maybe like Rhodes in the MCU he was using technology to walk or the earlier version was faking that he couldn’t ( I’ve seen that before in film ) ] that they would have made minor changes to the story to have them be the same man ( dc.fandom.com – thinker ( disambiguation ) ).
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At the time Spider-Man met Supercharger, Electro didn’t exist yet.
Plus, Supercharger didn’t have the same powers as Electro, at least not when I wrote him. He was a human battery who could absorb and release power — later writers may have limited that to electricity, but I had him using kinetic energy to throw people around, and I think I showed him being super-strong, too.
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I generally appreciate Ditko’s efforts to make sure a story makes some sense within the world of the main character, but Storme being a fired weatherman out for revenge is a somewhat wacky motivation isn’t it? It’s not unlike Doom’s animosity towards Reed, but with on-air weather people; who I think don’t have anywhere near the same level of reputation to defend…or as believable a path to become a convincing menace. It might have worked better if it were played as an intentionally ridiculous villain?
Dynamic art thoughout though.
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I figured he predated Electro from what I read ( Peter as Spider-Man making a living as an entertainer ) on marvel.fandom.com who limits his powers to being a living battery of electrical energy, enabling him to absorb and release vast amounts of electricity ( I should have check the Handbook I have with him ).
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The Spider-Man: Back In Black Handbook also limits Supercharger’s powers to absorbing electrical energy and releasing it ( marvunapp.com too ).
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You can read the actual story sometime, if you like. It says he can absorb and release power, not electricity. And he does things that are not consistent with him releasing only electricity.
I’m not sure why you didn’t believe me the first time, but I was there, honest.
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I wasn’t questioning, you on your character’s powers just the laziness of the people doing the profiles. After all the early Official Handbooks robbed Drax the Destroyer of his telepathic abilities ( he used to contact Iron Man while prisoner of Thanos in their first appearance — those abilities should have protected him from his daughter Moondragon killing him. Putting in a coma for a while maybe, but death ), Thanos’s ability to teleport under his own power, turn his Skrull thrall to stone, communicate telepathically with Gamora or Gamora’s super-strength ( said to be a match for Adam Warlock — so 40 tons before her resurrection and enhancement to 100 tons ). For the record, I’m not anti-villains having the same powers or the creation of new characters with the same powers. My mind was stuck on the Savage She-Hulk series where no old villains were used and me thinking that the Creeper should have been fighting an old villain without taking in the plot and motivation of Doctor Storme.
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David Plunkert, Doctor Storme could have gotten his revenge in a much smarter and better way by selling his technology to the Military ( Success is best revenge, right? ). But then Ditko wouldn’t have his story. Minus the weather control technology, revenge for being fired is both a real world and crime drama thing.
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The firing in and of itself isn’t a wacky motivation. It’s the combination of Storme being a weatherman that makes it a somewhat wacky bit of business: since on-air weather people generally convey a happy go lucky personality, and it’s not considered a very serious job. It makes for a somewhat less compelling workplace adjacent super-villain angle than vain D.A. Harvey Dent getting acid to the face.
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