Well, I remembered the twist ending of Beware the Creeper, but without the problematic, reductive, low-key, passive misogynist, ableist context.

For a while, it’s a surprisingly good issue. Writer Jason Hall has finally gotten his bland white guy police detective narration down. Not for the resolution epilogue, of course; there’s nothing to be done with that section but the opening. Except when the death of the cop’s favorite—sincerely favorite, not in a creepy way—prostitute is an afterthought. There’s no room for it, since Creeper’s not a mystery.

It’s not a mystery; it’s not a character study (Madeline is barely present, save a great scene with Hemingway); it’s not a history lesson. It’s a sometimes admirable effort, with excellent art from Cliff Chiang—though even he can’t make the conclusion work—and okay writing from Hall.

It’s not successful, but it’s also not exactly a disappointment. Since I remembered the twist, it couldn’t disappoint me again. If I were going in cold… well, again, I’m surprised I’ve been remembering this series with such a fondness. Even leaving out the twist and how much it changes the previous three issues, there’s also the lack of character development. The willful, manipulative lack of it.

And the French cop is too bland a narrator.

Hall tries for a melancholy last moment, tied into the lost potential of “The Lost Generation,” but it’s a complete fail. Despite being on top of the Eiffel Tower, it’s one of Chiang’s least successful scenes in the issue.

The book’s got such a weird finish. If it were a movie, you’d swear they’d reshot it. But Beware the Creeper was always five issues, and if they didn’t stop now, they’d have had to go much longer, and Hall doesn’t have the story for it.

Ernest Hemingway cameos, amusing or not, aren’t something you do when you’ve got the story cracked.

Anyway. Good art. Sometimes okay script.

The cop’s narrating again. Not sure why, not after he took an issue and a half off. Writer Jason Hall puts too much on the cop, especially since he gets tricked twice in the issue. One’s plainly clear; the other he should’ve figured out since it happened during the war. But he lacked the critical thinking skills, which then makes his narration showing such abilities incongruous.

The comic doesn’t go where I thought it was going. It might still end up there by the end; there’s a whole other issue because this issue’s all about revealing the Creeper’s identity. There are two possibilities we know about and an unknown large number of ones we don’t (there’s no reason to assume it has to be one of our twin sister leads). Hall goes right to it with the reveal, complete with something close to a confession.

Though, maybe the ending is what I remembered.

Anyway.

Cliff Chiang’s art is fantastic. Even with the bland blond copper back and the indistinct female protagonists, Chiang’s doing just fine. There are numerous action montages throughout—no real scenes because Hall watches the Creeper from a distance—and some excellent work in them. Not sure how Chiang’d do with a straight action scene, but it doesn’t seem like it will come up in this book.

The ending is melodramatic, sentimental, and cruel. It’s also rather affecting, especially for a comic with such a thin narrative. Creeper’s a strange book; Chiang’s dragging it across the finish line, but Hall sometimes doesn’t seem to know they’re even trying to get there.

Almost nothing happens this issue. The cop starts investigating the missing sister, thinking she’s the Creeper. He teams up with her twin, Maddy, for a combination walking tour of Paris and detective snoop. He discovers all the things we saw happen last issue, which isn’t great plotting from writer Jason Hall. Depending on the final two issues, it sure seems like Beware the Creeper didn’t need five issues. Unless they knew it’d take artist Cliff Chiang until this issue to get cooking because, wow, the art’s great.

There are some big, complicated composition pages where Chiang’s got the Creeper hopping all over the Paris rooftops, but it’s also how the various reveals work. Before the cop starts investigating, most of the issue is just snippets of the Creeper’s hijinks, alongside contemporary reactions and media coverage. She’s the current hero of surrealism as she wages her prank war against the wealthy Arbogast family.

Now, I have a vague recollection of the finale reveal, so I’m going to baby step so as not to spoil, but as the Creeper targets this one family, people start noticing and asking what’s made them a target. The matriarch realizes it’s got something to do with her shitty son and sends him off to Germany, where he can carouse in peace, seemingly not being as violent to the call girls there. The Arbogast son is a prime suspect in the missing sister’s assault, something the comic laid so heavily into back in the first issue I thought it was Hall doing a red herring.

I don’t think so anymore. I think Hall’s just really, really obvious, and the setting and Chiang’s gorgeous art distract from the obvious plotting.

There’s also not much in the way of character development. Yes, the cop is moping over the missing sister and tries to seduce her twin as a stand-in at the Eiffel Tower, but what else is a French cop going to do? Hall plays the remaining twin, Maddy, as an enigma who has at least one big secret from the other characters and the readers. Again, Hall’s pretty obvious.

Or I’ll be entirely wrong and surprised. Fingers crossed. Either way, I can’t wait to see Chiang’s art. It’s magnificent this issue and has just been improving as Creeper creeps on.

Now, here’s the great Cliff Chiang art I remember on **Beware the Creeper**. He maintains quality with faces while still doing all the great Parisian street scenes. He’s got a lovely sequence with a girl, apparently living on the street, waking up and starting her day. It’s charming, which **Creeper** can often be, when writer Jason Hall lets it. Most of the time, however, he’s holding onto the reins way too tight for funny business.
This issue picks up a month after last issue. That issue ended with someone attacking and raping Judith, probably some rich boy painting poser (last issue pointed an arrow at him, this issue acts as though he’s already been revealed). Then the Creeper appeared and terrorized the poser for a few panels, telling him to “**Beware**”.
“Beware” becomes the Creeper’s catchphrase as she has nighttime madcap adventures in Paris. We don’t see many of them, just the ones where she’s attacking the poser’s family. She starts the issue stealing some of their jewels and tossing them in the river. The jewels, not the family.
Just like the comic heavily implies the poser is the rapist, it also implies Judith is the Creeper. Of course, her identical twin Maddy is always around too, so who knows. Hall’s got a handful of moves he can make.
But we don’t learn anything about the Creeper. We don’t learn anything about Maddy and Judith’s lost month. Judith and her surrealist friends want to start some trouble, Maddy wants to work on her new play and garden. Then the blond guy cop is around too, getting suspicious about Judith and the Creeper.
The art’s a wow, the story’s baseline okay. There’s a cute **Year One** “your feast is nearly over” montage and some literary cameos, but there’s no character development; in fact, Hall works intentionally against it.
Thank goodness Chiang’s clicking.

Beware the Creeper gets by immediately on charm, though it opens with a violent assault on a sex worker, so it takes a few pages. Writer Jason Hall begins with an “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” establishing the setting. It’s post-World War I, pre-Great Depression Paris. The comic’s a who’s who of guest stars (including Hemingway; Creeper precedes Midnight in Paris’s guest list by eight years). The protagonists are twin French sisters. The French is important because when Hall’s dialogue gets a little wonky, you can just pretend it’s a lousy translation and would sound better en français.

Maddy’s the painter and the wild girl; she has dreams of demon sex. Judith’s the playwright and good sister; she has dreams of their parents dying in the war. The comic repeats their names over and over to try to differentiate the two, but since artist Cliff Chiang’s most distinct visual trait for them is hair cuts, which aren’t always necessary, it can’t quite hammer in the identifiers enough. It’s okay, the comic gets by, but it’d be nice if the characters weren’t just tragic and manic.

They’re the A plot; introducing them, getting them topless because it’s a Vertigo book and they’re French, so it’s “fine,” sending them off to a party where they can interact with the B and C plot. B plot is copper Allain. He protects the local sex workers (best he can against his corrupt department), so he’s investigating the opening assault. He’s also in love with one of the sisters; I think Maddy; doesn’t matter this issue.

Allain the copper is also where the real cracks start showing in the art. Chiang busts ass on Judith and Maddy’s scenes, but he rushes through the Inspector Allain stuff. His facial features change three times a page. As a whole, it’s still okay—Chiang’s 1925 Paris is gorgeous even when faces are inconsistent, and hairstyles and hats are not enough to distinguish the twins. But he’s clearly not working as hard on those scenes.

The C plot is somewhere in between. The C plot is shitty rich kid Mathieu, who wants to be a painter and is jealous of Maddy and might be the serial rapist. He’s certainly the main suspect so far.

The issue ends with another assault, this time someone socially valuable enough to kick off a comic series and a brief appearance of the Beware the Creeper Creeper. There’s been some foreshadowing in Maddy’s paintings, with the final splash page the pay-off.

At the open, it seems like the art’s going to be outstanding, ends up being just okay (with lots of pluses). The writing’s all setup or literary figure cameo and history lesson. They combine to make Creeper compelling without being engaging. So far, anyway.