CREEPS
Membership: An unidentified elderly couple
Purpose: Kidnapping and imprisoning children
Aliases: "creepy crawlers"
Affiliations: None
Enemies: Saint D (Demagoblin) and her cult, Jubilee (Jubilation Lee), Sandy and other unidentified children;
indirectly F.E.A.S.T. (including May Parker), Detective Henley, NYPD
Base of Operations: A house somewhere in New York City; mobile in their car
First Appearance: Be X-Tra Safe with the X-Men#1 (1996)
History:
(Be X-Tra Safe with the X-Men#1 (fb)) - On her first weekend at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, Jubilee got lost on her way to the mall, when a black sedan approached, driven by an old woman who asked for directions. When Jubilee admitted to being lost herself, the man in the passenger seat said "Perfect... Er, I mean, I mean, hop in, we'll help you find your way home!" Jubilee declined their offer, and told them she would ask a nearby policeman instead, upon hearing that the two immediately drove off.
SECRET WARS III HAPPENED
(Scream: Curse of Carnage#6 (fb) - BTS) - Ever since their son disappeared (see comments), elderly couple wanted to fill their house with the house of children again because their home felt so quiet and empty without them. They regularly picked up children in their car to bring home with them though the children never survived for long. Whenever the house became quiet again the elderly couple went out to find more.
(Scream: Curse of Carnage#6) - The Creeps drove up to May Parker's F.E.A.S.T. Center and offered a homeless boy to take him to their place where he could get a home-cooked meal and a warm bath. The boy took them up on the offer and hopped into their car.
In their house they gave the boy something to eat while asking him about his home, parents and if someone was looking for him, but he was all by himself. The Creeps seemed heartbroken and after the boy took the warm bath he had been offered earlier, the woman handed him clothes that had belonged to the Creeps' son. She revealed that she and her husband spent their days driving around and looking for their son, hoping that they would find him one day. The woman told the boy to keep the clothes because her son had outgrown them by now. The couple then led the boy to their son's room and offered him to stay. The man claimed that nobody had slept in the room for ages and that the boy would surely find something in there that he liked while the woman claimed that they barely went in the room anymore. The boy thanked the elderly couple before he was pushed down the stairs to the basement and the man introduced himself and his wife as the Creeps. The boy found himself in the basement with a skeleton wearing an X-Men t-shirt chained to the wall.
The Creeps soon picked up another victim in a homeless, drug-addicted girl named Sandy.
(Scream: Curse of Carnage#6 - BTS) - May Parker told Detective Henley that Sandy was the fifth kid that had disappeared within the last month and that she would never leave without her teddy bear. Henley promised May to look into the disappearances.
(Scream: Curse of Carnage#6) - Meanwhile Sandy received a warm sponge-bath by the elderly woman and some clothes before leading her to her new room. Sandy panicked when she realized that she had forgotten her teddy bear, but the woman assured her that they had plenty of stuffed animals and that Sandy could pick a new teddy or whatever else her heart desired. The elderly couple then led Sandy to the stairway to the basement and she willingly went downstairs hoping to find a new teddy bear. The man assured her that there were enough toys and treats to choose from downstairs and then asked her if she wanted some new friends as well because the Creeps planned to invite more children to come home with them.
The Creeps went out again looking for children to kidnap. They drove by homeless children, talked to children at playgrounds and drove by schools. They eventually saw a homeless boy leaving a desolate building through a hole in the wall with a pumpkin graffiti spray-painted above it. The elderly man smiled.
(Scream: Curse of Carnage#6 - BTS) - Detective Henley talked to a boy, whom he called Basquiat due to his artistic skills, at an abandoned pool and asked him about the disappeared children. The boy didn't want to snitch on his friends and assured him that he and the other kids were trying to get to a better place with the help of Saint D.
(Scream: Curse of Carnage#6) - Henley followed the boy, but couldn't stop him from entering the Creeps' car, who drove away in a rush. Henley couldn't catch up to the suspicious couple.
(Scream: Curse of Carnage#6 - BTS) - Demagoblin got her hands on the Creeps and killed them. (see comments)
(Scream: Curse of Carnage#6) - Detective Henley found Demagoblin and the missing children, who were her followers, in the abandoned building the Creeps had driven by earlier. Henley was shocked to see the Creeps dead hung up on a wall on display with Demagoblin and her children in front of them.
Comments: Created by Mariano Nicieza, David Boller & Greg Adams.
Scream: Curse of Carnage was among the titles that switched to digital only publication during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic. Therefore #6 was only ever published on Marvel Unlimited. It became the last issue of the series when it was canceled shortly after despite existing previews for issues #7 and #8. The story was continued in King in Black: Scream#1 (May, 2021), but the Creeps played no role in that issue anymore because they were dead.
This profile was originally a sub-profile in the X-Man profile written by Technarch. It was expanded to a full profile by me after their appearance in Scream: Curse of Carnage.
I love it when it is so clear that a returning character is from a pre-existing story without an editorial note. The nod to their previous appearance with the skeleton wearing an X-Men t-shirt was noticed. Maybe they even got another one of Xavier's less powerful kids after Jubilee got away or maybe it was another leftover t-shirt from their son...if he ever even existed.
Henley called the boy Basquiat as a nod to the late American artist Jean-Michel Basquiat.
It is unclear how Demagoblin got her hands on the Creeps, but it seems likely that the boy led them to Demagoblin with promises of more children that needed help. It also possible that the boy actually went home with them, but was followed because the kids and Demagoblin were already on to the Creeps. Maybe Sandy was even saved if she was not already dead.
Was the boy they kidnapped at the beginning of the issue already dead when they kidnapped Sandy or was he unconscious somewhere else in the house when she arrived? It seems odd that she would willingly go to the basement with an already kidnapped and probably freaked out child and a skeleton already in there, but maybe she didn't notice them at first because it was so dark.
I saw the assumption on another website that the Creeps were suffering from Empty-Nest-Syndrome, a feeling of grief and loneliness parents felt after their children moved out, but the Creeps claimed that their son went missing at some point and they were looking for him ever since. We will probably never learn if they were telling the truth. Maybe they never even had a child or he was killed by them as well. Maybe their son was the skeleton in the basement because to me they seemed insane enough to kill their own child after all. Some parents had done worse to their own children and a basement is a good place to hide a child for several years. We had a few infamous crime cases in Austria over the last few decades that showed that.
Thanks to Ronald Byrd for pointing out their second appearance.
Profile by Markus Raymond & Technarch.
CLARIFICATIONS:
The Creeps have no known connections to:
images: (without ads)
Scream: Curse of Carnage#6, p4, pan4 (main image)
Scream: Curse of Carnage#6, p5 (main, in shadows)
Be X-Tra Safe with the X-Men#1, p4, pan5 (enounter with Jubilee)
Scream: Curse of Carnage#6, p2, pan2 (head shots)
Scream: Curse of Carnage#6, p31 (demise)
Scream: Curse of Carnage#6, p5 (unidentified child with X t-shirt)
Appearances:
Be X-Tra Safe with the X-Men#1 (1996) - Mariano Nicieza (writer), David Boller (pencils), Greg Adams (inks), Glenn Herdling (editor)
Scream: Curse of Carnage#6 (June 3rd, 2020) - Clay McLeod Chapman (writer), Chris Mooneyham (pencils), LeBeau Underwood (inks), Devin Lewis (editor)
First Posted: 09/07/2008 (as sub-profile)
Last updated: 06/07/2026
Any Additions/Corrections? please let me know.
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