Spectre (comics)

Superherobox|

caption="JSA" #75 (September 2005), cover art by Alex Ross.
character_name=The Spectre
publisher=DC Comics
debut="More Fun Comics" #52 (February 1940)
creators=Jerry Siegel
Bernard Baily
alter_ego=Aztar
alliances=Justice Society of America All-Star Squadron Archangels
aliases=The Spirit of Vengeance, Spirit of Redemption, Avenging Wrath of God, The Man of Darkness, Raguel
powers=
*Divine mystical enhancements granting virtual omnipotence, although the true scope ranges from the dictates of the Presence
*Knowledge of events before the Crisis on Infinite EarthsThe Spectre is a fictional cosmic entity and superhero who has appeared in numerous comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in a next issue ad in "More Fun Comics" #51 (January 1940) and received his first story the next month, #52 (February 1940). He was created by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily, although several sources [Greenberger, Bob, "Of Ghostly Guardians and Resurrections," "The Spectre" (2nd series) #1, April 1987, DC Comics, ("letter" column).] [Thomas, Roy, "Secrets Behind the Origins Dept.," "Secret Origins" (2nd series) #15, June 1987, DC Comics (sidebar to letter column, second page).] [Bails, Jerry, "Foreword," "The Golden Age Spectre Archives Volume 1", 2003, DC Comics, p. 6.] attribute creator credit solely to Siegel, limiting Baily to being merely the artist assigned to the feature.

Fictional character biography

=Origins/Golden Age version=

:main|Jim Corrigan

The Spectre's career began in the late 1930s ("More Fun Comics" #52, February 1940), when hard-boiled cop Jim Corrigan was murdered. His spirit was refused entry into the afterlife, however, and, in the guise of a grey-skinned humanoid being in green cloak, gloves, trunks and boots (the skin became chalk-white six stories into the run, while blue garments appeared in #51's aforementioned house ad as well as the cover and symbolic splash panel of #52, with all reprints of this early material "corrected" to match the official version; Corrigan did not adopt the Spectre persona until late in #53, so the blue costume was never seen in-story), it was assigned by an entity referred to only as "The Voice" (generally conceded to be God) to eliminate all evil from the world.

The Spectre began by seeking bloody vengeance against Corrigan's murderers in a grim, supernatural fashion. In years to come, the character would gain a reputation among editors and writers as being too powerful to get a dramatic handle on, but creator Siegel apparently felt otherwise, because in More Fun #60 (October 1940), only the eighth Spectre story, he gave the Dead Detective an almost literal "deus ex machina", the Ring of Life, which would appear on the ghost's finger when he faced a menace beyond his powers (in six stories reprinted in recent years). The Spectre proved quite popular, and was awarded charter membership in the first ever super-hero team, the Justice Society of America in "All-Star Comics". Another reward was the resurrection of the body of Jim Corrigan (accomplished with the aforementioned Ring of Life), from which the Spectre's ghostly form could emerge and function independently (seen in "More Fun" #75, Jan. 1942).

During the mid-1940s, the popularity of superhero comics began to decline, and the Spectre suffered as a result. He was reduced to playing the role of "guardian angel" to a bumbling character called "Percival Popp, the Super Cop." Eventually, Jim Corrigan enlisted in the military to serve in World War II, and on his departure, the Spectre became "permanently" invisible, becoming a secondary player in his own series. The feature's final installment was in #101 (January--February 1945), and the Spectre made his last JSA appearance at the same time, in "All-Star Comics" #23 (Winter [1944--] 1945).

Supercbbox
title=The Spectre


caption=
schedule=vol. 1: Bi-monthly
vol. 2-4: Monthly
format=All: Standard U.S., 4 color. While being published, ongoing.
publisher=DC Comics
date=vol. 1: November/December 1967 - May/June 1969
vol. 2: April 1987 - November 1989
1988 (Annual)
vol. 3: December 1992 - February 1998
1995 (Annual)
vol. 4: March 2001 - May 2003
issues=vol. 1: 10
vol. 2: 31, +1 (Annual)
vol. 3: 64 (numbered 1 - 63, includes a #0), +1 (Annual)
vol. 4: 27
main_char_team=All:The Spectre
vol. 1-3: Jim Corrigan
vol. 4: Hal Jordan
writers=
artists=
pencillers=
inkers=
colorists=
creative_team_month=
creative_team_year=
creators=Jerry Siegel
Bernard Baily

ilver Age version

When the Silver Age of comic books arrived in the 1960s, editor Julius Schwartz had the Spectre re-written and returned to the role of an avenging undead spirit, beginning in "Showcase" #60, January-February 1966. Under the authorship of Gardner Fox and as drawn by Murphy Anderson, his power was vastly increased, and at times he approached the level of omnipotence (in a retrospective look at the character, "Amazing Heroes" said this revival had been initially "announced" as a team-up with Doctor Mid-Nite, similar to the recent Doctor Fate/Hourman and Starman/Black Canary features by the same creative talent [Stewart, Alan, "The Lives and Deaths of Jim Corrigan, Alias...The Spectre: Part One of a Hero History", "Amazing Heroes", #112, 1 March 1987, Fantagraphics p.32.] ). After a three-issue try-out in "Showcase", he appeared in "Justice League of America" issues 46 (September) & 47 (October 1966) in that year's team-up of the titular group and their 1940s predecessors, the Justice Society (also written by Fox). A few months later, he co-starred with the Silver Age Flash in an issue of "The Brave and the Bold", #72 (June-July 1967). With a cover date of November-December 1967, the Spectre was given his own title, while almost simultaneously (December 1967-January 1968), he made a second appearance in "B&B" (#75), this time teamed up with the current version of Batman. In the Spectre's own series, the creative credits varied widely over the ten issues published, perhaps the most notable participant being a then newcomer to comics, Neal Adams, who drew issues 2-5 and also wrote his last 4-5. For its final two issues, the comic became in effect a horror anthology, with the title character being little more than a host/narrator in several short stories. The end to this era came in "Justice League of America" #83, August 1970, when, at the climax of another JLA/JSA crossover, the Ghostly Guardian appeared to be destroyed (his generic cameo at a JSA meeting in the previous issue seems to have been an artist's error, although it has spawned plenty of fan speculation about how he got from there to being imprisoned in a crypt as found and freed by Doctor Fate in #83 [Burkett, Cary, "Speculations on The Spectre," "Amazing World of DC Comics", #16, December 1977, DC Comics, p. 40.] ).

Bronze Age version

In the 1970s, the Spectre was revived in the pages of "Adventure Comics" (#431, January-February 1974 through #440, July-August 1975). This series, written by Michael Fleisher and drawn by Jim Aparo, was notorious for its gruesome depictions of the Spectre's poetic-justice style retributions against criminals: they were melted like wax, turned to wood and run through sawmills, transformed into glass then allowed to fall over and shatter into many pieces. In the letter column, some fans indicated uneasiness with this depiction, and in #435, September-October 1974, Fleisher, perhaps in response or perhaps his plan anyway, introduced a character that shared their concerns, a reporter named Earl Crawford. Crawford's interactions with Jim Corrigan present an interesting possible continuity problem. In the character's first story (specifically on page 7), Corrigan disparagingly refers to Crawford as "Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter", owing to Crawford's vaguely similar appearance (tall, dark hair and spectacles), leading one, presumably dim-witted, uniformed officer to ask him (on p. 8), "Gee, are you really Superman?" Clark Kent/Superman being merely a comic book character leads to questions as to where in the DC Multiverse these stories are taking place. However, though some have accordingly speculated that this run of the Spectre took place on Earth Prime (an Earth nearly identical to the real one, first postulated in "The Flash" #179, May 1968) [Burkett, Cary, "Speculations on The Spectre," "Amazing World of DC Comics", #16, December 1977, DC Comics, p. 41.] , "America vs. the Justice Society" #2, February 1985 (a miniseries written by Roy Thomas just before the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" as the final word on Earth 2) states that the Spectre had bonded with the counterparts of Jim Corrigan on alternate Earths, and the "Justice League of America Index" #3 entry for "JLA" #83 further supports this reasoning, stating that the Spectre went to Earth-1 after the events of that story (the character's first non-reprint appearance after that being the "Adventure" run). Furthermore, the "Are you really Superman?" reference can be taken as a wry remark about the number of times Clark Kent has been "mistakenly" suspected of being Superman, a situation that was even the subject of jokes on Earth-1's late night talk shows, as seen in "Action Comics" #474, published in 1977; Corrigan's related use of the famous tag line "mild mannered reporter" makes that unlikely, however. So does "Justice League of America" #220, November 1983 (the conclusion of that year's JLA-JSA crossover, and co-written by the aforementioned Roy Thomas). This comic depicts both the JSA-member Spectre and a "Jim Corrigan body...purely of Earth One. His Spectre persona is trapped within," categorically stating that there was not only more than one Corrigan, but multiple Spectres as well. In any event, a version of Earl Crawford later appeared in the "Doctor Thirteen" series in "Ghosts" (see below).

The series was cancelled with scripts written but not yet drawn. Several years later, these remaining chapters were penciled by Aparo, lettered and inked by others, and published in the final issue of "Wrath of the Spectre", a 4-issue miniseries in 1988 which reprinted the ten original Fleisher/Aparo stories in its first three issues (Two Aparo-drawn horror shorts of similar vintage were used as page-count fillers; all thirteen Spectre stories were subsequently collected in a trade paperback book of the same title in 2005). However, while three "new" stories were presented here, a 1980 interview--this is a full transcript, not a textual article littered with direct quotes--with Fleisher in "The Comics Journal" flatly stated that two scripts were left undrawn [Catron, Michael, "The Blessed Life of Michael Fleisher: An Interview with the Man Who Stuffed Jonah Hex," "The Comics Journal", June or May (first on cover, second on contents page, indicia states monthly frequency) 1980, Fantagraphics, p. 51.] . (The writer also indicated here his preferred habit of staying well ahead of deadline in his comics work, explaining the leftover scripts; the existence of these had led to an incorrect belief that the series was cancelled quite abruptly [Sanderson, Peter, "The Wrath Against...The Spectre", "The Wrath of the Spectre" #3, July 1988, DC Comics, inside-covers.] .) Given that the thirteenth story does not follow certain formulae that all twelve previous installments did, the claim that it was written by Fleisher in 1975 is called into question. However, it can be alternatively argued that the interview is the unauthentic work here.

The Spectre also made a guest appearance in the "Doctor Thirteen" series in the DC comic "Ghosts". This three-part story (#97, February through #99, April, 1981) was a direct sequel to the Fleisher/Aparo run, including the Earl Crawford character (albeit visually redesigned as the Aparo original looked too much like Terrence Thirteen) and the same formatting of story titles (one of the ways that the thirteenth story credited to Fleisher varied from the other twelve; even the inside-covers text pieces in the reprint mini followed this particular formula), but was clearly produced with no consideration for Fleisher's then-undrawn leftovers. Here, supernatural debunker Terrence Thirteen became caught in a dangerous situation with deadly, terrorist-style criminals. The Spectre appeared and, as Thirteen watched in shock, killed the offenders. Thirteen was convinced that the Spectre was not a ghost, but a man, until in the final installment, the Spectre took Thirteen to the realm of Judgement, where Thirteen met with the spirit of his dead father. The Spectre would make periodic guest appearances in other DC titles as well, such as "The Brave and the Bold", "DC Comics Presents" and "All-Star Squadron".

Among the many changes made to DC Comics' characters during the later half of the 1980s (following the "Crisis on Infinite Earths", where the Spectre fought the Anti-Monitor), the Spectre was largely de-powered. First, and actually prior to the Crisis, The Spectre is revealed to be guarding an entrance to Hell in a "Swamp Thing Annual" story by Alan Moore. Then, in the conclusion to Moore's later serial in the regular "Swamp Thing" comic, "American Gothic", the Spectre is defeated by evil incarnate (the Great Evil Beast) as it advances to destroy Heaven. Next, in the "Last Days of the Justice Society of America" special, he fails to resolve a situation and is punished by God for his failure. In his fourth solo series and second self-titled comic, the Spectre, under the authorship of Doug Moench, became merely a generic mystical entity, with Corrigan the central figure in this story of an occult-oriented private detective agency. The Spectre's powers were significantly reduced here, with even the act of emerging from Corrigan's physical body being painful to both. This run was cancelled with the November 1989 issue, #31. A few months after this, the Spectre has a cameo in "The Books of Magic", a four issue miniseries/whirlwind tour of the DC Universe's occult characters, written by Neil Gaiman. This implies him to be Raguel, an archangel who metes out punishments for God as the Spirit of Vengeance.

Modern Age version

Three years after the cancellation of the Doug Moench version, the Spectre was again given his own series, this time written by writer and former theology student John Ostrander, who chose to re-examine the Spectre in his aspects both as the embodied Avenging Wrath of the Murdered Dead and as a brutal 1930s policeman.

Ostrander placed the Spectre in complex, morally ambiguous situations that posed certain ethical questions, one example being: What vengeance should be wrought upon a woman who killed her abusive husband in his sleep? Other notable dilemmas included, among others:

* The tiny (fictional) nation of Vlatava, the history of which was an endless cycle of civil war, ethnic cleansing, retribution, and blood feuds that had endured for centuries. The Spectre responded by judging the whole nation guilty, razing the land and killing the entire population except for two opposing politicians.
* The pending execution of a wrongfully convicted man. His death sentence was commuted to life in prison after the Spectre threatened to kill the entire population of the state of New York in retribution, arguing that if the execution was carried out, the "people of the state of New York" would become guilty of murder in his eyes.
* A 90-year-old woman who had spent her entire life trying to atone for the single murder she had secretly committed in the 1920s. The Spectre found her on her deathbed.

Ostrander also retconned several new concepts into the Spectre's history: he revealed that the Spectre was meant to exist as the embodiment of the Wrath of God, and Jim Corrigan was but the latest human spirit assigned to guide him while he existed on Earth. This eliminated the resurrection of Jim Corrigan's body depicted in "More Fun Comics" #75 (January 1942), and made the Spectre's 1945-1965 disappearance as explained in "Showcase" #60 (January-February 1966), which had a few problems on its own terms, virtually impossible, yet Ostrander expressly retained that. It was also shown that the Spectre was a fallen angel named Aztar who had participated in Lucifer's rebellion, but then repented, and that serving as the embodiment of God's anger was its penance.

Furthermore, the Spectre was not the first embodiment of God's anger, but was the replacement for the previously minor DC character Eclipso. Ostrander chose to portray this as a distinction between the Spectre's pursuit of "vengeance" and Eclipso's pursuit of "revenge". In a historical context, Eclipso was responsible for the biblical Flood, while the Spectre was the Angel of Death who slew the firstborn Egyptian children.

The Spectre has also played a pivotal role in the "Crisis on Infinite Earths" and "Zero Hour" storylines. In both cases, in the final struggle against the main villain — the Anti-Monitor and Parallax, respectively — the Spectre was the only hero capable of standing against the villains directly, allowing the other heroes time to put a plan into action that would destroy the villains once and for all.

The 2001 Green Arrow story "Quiver" (written by Kevin Smith) and the final Supergirl story arc, "Many Happy Returns" (by Peter David) revealed that the Spectre (as the Hal Jordan incarnation) is aware of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. He is one of the few DC Universe characters with this knowledge.

Hal Jordan

Eventually, Corrigan's soul found peace. He relinquished the Spectre, and went on to the afterlife. The role of the Spectre was later assumed by Hal Jordan, the spirit of the former Green Lantern, during the "Day of Judgement" storyline; the Spectre chose Hal as his new host because Hal sought to atone for his actions as Parallax. In a series written by J. M. DeMatteis, Hal Jordan was able to bend the Spectre's mission from one of vengeance into one of redemption, also making other appearances through some of DC's other storylines, such as advising Superman during the "Emperor Joker" storyline (Where the Joker stole the reality-warping power of Mister Mxyzptlk) and also helped Linda Danvers save a time lost pre-Crisis Kara Zor-El and erasing all public knowledge of Wally West's identity as the Flash after his terrible first battle with Zoom. After this series was cancelled, Jordan was forced to return, temporarily, to the Spectre's mission of vengeance, following a confrontation between the new Justice Society and the Spirit King, who had managed to 'resurrect' the ghosts of all those the Spectre had damned to Hell. After the Spectre was able to purge the Parallax from Jordan, he departed in order to move onto the next recipient of the Spirit. Jordan says that the knowledge he gained from being the Spectre's host has faded. If he has any greater knowledge of the Universe, he has not revealed it to anyone else.-

"Day of Vengeance"

As covered in one of the lead-ins to "Infinite Crisis", "Day of Vengeance", Jean Loring was transformed into the new Eclipso. She went after the Spectre, who was on a vengeance rampage. Not only was he killing murderers, he was also killing people for minor crimes, such as petty theft. She seduced the Spectre, who was unstable due to the loss of his host, into removing all magic in the DC Universe. Eclipso explained to the Spectre that all things that follow the rules of the physical universe follow God's law. Anything that breaks those rules, breaks God's law and is therefore evil. Consequently, as magic breaks the rules of the physical universe, it is an originating source of tremendous evil (this line of logic made sense to the unstable Spectre).

Therefore, the Spectre went on a rampage, destroying magical constructs, institutions that taught magic, and magical dimensions. In one such dimension, his acts included the mass murder of over 700 battle hardened magicians. His actions caused havoc to some of the more powerful magic-based characters:

*Phantom Stranger, whom he turned into a mouse;
*Black Adam, who fought the Spectre when the spirit invaded his kingdom of Khandaq and caused plagues of destruction;
*Doctor Fate, who was imprisoned in a dimension inside his helmet;
*Madame Xanadu, whose eyes were destroyed (and made incapable of restoration through magic) by the Spectre to prevent her from reading her magical tarot cards;
*Raven who can no longer properly control her powers; and
*The wizard Shazam, who, despite the intervention of his champion Captain Marvel, was killed by the Spectre.

The Spectre also destroyed the magic-fueled kingdom of Atlantis, the home of Aquaman, during his rampage.

In the "Day Of Vengeance: Infinite Crisis Special", the Spectre killed Nabu, the last of the Great Lords of the Ninth Age and the Presence's attention was finally drawn to him. The Spectre was once again forced into a human host, finally stopping his mad rampage. Nabu revealed, before dying, that originally he and the other Lords had been working towards forming the perfect host for the Spectre, but those plans were cut short.

The text of the story is a little unclear on exactly who the Great Lords were. Nabu, introduced in 1942 as the powerful entity responsible for Kent Nelson becoming Doctor Fate, was one of the Lords of Order. The Spectre had apparently killed the others, along with their counterparts the Lords of Chaos, with the exception of Nabu and Amethyst, whom he battled on Gemworld. Amethyst was among those gathered by the Phantom Stranger to aid in rebuilding the Rock of Eternity, and survived into the Tenth Age.

Alexander Luthor also revealed that he was indirectly responsible for the Spectre's actions in "Day of Vengeance". The Psycho-Pirate, under Luthor's orders, gave Eclipso's diamond to Jean Loring, making her manipulate the Spectre so that magic could be undone and used as fuel for Luthor's Multiverse tower.

Crispus Allen

In "Gotham Central" #38, Crispus Allen was killed by a policeman coincidentally named Jim Corrigan (not the same Corrigan formerly associated with The Spectre). While Allen's body was in the morgue, the Spectre was forced against his will to enter Crispus Allen, taking Allen as his new host.

Kingdom Come

In the four issue "Elseworlds" miniseries "Kingdom Come", The Spectre (with Jim Corrigan still acting as host) takes a preacher named Norman McCay through the events of a possible future of the DC Universe. Here, Spectre is to determine who is responsible for an impending apocalyptic event. However, here his "faculties are not what they once were" ("Kingdom Come" #1), and he is said to need a human perspective to properly judge the events they witness.

A conversation between McCay and the character Deadman in "Kingdom Come" #3 revealed that Spectre had become further and further removed from humanity as time went on. In "Kingdom Come" #4, he is convinced by McCay to try to see things through the perspective of his human host, and as Jim Corrigan, he can be seen in the congregation of McCay's church, as well as at the end of the epilogue in the Planet Krypton restaurant.

Awards

The character won the "1961 Alley Award as the Hero/Heroine Most Worthy of Revival" and the "1964 Alley Award for Strip Most Desired for Revival".

Other versions

* Spectre appeared in "Justice League Unlimited" #37, and was out of control due to Tala's spirit.
*In the Tangent Comics print, the Spectre is a technologically-powered superhero, named Taylor Pike, and is a member of the Secret Six.
* There is alternate version of the Spectre on Earth-2 shown in the JSA Annual #1 (2008) as well as a evil Spectre on Earth-3 shown in "Countdown" issue #31 (2008) of the Crime Society. Both versions look similar to the Golden Age version.

References

ee also

*Jim Corrigan
*Hal Jordan
*Crispus Allen
*El Diablo
*Crimson Avenger
*The Word

External links

* [http://www.dcuguide.com/profile.php?name=spectre DC Guide Entry for The Spectre] - Unofficial Guide of DC Universe
* [http://users.rcn.com/aardy/comics/awards/ Comic Book Awards Almanac]
* [http://www.dcindexes.com/indexes/indexes.php?character=spectre&choice=appearances An index of Spectre's appearances]
* [http://www.toonopedia.com/spectre.htm Toonopedia]
* [http://www.comics.org/search.lasso?type=character&query=The+Spectre&sort=chrono&Submit=Search The Grand Comics Database Project] - Index for The Spectre (character)
* [http://www.comics.org/series.lasso?SeriesID=1795 The Grand Comics Database Project] - Index for "The Spectre" vol. 1.
* [http://www.comics.org/series.lasso?SeriesID=3384 The Grand Comics Database Project] - Index for "The Spectre" vol. 2.
* [http://www.comics.org/series.lasso?SeriesID=4414 The Grand Comics Database Project] - Index for "The Spectre" vol. 3.
* [http://www.comics.org/series.lasso?SeriesID=10922 The Grand Comics Database Project] - Index for "The Spectre" vol. 4.
* [http://www.comics.org/series.lasso?SeriesID=3618 The Grand Comics Database Project] - Index for "The Spectre Annual" vol. 1.
* [http://www.comics.org/series.lasso?SeriesID=5251 The Grand Comics Database Project] - Index for "The Spectre Annual" vol. 2.
* [http://home.aol.com/MG4273/spectre.htm Classic Comic Books: The Spectre]