Everyone has their favorite comic book character: Batman, Superman, Spider-Man. Some people even enjoy a collection of characters, grouping them as their favorites: one of the multiple incarnations of the X-Men, the original Fantastic Four (As of the writing of this article, Storm and Black Panther have temporarily replaced Sue and Richard Reed as members of the Fantastic Four. I am not not exactly well-versed in Marvel comics, so I cannot give the exist issues these events were determined in.) or maybe the Justice Society of America. Those who do not read comics, but have watched the television shows or movies, have a favorite based on those. This is about my favorite character: The Spectre. Now, I am no Alan Kistler (
http://alankistler.squarespace.com – Alan's own website, filled with all of his stuffy that is like what I'm trying to do, only infinitely better.), but I do feel myself educated in this character to the point where I could write a coherent piece about him. I will make the attempt, within here, to explain the various incarnations of The Spectre, as well as the various appearances outside of his main series, and his involvement in the various Crises that DC comics has gone through.
Let's start this off with one very important question:
Who/what IS The Spectre?
Well, the character of The Spectre was created back in 1940 by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily. Siegel, as anyone who reads comics knows, is one of the co-creators of DC's famous primary-colored superhero Superman. The Spectre first appeared in More Fun Comics #52 (Originally, The Spectre was greyish, with a blue cape and such, as seen in the image I linked to within the essay. However, it was later changed to be white/green, and all previous issues were altered to reflect the change.), a comic series which featured other greats like Hourman and Dr. Fate.
The Spectre has generally been seen as an avenger, like all costumed heroes at the time of the Golden Age, but he was an avenger from “beyond the grave”. The Spectre was a near-omnipotent being who existed solely to remove evil from the world (I'll elaborate upon this more within a deeper discussion of The Spectre's Golden Age) and was a ghost.
Of course, this is probably not the kind of thing you were wanting, so let's review things themselves.
The Golden Age
The Spectre first appeared, as I said, in More Fun Comics #52. However, he did not appear as “The Spectre”. He appeared, instead, as Jim Corrigan, the man who would be the “secret identity” of The Spectre—since, as it's known, all Superheroes have to have a secret identity.
Jim Corrigan was a detective from a typical Golden Age generic city (they called it “Gateway City”). He was also engaged to a woman named Clarice Winston, your typical woman of the time. After receiving a tip from his stoolie—a man named Louis Snipe—with regards to gangster “Gats” Benson, Corrigan thought it best to bust up what they were doing (he also felt it would be beneficial, given that this situation would give him a promotion, which would help whenever he and Clarice finally married). Of course, this didn't work out the way he had planned, and “Gats” knocked Corrigan out and put him a barrel of wet cement, sealed it, and tossed the barrel into the nearby water. Obviously, he subsequently died because that's not the kind of thing you can walk away from easily.
Pretty gruesome, eh?
But that didn't stop Corrigan. Well, at least, a Voice (“The Voice” is also considered an aspect of “The Presence”. “The Presence” is the general term DC has given to their concept of God.) decided Corrigan wasn't done. The Voice decided that Jim was going to fight crime, and rid the world of evil. And that he did. His spirit rose up from the barrel, and Jim went to do battle with “Gats” and his posse—who had, at this point, kidnapped Clarice following her attempts to search for Jim. Jim then defeated the people, and freed his woman.
By "defeat" I mean "kill them by turning them into skeletons by looking into his eyes and a number of other things along those lines".
Discovering that he's a ghost, Corrigan decides to call of the engagement (he says, actually, “I have simply ceased to care.” He's a real class act, there.) and then makes his outfit to fight crime in (the white face and green cape/speedo/fairy boots/etc.) as well as doubling as a detective in his city.
Following that, The Spectre and Jim are involved with all sorts of things. The Spectre, who is still Jim, is caught up in various crimes, and Jim's superior demands that Jim be the one to bring the Spectre to justice. Which is a bit ridiculous, considering all the times that Jim says he “got away” in the More Fun Comics. One would think a competent boss would remove Corrigan from that—but that would ruin the series and comics at this point were geared towards children, not twenty-somethings being overly critical.
Aside from the dealings with the Earthly police, The Spectre also deals with various supernatural and occult people. And he's given an item called “The Ring of Fate” to deal with anyone who ends up a bit too strong for him to handle on his own. This works fine, and is a definite use of deus ex machina as it appears at the VERY moment it's needed—almost to the point where it was just ridiculous.
Later on, they decided to lighten the mood of the rather dark series (“Dark” in the sense of mystical powers being used to commit drawn out killings of people) by introducing Percival Popp, The Super Cop, and turning Jim and The Spectre into near sidekicks to this bumbling excuse of a character. But, of course, comics were geared far more towards children. However, I don't actually have these issues. Being Golden Age, they're absurdly difficult to come by and DC hasn't gotten around to publishing a DC Archive of them.
But that's not all The Spectre did. The Spectre, along with several others, was one of the founding members of the Justice Society of America, and was featured in several issues of All-Star Comics during that time. Of course, after a while, people grew tired of The Spectre, Percival, and everything else. He then faded away for a few years, only to come back with a vengeance (I meant to say that).
The Silver Age
The Silver Age of comics brought a whole new breed of people: Hal Jordan, Barry Allen, a new Bruce Wayne, Kal-
El, and all sorts of other people. It also featured the return of “The Astral Avenger”, better known to most people as The Spectre.
The Spectre returned with better art and a much more power. Instead of things like The Ring of Fate to help him out, he had his near-omnipotence and mystical powers to bail him out. Of course, in an effort to balance out The Spectre with the modern villains, The Spectre became an “ectoplasmic” being. Ectoplasm being that stuff that apparently ghosts are made of. As The Spectre was now a being of a defined type (ectoplasm) and was a mystical superhero, he encountered much more mystical and occult villains. The kind of villains that happened to have ONE spell that he couldn't get out of, kind of like how Superman's villains either ALL have Kryptonite, or they are all magic-oriented. Or how Wonder Woman's villains all have rope.
The Spectre also had unusual stipulations on his powers. He could do almost anything—provided his foe's power came from the proper mystical sources, elsewise he would have to “catch [him] in the act” of using his powers to remove them. The idea is rather silly, especially considering that within many issues of this run, The Spectre was barely there.
It's the Silver Age, they can get away with this kind of stuff.
This was a rather short series, there were only ten issues, and there were a few “Showcase” comics, but I haven't read those. However, within the series itself, there didn't seem to be a large placement upon The Spectre himself. Issue #3, for example, dealt more with Wildcat and the foe of the issue than with The Spectre—who didn't even appear until the last few pages.
The Silver Age also gave the impression that The Spectre was a separate entity from Jim Corrigan. By that I mean, while Corrigan was “the human form” of The Spectre, they conversed as though they were two completely different entities. Corrigan would have conversations with a physically separate form of The Spectre. Of course, I only bring this up as it was implied within the Golden Age that The Spectre and Jim Corrigan were the same person, and this sort of change was rather large. They had even go so far as to The Spectre and Jim have conversations as Jim lays in his bed and The Spectre sits, hovering above it attempting to figure out a case.
Of course, this isn't the only time the congruency of The Spectre and Jim Corrigan is called into play. Nor will it be the last. However, there was more going on with the comics than just this. Times were changing, and indeed, so did the Spectre.
The Bronze Age/Wrath of the Spectre
In the 1970s, Michael Fleicher got together with Jim Aparo and recreated The Spectre for the Bronze Age. He didn't have his own series, officially. Instead, he hung around the Adventure Comics scene and took hold of several issues. How this series came about, according to the trade paperback, is that the editor of DC at the time was mugged, and decided to recreate the Spectre as a means for him to feel better, so to speak. It's an interesting thought to say the least.
This series is, by far, the most gruesome of all them.
Michael followed a formula, as most people did, and his formula was rather simple. However, this new series of The Spectre marked the most creative ways to kill someone that were shown. While the Spectre had focused, before, on just being a mystical little spook, Fleicher's Spectre was a quick killer, nearly a murderer.
Within the first appearance of The Spectre in the Adventure Comics (or Wrath of the Spectre #1 of four) The Spectre dispatches two people: The first person is killed by
“melting” him like a candle, and the second person is simply turned into a skeleton.
These kinds of killings go through the entirety of the series. People are turned into wood, and run through saw machines. A swami is turned to glass and falls, shattering into pieces. Another man is turned into a cactus. Another is turned into a mannequin and melted in a fire containing other mannequins. Due to the rather gruesome attacks (as opposed to simple magic) people who wrote in became rather upset with it all, and often wrote into the comic complaining.
The series was eventually canceled, but republished from Adventure Comics into Wrath of The Spectre, which featured several new stories, which continued the presented storyline.
Of course, the overall storyline was nothing too special. Jim Corrigan, local tough detective, went on various cases, and used The Spectre any time he couldn't solve the case himself. Along the way, he encounters a woman who falls in love with him but they can't be together because he's a ghost.
In one issue, he gives up his mission, and is alive again. He gets all excited, but ends up killed again, and becomes The Spectre once more. It gives the idea that this fellow just isn't able to catch a break no matter what he does.
But of course, all of this is about to change...
Crisis on Infinite Earths
Anyone who is a fan of DC comics knows what The Crisis is, but I'll give you a rundown.
There's a lot of universes. They call it a “multiverse”. DC's editors decided to do something about this and have a big event. Said event was this: merge the universes together.
Now, let's talk about it within the confines of the canon, and I'll explain just how The Spectre fits into all this.
Essentially, up until issue #10, The Spectre doesn't do a damn thing. Which is unlike The Spectre in that incarnation, but no one who normally wrote for him was writing. These things happen.
However, #10 is where business picks up with The Spectre. After learning at The Anti-Monitor has gone back to the dawn of time, in an effort to make sure only the Anti-Matter universe survives. The Spectre then rounds up everyone, and they all go back to try to stop this.
Considering how, in the series just before, The Spectre could manipulate almost anything, it seems absurd that he would need the help of the others—but this is the mega-villain. Who am I to judge?
Anyway, The Spectre
et al. make it back to the dawn of time, with The Anti-Monitor gathering up energy and everything. The Spectre decides to strike, after being pumped full of energy from various sorcerers and other magic people. The Anti-Monitor and The Spectre fight, and then everything just goes to hell.
Everyone ends up on one Earth, a reconstructed Earth with Earth-1 as the base. Of course, The Anti-Monitor wasn't defeated, but the strain of the battle left The Spectre in a coma, so he's out of commission.
Of course, Anti-Monitor was eventually defeated, because he had to be for the sake of comics.
And that brings us to...
The Modern Age
The first post-Crisis run of The Spectre introduced some new things, and was a rather interesting take on the character.
The opening issue declares that, since The Spectre didn't stop the Crisis from happening, The Powers That Be decided to shrink his powers down to an astoundingly low level. He was no longer the massive mystical murderer that he had been with the past writers and runs, but rather a little man of magic. To further add to his punishment, and to better understand just what it is he had done—or rather, failed to prevent, he was forced into a “living” body. None other than Jim Corrigan. Yes. They “resurrected” Jim and reattached him and The Spectre.
Another big change was that Jim was given a real place. He's now from New York, instead of the cheesy Earth-2 thing that did take place.
Instead of just having The Spectre and Jim Corrigan, Jim became The Spectre's “human form” and the two were now bonded together like conjoined twins—only on an ethereal level instead of at the hip. Furthermore Jim and The Spectre could not be “separated” from each other for more than 24 hours, lest The Spectre's powers be weakened severely. Following that, if they remained separated for another 24 (meaning 48 hours, total) they both would “die”.
Yeah...
So, what's a human tied to an earth-bound spirit to do in this kind of situation?
Open a “psychic detective agency” over a fortune tellers and solve spooky crimes, of course!
Now, if that's not bad enough, The Spectre was essentially being guarded by the fortune teller— Madame Xanadu, as some may recall from earlier comics—and a woman who she tricked into working for her. The woman, Kimmie, doubled as the secretary for the detective agency and became Corrigan's obligatory love interest. There was obvious sexuality between both
The Spectre and Madam Xanadu as well as
Jim Corrigan and Kimmie.
Of course, there was a
certain sexual aspect of this series between
The Spectre and Corrigan himself. This contrasted the earlier, Silver Age concept that almost seemed childish—The Spectre screaming and pounding on Jim to “let him in” whereas with this series, the two of them join and Corrigan finds himself at a loss to explain the
pleasure of the two of them “rejoining” and the pain of them “separating”. But, really, it's a slight stretch to make that all sexual.
These stories weren't too bad. Once you got past how ridiculous it was that The Spectre was turned into nothing more than a lackey for Jim for his agency. And the whole 24 hour rule.
But beyond those, it featured some interesting villains, and a lot of the mystical people were featured. People like Boston Brand, The Phantom Stranger, Dr. Fate, and others. Hell, there was a whole story arc involving them. But again, there were instances were sometimes the rules of the story were just too obnoxious.
However, one of the main problems I had was The Phantom Stranger led people into the afterlife. Now, I understand he's a phantom...stranger... but that just didn't set well with me. I don't have a big problem with it, because I like The Stranger, but that was just never cleared up.
Of course, along the way, Jim and his agency got a few more people. A black guy, a short guy, a fat woman, and I think someone else. These people helped along and did what people do in an agency. They continued to help out Jim and The Spectre any time their powers got too low for him to be of any use.
This series closed up after 31 issues, and an annual. It was a good series for what it was, but wasn't very exceptional, and I didn't care for what they turned The Spectre into.
The Spectre also appeared in
Saga of the Swamp Thing, but I never actually read that, so I can't discuss what went on in that.
After this run, however, Jim and the spook disappeared from comicdom for a little bit and came back with some major changes...
The Modern Age, Part 2
This part, being the longest of the series by at least 30 issues, and my personal favorite, is going to be a bit longer than the others.
John Ostrander took up the mantle of writing The Spectre in 1991.
The first issue sets the tone for the entire series. Jim Corrigan pays a visit to Louis Snipe (you remember Louis, from the Golden Age?) he tells Louis that he's “tired”, that he just wants to stop, and get the eternal peace he so desperately wants. Even after Louis dies, he wonders why he isn't allowed peace.
While visiting Louis, Jim runs across a woman named Amy Beiterman, who worked with patients in the hospital. After talking a bit with Jim, she suddenly finds him outside of the building—they were several floors up, and in the midst of gunfire. Of course, she also noticed the bullets go right though him and she starts freaking out. Around the same time, Jim goes and meets up with her, and she resumes freaking out after seeing him turn into The Spectre before then.
Amy and Jim slowly but surely fall in love, Jim using Amy to anchor himself into the real world, as he tries to better understand his mission and eventually try to achieve his peace. Amy also has a cop friend named Nate Kane who says “Balzac” and is generally afraid of sick people.
But things like this can't last. It's not the nature of the world, nor the nature of comic books.
While all this is going on, we learn that the various characters introduced in the 80's run (Kimmie, the assistants in the psychic detective agency, and even the separation of Corrigan and The Spectre) were simply created by Madame Xanadu using power that she had demanded from The Spectre. It was also during this little bit that Xanadu essentially stole all of The Spectre from Corrigan, and used it for herself.
She proceeded go through and
punish various men until Jim told her that The Spectre wasn't a neutral force. The Spectre was angry. He was wrath. He had to be fought. Xanadu eventually returned The Spectre to Jim, and he returned to full power.
Within the same arc that Amy was introduced, Ostrander introduced a villain named "The Reaver", who would kill women with HIV or AIDS. A very specific thing. Why is this important? Amy has HIV. As The Spectre learns of this, he places Amy “under his protection”. But Madame Xanadu says Amy will die alone.
Also reintroduced is Azmodus, a shadow-feeding villain that takes pleasure in ruining Spectre's shit. This fellow actually first appeared as a villain the Silver Age, but it was in one of those Showcase comics I never read.
Eventually, The Reaver finds Amy, and we learn that Amy is the one who gave Reaver AIDS. Following beating the hell out of Nate, who was also protecting Amy, Reaver hunts down and eventually beats Amy near-to-death. As she lays dying in an ally, Nate goes up to her, having regained himself, and freaks out—he can't touch sick people. The Spectre, distraught but also having his mission, goes off and finds The Reaver.
Madame Xanadu approached the dying Amy, saying, essentially, that she couldn't prevent her from dying, but she will prevent her from dying ALONE.
After Amy dies, Nate hunts down The Reaver and kills him just before The Spectre allows him to see the error of his ways.
It goes from there.
Following Amy's death, The Spectre begins to have doubts in his mission, and we're introduced (or re-introduced, if you will) to Father Richard Craemer. Craemer was featured in Ostrander's run of the Suicide Squad, and was essentially a Catholic priest who didn't preach the teachings of Cathol. Of course, Craemer also unintentionally caused the destruction of the nation Valtava following his first encounter with The Spectre.
Of course, the destruction of a whole nation needs explaining. The Spectre went to the nation, following a confession with Craemer, and found that the entire nation was filled with hate and sin to the point that the soil itself was saturated with it. Seeing no other alternative, The Spectre killed everyone and everything, setting the country on fire. To punish the leaders of the factions, who both wanted the land for themselves, The Spectre forced them to live on this ruined and dead ground.
Needless to say, this didn't go down too well. The Phantom Stranger showed up, and was rather pissed off by what Craemer did, albeit inadvertently. But The Stranger was no ... stranger ... to The Spectre, and decided that the best thing to do was to gather up a group of the strongest mystics out there. The group was: Etrigan (the doggerel-speaking demon housed inside of Jason Blood), Zatanna (the magician lady who says stuff backwards), The Phantom Stranger himself, Dr. Fate (or rather, one of the people who is supposed to be Fate), and Madame Xanadu. Though Xanadu was not really thrilled with the idea of working with the Stranger. They were going to call upon John Constantine as well, but Constantine was busy being unconscious in his own puke.
But anyway, they go and try to convince Spectre not to do anything, but The Stranger is mildly certain that Heaven will not allow The Spectre to actually destroy all of the Earth. Despite his own thoughts, he has created this team and they make an attempt on the Spectre just in case. However, along the way, we're reintroduced to Eclipso.
Eclipso, we learn, was the ORIGINAL spirit of vengeance, and was replaced by The Spectre after Eclipso went a bit bonkers. Because of this, Eclipso views The Spectre as a “usurper” to his power, and seeks to beat the ever-loving-shit out of Spectre when he can get a chance. The two battled, and the Stranger's team was there occasionally attempting to fight Eclipso and The Spectre. But somehow or another, Eclipso merged with The Spectre, and wound up becoming the dominating force behind it.
Eventually, however, Jim regained control of the Spectre, and Eclipso was banished into a skull-shaped rock up in the orbit of the earth.
The Archangel Michael appeared shortly after the end of the battle, and informed everyone that, no, Heaven wouldn't let The Spectre blow everything up. And The Stranger pointed out that he was not omniscient and everything went as close to normal as it could be with one major exception—the Spectre now understood his mission.
Prior to this battle, The Spectre believed that his mission was just to confront and defeat evil. But following this, he learned that his mission was to confront and understand evil, so that he may come to understand the evil within himself and within others. It took him 50 years, but Jim finally figured out what he was sent back to do.
Of course, that didn't stop the [U.S.] Government from freaking out. And with just cause—giant guy with near unlimited power shows up, you wanna stop it. So they send a fellow out to get information on The Spectre, his weaknesses, his friends, anything they can. Here we meet up with the old Justice Society of America: Carter Hall, Jay Garrick, and others. It's through this that we learn the only thing The Spectre is weak against is cocaine—err, The Spear of Destiny. The Spear was last in possession by Adolf Hitler during World War II, we discover, and it seemed to be the only thing around that even touched The Spectre.
So, they get a hold of The Spear and send the only person they can think of who stands a chance against The Spectre: Superman. But there's one problem—Hitler's hate and spirit were transferred into the Spear through magic, and anyone sensitive to magic will be taken over by Hitler in a manner of speaking. As it's been established, Superman is a massive wuss when it comes to magic, so it he gets taken over rather quickly.
Of course, while this goes on, The Spectre is in Asia, doing battle with a water elemental who was sent from the Earth Spirit—Gaea—in an effort to help cleanse herself. The Spectre winds up going down into the spiritual center of the earth, and taking with the spirit to better understand everything.
But Super-Hitler can't allow for giant water elementals to blowing up big businesses, so he decides to take matters into his own spear (this isn't making any sense) and lashes out against the aspect of Gaea, which prompts The Spectre to freak out and go after Superman. The two fight, and The Spectre is wounded and falls back. They also eventually come to understand the Spectre has recanted his stance of “Fuck the Earth”. Then they eventually get the spear thrown into the big rock that houses Eclipso and all is well.
Sort of.
All while this has been going on Azmodus has been preparing for a big fuck-all battle with The Spectre, in an effort to determine just who is the best man. Along the way, we learn bits about The Spectre's past.
Following Eclipso's removal as the spirit of vengeance, and Spectre's placement, the Spectre became a prominent force in Judeo-Christian myth/history. Not only was The Spectre the force who unleashed the ten plagues upon Egypt (or Ægypt, as it's spelled within the text), but also was the force that split the waters of the Red Sea and casted judgment down on the ancient world.
That is, until Jesus showed up. Once Jesus showed up, the rules changed. Jesus, being essentially forgiveness in material form, outright contradicted The Spectre, and The Spectre was sent into Limbo. Once Jesus was crucified,
The Spectre said “Fuck this” and burned out of Limbo. That is, until Michael said, “You cannot walk the earth without being tied for a human host.”
The Spectre wouldn't have it, but Michael didn't care, and decided to get himself a host for The Spectre anyway. But he changed his form, and became a Hindu avatar, and found the spirit of a man who was demanding the justice of God. The way he did so was rather reminiscent of Jim's as presented in the earlier issues of the run. This man became The Spectre, and in doing so broke the bond of destiny that he held with his family and forced them all to go through various reincarnations.
The man was eventually seduced by a demon, and renounced being The Spectre. In doing so, the demon and he bonded and became Azmodus, and fed on the shadows.
There were also numerous other Spectres before Jim, from numerous different religions.
But, the Spectre/Azmodus fight, yeah? So, here's how it goes. The Spectre discovers that he is chained spiritually to Clarice, whom he left a part of himself with so that she would be brought back to life and stay alive for a long time. Clarice had a son, who had a granddaughter that bears a striking resemblance to her. In an effort to reunite with Clarice, he has Clarissa (the granddaughter) trade souls with Clarice. But that doesn't work out too well, and Clarissa uses Clarice's body and Azmodus' help to incriminate Clarice.
The whole thing is a bit convoluted in attempting to explain it. It's best to read it.
Eventually, Azmodus surfaces, and The Spectre and he duke it out in Hell. The Spectre gets power fed to him, but it doesn't work because Azmodus has a direct feed to Spectre's power through the body of Clarice. The two fight and Azmodus discovers that Clarice is actually a reincarnation of his beloved wife. Horrified by what he's put his own love through, he repents what he's done and The Spectre separates the two of them.
Not too long after this, The Haunting of America takes place. Because this storyline was obnoxiously long, I'm going to give this as quick of a summary as I can.
The founding fathers of the United States created a mythical “America”. This symbol was protected using The Talisman of America, which was broken up into a bunch of pieces over the years. “America” has been symbolized as Uncle Sam and various other things that become Uncle Sam.
Everyone is attempting to gather all the pieces of this thing, in an effort to control America and rebuild it in their image.
In this arc is one of the greatest pieces. Following a collection of people beating a homosexual couple severely, The Spectre dishes out a weak punishment, but is met with
jeers from both sides. Those who did the beating said they were doing the work of God, so The Spectre should side with them. Those who were beat objected to how little vengeance was actually done. Jim makes his opinions known on the matter, which are easily suggestive of his living in the early decades.
Corrigan and Nate have a minor conversation regarding this, which prompts him to visit Craemer, who has been removed from the Catholic church by this point, and questions what he should do. Craemer asks “What if I were gay?” and Jim freaks out and goes up to heaven.
He meets up with Michael and asks “Are there homosexuals in heaven?”
Michael gives him a “Are you serious?” look and informs him that homosexuality is essentially irrelevant in heaven, because they don't have bodies, and homosexuality is an aspect of the body. The Spectre gives a rundown of the situation and Michael tells him that humanity should keep to humanity and let God deal with that stuff.
Then along the way,
Final Night happens. Final Night was when the sun was being destroyed by a Sun Eater and Hal Jordan sacrificed himself in order to save it. But, before that all happened, The Spectre attempted to see what the problem was and to see if it was with The Earth itself.
The Spectre attached himself to Gaea, and eventually felt the planet. The result left him overwhelmed and drained. Needing a place to rest to restore himself, he took refuge in Nate Kane, who was a little apprehensive about it.
Following this, Ostrander decided to go an interesting route, and bring back a Golden-Age superhero, almost.
Michael Holt, a rather intelligent man who had degrees in just about everything, was standing on a bridge when he was approached by some thugs. The Spectre, drawn to the event—and Michael— made due with the thugs and talked with Holt. We learn that Holt was considering suicide following the death of his wife. The Spectre, not wanting this man to kill himself (“self-murder is still murder”). Told Holt the story of Terry Sloan—Mr. Terrific.
Michael was moved by the story of Terrific—a man who wanted to teach rough-living children the importance of things like “Fair Play”, and who died at the hands of both his friend and a ghost known as The Spirit King.
Just a few pages later, we're introduced to a man in sunglasses, uttering the words “Call me Mr. Terrific. Because that's what I am.” Michael also puts his own life on the line to help a few kids, if they kill a single person, his life for theirs.
However, to make an already long story a bit shorter:
The whole mess is cleared up whenever enough of the pieces are brought together, and several various people gather and using various spiritual energies, conjure up a new spirit of America, combined of the hopes and dreams of all of the people gathered and those represented by them.
While resting, Jim's subconscious eventually leaked out and into Nate's dreams, and Nate learned of a murder that Jim believed he had committed. And another murder that Jim believe he was framed for. Nate attempted to investigate these without Jim's knowledge, but Jim eventually found out and spilled the beans about the whole ordeal.
Jim was investigating a murder of a woman's husband, but wound up sleeping with the woman. Along the way, he was also seduced by her daughter (yeah, I know). The woman ended up killed, and they pinned the murder on Jim. Jim believed he was framed and set out to try to prove he was. We're then shown memories of Jim shooting the daughter, and believing himself to have killed her.
Jim and Nate go through, attempting to figure this out, and realize that the daughter—who he thought he killed—is, in fact, still alive. So they go to her, in an attempt to discern the truth from Jim's memories. As it turns out, Jim didn't kill the woman. The woman was killed by the daughter and she framed Jim—as he suspected. The Spectre judged the daughter, and found that he would not punish her, as she'd been repenting and genuinely wanted forgiveness.
The Spectre, following all of this, went to Heaven to see if he was worthy enough to remain in his mission. He felt that he could not keep going with this if he had such a strong desire to kill a woman. But, as he got to the gates, he realized that Michael was gone and Heaven was empty. God was missing.
The Spectre, desperate to find God, searched through all the pantheon of all the Gods. Now, this gets a bit “rude” to some. Essentially, The Spectre goes to every pantheon demanding to see God. The Creator. To which a deity responds “Well, there's...” and mentions the creator of that belief. The Spectre generally responds with “No, I mean GOD. The one-above-all.” and they say “Oh...no idea who that is” and he leaves.
The DC universe has been essentially monotheistic for years. It's obvious from the Crisis on Infinite Earths that is the case. The beginning of the universe is seen with a giant hand holding all of Creation. That The Spectre, a direct aspect of The Presence, believes there to be only one God is not at all surprising. Ostrander went about this in the best possible way, I feel. But back to the story itself.
Having not yet found anything, he goes to The Source and sees a message written in fire which tells him to “look within”. Unsure what that means, The Spectre goes into the Earth and asks Gaea if she's seen God. Gaea tells him that was granted life (etc.) by The Sun—Sol, and also tells The Spectre that Man is ruining her with his machines and poisons. The Spectre flips out, but is far too concerned with seeking God at the moment
He finds Craemer, and tells him of this, and Craemer suggests that Jim split himself from the Spectre just enough that the two can see into each other. “Within”.
They do so. Corrigan discovers that The Spectre was originally a rebellious fellow named Aztar. Aztar had decided he was going to repent what he had done, and was informed by Michael that he was going to be stripped of his past life—no memories or anything of the sort. Not exactly thrilled with this, Aztar asked where the mercy was in that. Michael said there was no mercy, but there was Justice.
The Spectre is investigating Corrigan's spirit where he finds that Corrigan was abused by his father as a child. Getting “the devil” beat out of him and the like. We also learn of the past of Jim's father, and bits of the trauma went through. In the end, they both find God, but find that God has turned on everything—going so far as to even devour Michael and every soul within Heaven.
Outraged, The Spectre seeks to act, but something in God strikes Jim as familiar. God is Jim's father, or at least, this perception of God is Jim's father. After dialogue, and action, God is killed by The Spectre and Jim is shaken. He tells Craemer “I think I killed God.”, who disregards the statement as absurd. Craemer sees God in all things, and you obviously cannot kill everything.
Craemer then suggests that Jim have a proper funeral. It's time for Jim to stop being The Spectre, and finally get the peace he both desires and deserves. Jim's bones are gathered from the police office, and heroes far and wide appear to pay their respects. The original JSA, Batman, Superman, Swamp Thing is sent on behalf of Gaea, and so on. Many, many superheroes are there, each with their stories and memories of The Spectre.
Craemer says a prayer, and Jim
casts the robes of The Spectre off, sending it to Limbo. Afterward he fades into Heaven, to by with Amy and
finally rest.
Or, at least. That's what he wanted.
The Changing of the Guard
After Jim decided he was done being The Spectre, there was a big deal about it, as I mentioned earlier. Every hero and their brother got together to wish him off. Of course, there was still the matter of what to do with the spirit of vengeance itself. Such an idea can't really just fade into the background. So they decided to do a changing of the guard.
This brings us to the first part of it,
Day of Judgment.
Day of Judgment is one of those mini series events that takes place but really shouldn't have because of circumstances in the continuity. But that's not too important right now.
The general idea behind it is this: The Spectre, now without a host, is tricked into going into Hell by the Demon, Etrigan, and is taken over by a fallen angel named Asmodel, who wishes to use the power of The Spectre to unleash Hell on Earth because he was pissed off about being a fallen angel.
How did this happen? Well, Etrigan falsified a claim for judgment by jamming a finger into his eye (what?) and this called down The Spectre. The Spectre, being without a host, attacks Asmodel and manages to hack his wings off. Etrigan remembers and old spell and binds Spectre to Asmodel with a feather from his wings.
Yeah.
At the same time, Neron, who was introduced in the '90s during the crossover arc Underworld Unleashed (which crossed over with The Spectre and a bunch of other series) decides he wants in on the action, and jumps into the Spectre as well. This kind of starts freaking people out. The Spectre, the agent of God's wrath, is now filled with two creatures that are straight from Hell. They need someone in The Spectre to get them out, so they go to the only fellow they know who can do it, your friend and mine: Jim Corrigan.
Corrigan, however, won't have any of it. Finally resting, and with Amy in heaven, he relinquished the role of The Spectre and will not take it back, citing he's found "peace". This doesn't set well with the heroes who are watching everything to go...well...hell. So they decend into Purgatory and look for a soul that will help them. They find unlikely assistance in Hal Jordan, who had just recently sacrificed himself (as Parallax) to reignite the sun during Final Night.
Hal is desperate to redeem himself following his madness as Parallax, and so the heroes (reluctantly) accept his assistance, but still are worried that he might go rogue and start killing people again.
However, Asmodel-Neron-Spectre is still out there, being powerful, and all of that.
Along the way (actually, in the first issue) a group of people are introduced called The Sentinels of Magic. They are: The Phantom Stranger, Deadman, Madame Xanadu, Dr. Occult, Alan Scott (going by "Sentinel" at this point), Raven, The Enchantress, Felix Faust, and Ragman. These people are gonna try to stop this new Spectre before he fucks up shit any more than he's fucked it up (I'm of the opinion that this should be a line in at least one mega-Crisis.) and they go down into Hell to do their thing.
But, things start winding down. Hal manages to get inside The Spectre and the three hosts start to duke it out with each other until The Spectre force itself decides to ask what each of them thinks they're doing. They each go through, talking of Judgment, Vengeance and Power until they get to Hal.
Hal was the only one who felt himself undeserving of the power, because of what he'd done. He felt he deserved punishment, but sought redemption at the same time. The Spectre decided that his punishment would be to merge with the Force. Neron and Asmodel are then cast out, and we see the new Spectre. Hal Jordan. His new mission has just begun.
After that, Hal Spectre appeared in several other series.
JLA did a cross over two-parter with him called Soul Wars that featured some of the greatest designs ever. I mean, really. Spectre-Batman and Spectre-Superman were pretty awesome to see. He also did a couple of things with the JSA (who weren't sure if it was still Corrigan, but figured it out after the shift in personality).
With Legends of the DC Universe we learned of a new approach of Heaven. Which is nothing new. Heaven and Hell are recreated with every writer in every story. Heaven is how you make it. Everything is one big spirit thing, and molds itself to whatever you want. Hal, in attempting to have a better understanding of himself as The Spectre, ends up talking with his mother, Barry Allen, and Ollie Queen. At the end of the three-issue arc, Hal casts out the "wrath" aspect of The Spectre and decides to devote himself to becoming a spirit of redemption, instead of one of vengeance. An odd concept, to say the least, but interesting and fitting with Hal and his desperate need to prove to everyone that he's not Parallax anymore.
Following all of that, Hal was given a solo series. The fourth run of The Spectre, and easily my least favorite of them all. The 27-issue series branched off into many odd areas of quasi-mysticism and seemed far beyond what one would be used to from The Spectre. There wasn't a lot of action in the old Ostrander/Mandrake or even from Moench's run. Hal devotes much of his time in the first several issues meandering around astral planes attempting to find himself and his mission, all the while dealing with the "Wrath" aspect of The Spectre--which he had to end up merging with again to prevent a big fuck-up.
The series introduced M. Stigmonus, who is an incarnation of all of the doom-and-gloom aspects of society and feels the need to pester Hal about how everything is going to fail no matter what he does. Stigmonus also breaks the fourth wall frequently, which also helps to ruin any aspect of seriousness this run may have had.
The series, however, did nicely. Banking on the fact that Hal Jordan has a lot of fans, who didn't like the way Emerald Twilight turned him into a bastard. This was frequently expressed in the letters column. While many of the writers were not fans of The Spectre, they were fans of Hal, and were glad to see him return, even if he wasn't a Lantern again.
The series continued on its odd twists and turns by creating the idea of "multiple" Spectres. Before, it was simply Jim and the Spectre, working together dealing with things case-by-case. With this, however, there were several aspects of Hal (while there still being a "Spectre-Prime" that was focal point of all of them) that went out and did Spectre-y things. They ranged from fish-looking things, to a guy in a double-breasted jacket, to a woman, to whatever else. Each simply worked because it was "impossible" for it to be done otherwise.
Hal also did crazy things like attempt to redeem Harvey Dent, but failed. He also met Santa. Met a variation of Satan, and wound up meeting all sorts of crazy people that I don't feel like talking about.
There was also Helen Jordan, the niece of Hal, who played a significant role in that she was Hal's tag-along because she had special powers and was one day gonna save the world if Stigmonus didn't make her kill herself.
Abin Sur was also a part of it all. He was Hal's comrade who gave advice at times. He also babysat whenever The Phantom Stranger wouldn't.
Anyway. After the series was canceled, there were a few other times we he took place in other series. Specifically JSA in an arc called Redemption Lost where all of the redemption Hal attempted to build up by denying The Spectre's true calling wound up exploding out of him in an odd oral and ocular vomit scene that really wasn't called for.
Hal decided to go ahead and just be the Spirit of Vengeance again, and that brings us up to
Green Lantern: Rebirth
Rebirth decided to take everything that had happened in the solo series and essentially tell you to ignore it. It also retconned Emerald Twilight and is easily one of the best works I've read.
To sum it up: After all of that, Hal is no longer The Spectre. The Spectre is now without a host.
Not a lot really happened with Hal as The Spectre. It was mostly Hal whining about trying to redeem himself all the while wandering around creation trying to fix problems he'd caused and help other people with their problems. The series could have been good, but they relied too much on Hal's self-pity as a crutch instead of making an REAL arcs.
With Hal Jordan no longer being the Spectre, and returning to his roots as
a pompous jackass the Green Lantern, the Astral Avenger was left without a host. The Spectre went down into the depths of forgotten characters for a time until DC decided to start on their Infinite Crisis routine. This had been elaborated on and crossed over in everything from Batman to Colonics Monthly, and all of it culminated in all of the little aspects--Jason Todd coming back, Hal becoming a Green Lantern again, all of that-- and especially in the multiple mini-series events collectively called Countdown to Infinite Crisis.
While some of these are good, we're gonna focus on ONE of these in particular. For obvious reasons.
Day of Vengeance
This is a sequel of sorts of the wonderful Day of Judgment that brought us Hal-Spectre and is generally considered one of the poorer Spectre ideas by Spectre fans, and one of the best by Green Lantern fans (who only read it because they have a hard-on for Hal or something. I have my own thoughts on that--none of them actually involve fans having a hard-on for the character.) as well as the Spectre story that introduced us to the idea that everything you learned in the past stories really doesn't matter.
Anyway, this begins like any decent Spectre story--The Spectre, hostless, doing what he does best: delivering righteous vengeance on horrible sinners. Horrible sinners like adulterers. Yeah. The Spectre is boiling people on the inside (I don't think he actually did that, but he should.) because a guy sleeps with a woman who isn't his wife. Why is that? you might be asking. Well, it's like that. The Spectre, sans a host, is also essentially without a "moral compass". He's simply a moon-faced bastard who exists to deliver justice and vengeance on people who violate the laws of man and God. Specially God, since men are some dirty bastards.
But, he's going around doing this, when he's met with an old friend. Can you guess? I bet you can't--unless you read the story.
ECLIPSO!
Yeah, that's right. The guy who, in previous stories, was both bitching at Spectre for being a usurper of his title, and controlled by some guy who thought it was a good idea to get tattoos all over himself and rule Kahndaq with Black Adam, has decided to team up with The Spectre. How? Well, at some point, Jean Loring (Go read Identity Crisis. Right now. I'll wait.) gets possession of the black diamond that houses Eclipso, and the former spirit of Wrath decides to take control of the poor insane woman. Eclipso Loring then seduces The Spectre and convinces him that it would be a good idea to kill everyone who uses magic. Now, normally The Spectre might go, "Wait--hold on." and think about this, but he's latched on to Eclipso Loring to the point where s/he has become his moral anchor, and his quasi-spiritual lover. I don't know, I don't understand it.
Anyway, so Spectre goes to town on these people in a way that is completely like The Spectre.
Madame Xanadu is blinded, so that she can no longer see her cards.
The Phantom Stranger is turned into a mouse. (I know that sounds kind of lame, but The Phantom Stranger is
awesome one of the most powerful people in the DCU. It's accepted that it would be almost impossible to kill him simply because there's just so much power in him.)
Kahndaq is sent various plagues because Black Adam is, hello, pure magic.
Some other people are killed, and other things happen, but let's go to the big scenes.
Ragman, Enchantress, Blue Devil and a bunch of others get together and form a group called Shadowpact in an effort to deal with The Spectre and Eclipso Loring and to keep them from destroying every single solitary magic thing ever. Suffice to say they didn't work it out. All of the spirits in Ragman's... rags... were burned out trying to redeem Eclipso, and eventually they all just wound up calling in Captain Marvel. They decided, at that point, to channel all of their energy into Billy and he wound up becoming HUGE and the Spectre went HUGE to match.
The two of them traded blows while Mordru is busy taunting the wizard Shazam. Of course, after a while, Billy loses (like they all do) and Spectre goes and kills Shazam.
Yeah, that's right.
HE KILLS SHAZAM.
That sends The Rock of Eternity and all of the sins out and about and Billy, Mary, and Freddie all end up losing their powers.
This also crosses over in JSA a few times. The crossover mainly deals with the battle in Kahndaq, though I believe Spectre sends Jakeem and the Thunderbolt into the Jakeem's pen, which causes a major fuck-up in that dimension.
In keeping with this,
Day of Vengeance: Infinite Crisis Special shows The Spectre battling Nabu... again. But this time, the Spectre decided to just go ahead and kill the guy. This effectively ended that age of magic and we entered into a new one--one where all the rules are changed and everything gets all weird and people have to write new stories to explain it. But at the same time, The Presence finally notices what The Spectre's doing and says, "Well, hey, maybe I oughta actually pay attention." and decides to shove the Spectre--screaming a repentance--into the body of Crispus Allen.
Crispus Allen was a member of the Gotham City Police Department who wound up killed at the hands of a fellow named Jim Corrigan (I know, right?) who also happened to be Crispus's's's's's's (that's totally necessary, shut up.) partner.
This leads us to...
Infinite Crisis Aftermath: The Spectre
This is a three-issue mini series that details Crispus Allen coming to terms with the fact that he has a giant fucking ghost who delivers vengeance tied to his soul until such a time that he decides to go ahead and not have it. Allen isn't sure how to react to all of this, but all he knows is that he can't be seen, and wants Corrigan dead.
Now, this is one of my BIGGEST problems with Crispus as The Spectre. I understand that, following the murder of Nabu, there's a new age of Magic. However, The Spectre a direct aspect of God, and one would think he'd be beyond the aspects of earth-bound magic (at least, I assume it's earth-bound) and the rules required by it despite being magic himself. At least, he says he's generally magic in Day of Vengeance.
All of the prior Spectres--pre-Corrigan, Corrigan, Asmodel, Hal, all of them could easily be seen by anyone. The only who had any sort of problem with being seen was Hal, and that was because everyone was so convinced he was still dead that they refused to see that he was alive until his solo series started (convenient, eh?).
But no one could see Crispus until he turned into The Spectre and decided to kill a guy with money.
In Aftermath here, as I said, Crispus comes to terms with what's happened. He goes and in the three issues delivers vengeance and hates himself for what he's doing, all the while wondering why the hell he's not being led to Corrigan. I mean, after all, this guy did kill him. That's vengeance, yeah?
No. Turns out that Allen's kid kills Jim Corrigan, and The Spectre has to deliver vengeance...on his own son. Yeah. It's a touching moment. By "touching" I mean, "really not necessary." Crispus could have refused, could have denied the Spectre right then, but he didn't. And he killed his son. The Spectre then told Crispus that he would give Allen one year to decide if they wanted to make their bond permanent (...Yeah, seriously. These two are bonded at the soul. No one else got this whole "one year" treatment. Bullshit.) or not.
52 and Tales of the Unexpected
52 was DC's attempt to squeeze out every bit of money it could from its fans by promising to actually tell you a story with a new issue every week for 52 weeks. Well, The Spectre made a special appearance in that.
Ralph Dibny was walking around with what he thought to be the helmet of Dr. Fate, looking into various things and being the cool, widowed detective that he is/was. Along the way, he ran across The Spectre, who pointed out that
SINCE HE DIDN'T HAVE A SOUL BONDED TO HIM, HE COULD NOT ACT ON EARTH--something that seemed to escape everyone during the Day Of minis.
Anyway, The Spectre promises Ralph answers to stuff if he completes a task. Ralph fails, The Spectre says, "tough" and thus ends that.
In
Tales of the Unexpected, Crispus decides to go ahead and be the full-time vengeance maker. However, they decide to stick him inside this slummy apartment and have him deal with that stuff--murdering people left and right in a very Wrath of the Spectre with even less taste way.
Don't get me wrong, please, don't get me wrong. I think Crispus is a great Spectre compared to Hal. Hal spent all of his time whining about he wanted to redeem himself. How he was more than vengeance and murder and all of that. Crispus
hates what he's doing, but at the same time does it because he was a cop and is essentially bound to justice. And that's what the Spectre is.
The issues show Allen, walking from room to room, investigating things like a regular...investigator (sue me) and attempting to piece everything together in each issue, hoping to understand what brings him to this place and these people. He's still a cop, and he still acts like it. Though there's the whole "no one can see me" thing that bugged me.
Then he'd see something, turn into The Spectre and have someone eaten alive by dead rats or remove their eyes and mouth.
Countown to Mystery and Final Crisis: Revelations
Following "52", wherein The Spectre played a minor part in the Ralph Dibny arc, The Spectre was seen two more times in a major event side-story. The first was DC Countdown's "Coundown to Mystery" which focused on the story of Eclipso, as well as the story of the new Dr. Fate coming to terms with his newfound status, and dealing with a lot of the things that have come about in his life since he first found the helmet, and started wearing it.
However, we're gonna talk about the Spectre part. Ultimately, the Spectre part was kind of minor, kind of silly, and almost seemed as though-- like it was-- much more of an Eclipso story with the Spectre kind of leading it along because it needs someone to carry it. Eclipso has been a weak, and overused, villain since being established as a major antagonist to The Spectre as well as the previous incarnation of Wrath. Taking hold in "Day of Vengeance" as something to really watch out for whenever Jean Loring was possessed, we learned the power that the character holds, and that it can manifest. However, by means of a convenient plot device, Loring is no longer the host for Eclipso, and Allen-Spectre have decided to use this as a means to capture the entity and have it hosted within its own host, which he doesn't really like.
DC, during this point, seemed to be intent on focusing on returning every character to some sort of root-- I'm surprised Geoff Johns or someone else hasn't attempted to bring Jim Corrigan back to shove into The Spectre. But, ultimately, following a lot of dramatic situations with The Spectre and Eclipso and a lot of dialogue wherein we learn things about Eclipso's past that aren't relevant to this aspect of the discussion, they wind up bonding again. The Spectre resumes his mission as Vengeance while having his old antagonist back to the status quo. Personally, I thought the most interesting version of Eclipso was the man in the "JSA" story who had a number of tattoos on his body that he used to contain the entity to bend to his will.
After this there was "Revelations", a sub-story to Grant Morrison's complete insanity known as "Final Crisis". However, this isn't the complete story. To have a full understanding of this story, you also need to read the "52" story about the Crime Bible and all of that business. Which I did, eventually, and I was still busy going "BUT HOW DOES THIS FIT IN?!"
To make a complicated story less complicated, I'm going to try to summarize this for you. This story follows Spectre as he goes after Renee Montoya, who has taken the role of The Question, and has also found herself accidentally critically linked to the people who use the Crime Bible and all of that business. As a result, he's trying to kill her while also not. While all of this is going on, Darkseid's Anti-Life Equation just kicked in, yo, and he's busy turning everyone into his mindless slaves.
Vandal Savage gets in on this as well, and we learn that, through the crime bible and other things, Savage is actually Cain. And has the mark and everything. The Spectre goes to attack him, but he can't do anything. However, Vandal Cain actually manages to separate Allen from the Entity and keeps the Entity on a leash because why not.
We're also introduced to an incredibly forgettable character known as the Mercy of God, who I believe dresses like a nun. Honesty? I can't remember a lot about this character, except she serves to keep Allen from going completely bonkers even though that fails and she starts to have her own faith shaken.
Like everything else with Final Crisis, however, it doesn't really matter since no one really talks about it.
Kingdom Come
One of the best Elseworld stories out there, Kingdom Come tells the story of Norman McCay in a depressing future where there are so many metahumans that they just take turns beating the ever-loving shit out of each other. Superman has retreated to his fortress of Solitude, Batman has taken to robots, The Flash has merged with the Speed Force.
And then there's The Spectre.
Since this was made in the 1990s, The Spectre is still Jim Corrigan, but he's not wearing anything under his cloak (or, at least, that's the impression I'm given.). Jim has grown detached from humanity, needed ANOTHER mortal anchor so that he may view things properly. That anchor becomes Norman McCay.
Norman and The Spectre watch as events unfold, The Spectre chiming in with expository dialogue whenever needed and eventually the story climaxes and everyone lives happily ever after...kinda...sorta...not really.
This is one of the stories that I really...really don't want to spoil anything. You all should just read it. It's done by Alex Ross and Mark Waid, so you know, at the very least, you're gonna see very human-looking metahumans [rim shot].
Conclusion?
There may be other Elseworlds where The Spectre plays a key part, but I haven't read them. He shows up time and again, it seems, as a side character ultimately there solely to have us go "That's The Spectre!" and to help cement a place within the universe it's establishing. A way to help us identify where we are in this world, but that's something that will always happen as DC establishes new stories, and new worlds for us to explore. Whenever The Spectre, either as Jim or someone else, decides to show up in a new story, I will do what I can to let you all know, and see what I can bring to the table.
Threaded Mode
