Spectre (comics)
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The Spectre is a fictional cosmic entity and superhero who has appeared in numerous comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in More Fun Comics #52 (February 1940), and was created by Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily.
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[edit] Fictional character history
[edit] Origins
The Spectre's career began in the late 1930s, when hard-boiled police detective Jim Corrigan was murdered. His spirit refused to pass into the afterlife, however, and, in the guise of a chalk-white man in a green cloak, it sought bloody vengeance against Corrigan's murderers in a grim, supernatural fashion.
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." The character had formerly been part of the Justice Society of America featured in All-Star Comics, but he was replaced in 1944.
[edit] Silver Age version
When the Silver Age of comic books arrived in the 1960s, the Spectre was re-written and returned to the role of an avenging undead spirit. 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. This run of the Spectre is noteworthy for presenting horrific images in a way that cleverly avoided the strictures of the Comics Code. For instance, in one story the Spectre transforms a murderer into a candle and then lights it. According to the Code, it was forbidden to show a person being burned alive, but no such restriction existed for images of candles, even if they were screaming in pain.
[edit] Bronze Age version
In the 1970s, the Spectre was revived in the pages of Adventure Comics. This series, written by Michael Fleisher and drawn by Jim Aparo, was notorious for its gruesome depictions of the Spectre's poetic retributions against criminals; they were melted like wax, turned to wood and run through sawmills, transformed into glass and left teetering over a precarious drop. The series was cancelled with a few chapters written but not yet drawn. These remaining chapters were illustrated by Aparo several years later and collected as the final issue of Wrath of the Spectre, a 4-issue miniseries which reprinted the original Fleisher/Aparo stories in its first three issues.
The Spectre also made several guest appearances in the DC comic Ghosts. In these short stories, supernatural debunker Terrence Thirteen would oftentimes become caught in dangerous situations with deadly criminals. Against Thirteen's protests, the Spectre would appear and kill the offenders. Thirteen was convinced that the Spectre was not a ghost, but a man, until in the final appearance, the Spectre took Thirteen to the realm of Judgement, where Thirteen met with the spirit of his dead father.
Among the many changes made to DC Comics' characters during the later half of the 1980s (following the Crisis on Infinite Earths), the Spectre was largely de-powered. First, The Spectre is revealed to be guarding an entrance to Heaven in a Swamp Thing Annual story by Alan Moore. Then, in the conclusion to Alan Moore's Swamp Thing series, "American Gothic", the Spectre is defeated by evil incarnate as it advances to destroy Heaven. In The Books of Magic series, written by Neil Gaiman, The Spectre is revealed to be an archangel who metes out punishments for God as the Spirit of Vengeance. Finally, the Spectre, in Last Days of the Justice Society of America, fails to resolve a situation and is punished by God for his failure. Under the authorship of Doug Moench, he became merely a generic mystical figure, with Corrigan joining an occult detective agency.
[edit] Modern Age version
Eventually, Moench was replaced by former theologian 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, ambiguous situations — what vengeance should be wrought upon a woman who killed her abusive husband in his sleep, for instance. 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 and killing the entire population except two 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.
- 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. 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 was also featured as a brief cameo in Neil Gaiman's The Books of Magic, a whirlwind tour of the occult characters of the DC Universe. In the course of the book it is implied that the Spectre is Raguel, the Archangel with whom is entrusted the Lord's Vengeance.
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.
[edit] 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. 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. After this series was cancelled, Jordan was forced to return, temporarily, to the Spectre's mission of vengeance. 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 admits that the knowledge he gained from being the Spectre's host has faded, but if he has any greater knowledge of the Universe, he has not revealed it to anyone else.
[edit] 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 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. Subsequently, 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;
- 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 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. Since Nabu counted Shazam as another Great Lord, and the wizard was not a Lord of Order, it is likely that the Great Lords were a group separate from the Lords of Order and Chaos.
[edit] Crispus Allen
In Gotham Central #38 Crispus Allen was killed by, ironically, a cop named Jim Corrigan (a different person). While his body was in the morgue, the Spectre began to enter Crispus Allen as he begged God not to put him in his new host. The Spectre was forced into Allen's body making him the new host for the Spirit of Vengeance.
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.
[edit] Kingdom Come
In the four issue Elseworlds miniseries Kingdom Come, The Spectre brings a priest named Norman McCay into a possible future of the DC Universe, intent to determine who he must punish for a series of deaths.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Trivia
- The Spectre was intended to appear in a Superman: The Animated Series Christmas special, but the episode was never produced. [1]
- A 2002-2003 story arc in Supergirl entitled "Many Happy Returns" revealed that the Spectre is aware of the Crisis on Infinite Earths. He is one of the few DC Universe characters with this knowledge.
- Despite similar names, Jim Corrigan has nothing to do with Chris Ware's graphic novel Jimmy Corrigan, The Smartest Kid on Earth.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- DC Guide Entry for The Spectre
- Comic Book Awards Almanac
- A comprehensive index of Spectres appearances
- Toonopediafi:Aave (DC-sarjakuvahahmo)
fr:Spectre (comics) it:Spettro (fumetto) pt:Espectro (DC Comics) tr:Spectre
