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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.

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”.

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…

To be continued in Part Three…