The Spectre is one of the few comic book characters who is truly scary. Created by Superman's daddy Jerry Siegel and artist Bernard Bailey in the Golden Age, a time when "heroes" were free to kill and maim in the name of "justice", the Spectre is an angry ghost who takes on crime with a literal vengeance.
Though steps were taken soon after his creation in the pages of More Fun Comics to soften him and make him fit for company of other heroes such as in the pages of All-Star with the budding Justice Society, the Spectre has always been mostly apart.
I knew of the character from his Silver Age series in which Neal Adams kicked up a storm with his amazingly realistic take on the comic book universe, a style well suited to the quasi-horror of the Spectre. I liked it, it was not like any other hero I'd seen and later when the Spectre was...ahem...revived in the pages of Adventure Comics by the talents of writer Michael Fleisher and artist Jim Aparo, the Spectre became a rock-solid favorite. The comic was scary and gruesome and weirdly fascinating. It was one of the great runs of the Bronze Age.
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The Spectre always fascinated me. I first discovered him in the 100 Pagers in the early 70's, and when DC started the series in Adventure Comics with one of my favorite artists rendering, I was hooked. I tracked down the collection several years ago and loved it and now my kids love the Spectre too.
ReplyDeleteI liked the Spectre from sundry appearances in his own comic, Brave and Bold and such. But it was the Secret Origin reprint of his Golden Age origin which endeared him utterly and at the same time he was giving hell to villains in the short-lived Adventure series. Potent!
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