The Specter
The Specter (dt. The specter ) is the title of a series of comic publications since 1940 by the US American publisher DC Comics issued.
The Specter comics, which are genre-wise a mixture of the genres of science fiction comics and horror comics, are about a ghost endowed with godlike power who claims to be the wrath of God personified. Occasionally the Specter stories incorporate more or less pronounced elements of the sub-genres of mystery and / or superhero comics.
publication
history
The creators of the main character of the Specter stories, a ghost of the same name, which is also known as the "Spirit of Vengeance", "Spirit of Redemption", "Avenging Wrath of God", "The Man of Darkness" or "Raguel" (a neologism from English rage ["Zorn"] and angel ["angel"]) were the author Jerry Siegel and the draftsman Bernard Baily , who first introduced the character in the February 1942 comic book More Fun Comics # 52.
After the character received sufficiently positive feedback in its debut story, DC released additional Specter stories throughout the 1940s, which appeared in series such as More Fun Comics and All Star Comics . Specter appeared for the last time in US More Fun Comics # 101 from January / February 1945. In the further course of the 1940s, the Specter character initially became a supporting character in the series about the dumb cop "Percival Popp, the Super Cop" demoted - whose guardian angel had to act - before he finally disappeared completely from the DC comics.
In the mid-1960s, DC's executive editor Julius Schwartz entrusted writers Gardner Fox and illustrator Murphy Anderson to take the form of the Avenging Ghost and produce a small number of new Specter stories. Schwartz had these new stories by Fox and Anderson published on a test basis in 1966 in issue # 60 of the anthology series Showcase and in issues # 72 and # 75 of the anthology series The Brave and the Bold . After these stories met with a positive response from the readers of Showcase, Schwartz launched his own Specter series, named after the main character himself, the first edition of which came on the market in November / December 1967. This series reached a total of ten issues published in a bimonthly mode, the last of which appeared in May / June 1969.
Between January / February 1974, July / August 1975, ten new Specter stories in the bi-monthly series Adventure Comics published (in US Adventure Comics # 431 to # 440). The author was mostly Michael Fleisher , the drawings were usually done by Jim Aparo . Characteristic of these stories was the cruelty with which the Specter, as an avenging spirit, brought evildoers to "justice". Often stories culminated in drastic punishment scenes, which were visually implemented by Aparo. Criminals were once melted alive like wax by the Specter, another time they were transformed into logs and processed in a sawmill, and another time they were transformed into glass and then smashed with a sledgehammer. In 1988, the ten stories of butchers and Aparo, and an old, at the time unrealized retarded script for issue # 435, the Aparo now transposed subsequently were, along with two other horror stories as a four-part miniseries entitled Wrath of the Specter reissued (publication date Vol . 1: November / December 1967 to May / June 1969). In 2005 these stories were reprinted as an anthology.
After a long hiatus from publications, DC decided in 1987 to restart the series (Vol. 2: April 1987 to November 1989). This started shortly after the Crisis on Infinite Earths , appeared on a monthly basis and, by the time it was discontinued at the end of 1989, had reached thirty-one issues as well as a special issue entitled Annual.
A third Specter series (Vol. 3) finally started in December 1992 and ran - again published monthly - until February 1998. This series reached sixty-three issues, as well as an annual and one as number # 0 ( Zero Hour: Crisis in Time ; 1994) titled special edition of the regular series.
From March 2001 to May 2003 the so far last Specter series (Vol. 4) was finally published, which reached twenty-seven editions.
Authors and draughtsmen
The authors who have written for The Specter include especially those who differ significantly from the average comic book writer. So the journalist Doug Moench (2nd series), the former theologian John Ostrander (3rd series) and the esoteric ideas attached writer John Marc DeMatteis (4th series).
The list of artists who worked on The Specter includes names like Jim Aparo , Neal Adams, and Tom Mandrake .
action
background
The starting point of the Specter stories is the biblical prehistory. At that time, out of dissatisfaction with human civilization, which was shaped by all kinds of iniquities and transgressions, God created the Specter, an almost omnipotent being, whom he as a living embodiment of his anger ("Wrath of God" or "Raguel" [an artificial word also rage and angel which roughly means "angel of revenge" or "angry angel"]) lets loose on humanity. Visually, this creature resembles a chalk-white-skinned (gray-skinned in some older stories) person in a green (sometimes blue) hooded cloak. In later stories this is varied slightly. Instead of God creating the Specter out of nothing, he takes for him an angel named Aztar, who took part in Lucifer's revolt against omnipotence, and turns him into the Specter as a punishment for his elevation. In order to atone for his deeds, Specter has to guard the gate to hell on the one hand as a guardian , on the other hand to walk the earth as a spirit of vengeance.
From then on, the Specter regularly haunts people who have put some guilt upon themselves in order to ruthlessly pursue and punish them. For example, the Specter comics attribute to him the destruction of the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and Jericho , which he is said to have destroyed in order to make their inhabitants atone for their wicked way of life.
The power over which the Specter commands is, according to its divine-magical origin, almost unlimited. In this way he can breathe life into dead matter, give the ectoplasm surrounding him solid form, draw people into his interior, where they are subject to his will and penetrate the thoughts and souls of his victims in order to haunt them.
On the occasion of the birth of Jesus Christ , the Specter is finally banished by God to the so-called " Limbus ", since the vengeance it embodies and the principle of forgiveness proclaimed by Jesus cannot coexist. Later, after the death of Jesus , the Specter returns to earth, but, in order to keep his aggressiveness in check, is connected to the soul of a deceased person by the Archangel Michael on God's instruction .
Specter hosts
The first human the Specter is connected to is an Indian named Caraka. Caraka finally succumbs to the lure of Satan and is again separated from the Specter, so that the task of acting as a moderating “anchor” of the spirit of vengeance is given to the soul of another dead person. This marked the beginning of a long tradition that eventually extended into the 20th century. At this time, the dead police officer Jim Corrigan, the main character of the first Specter comics and the first three series (published between 1940 and 1998), the task of taming the "wrath of God".
Jim Corrigan
Jim Corrigan was born around 1900 to the brutal and devout itinerant preacher Jebediah Corrigan. As a child, he escaped from his father's house and made his way by himself. Corrigan became a New York City cop in the 1930s. There he gradually rose to lieutenant in the police department and married a woman named Clarice Wilson. Due to his energetic and unscrupulous behavior as a police officer, Corrigan gradually makes more and more enemies. One of these enemies, the gang leader "Gats" Benson, finally has Corrigan murdered and sunk his body with "cement shoes" in the Hudson River.
Since Corrigan's furious anger at his murderers persists even in the afterlife, God (who only "appears" as a disembodied voice) finally decides to deny him entry into the kingdom of heaven and instead use him as the new "anchor" of Specter (the personified wrath of God ) to send back into the human world.
As a Specter, Corrigan initially avenges himself on his own murderers and henceforth regularly haunts people who are guilty of any kind and lets them atone for their misconduct. It is characterized by the extremely cruel manner in which he retaliates against his victims.
Corrigan then played the role of the “anchor” of the Specter in all of the “Specter” stories between 1940 and 1998. The aspect of the specter as a spirit of revenge has been accentuated differently over the decades. While it was prominent in Michael Fleisher's stories in the 1970s, it was evident in Doug Moench's Specter stories in the 1980s, when the Specter joined a detective agency that investigates mysterious criminal cases put in the background.
John Ostrander's Specter stories in the 1990s once again put the theme of revenge in the foreground. At the same time, they try to encourage the reader to question the legitimacy of the Specter's actions by placing him in morally ambivalent situations that cast a questionable light on his acts of revenge. So once the Specter punishes the whole of New York State for the execution of an innocent, another time he punishes a woman who murdered her beating husband in her sleep and in yet another story he punishes an aged woman on her death bed for a murder, which she committed seventy years ago. In one story, the Specter even wiped out an entire state, the fictional country of Vlatavia, because in his opinion the entire population of the country was guilty of participating in a civil war. He only lets two politicians, the leaders of the two protest parties, live.
Among the mysterious and esoteric topics the series broached at this time were Specter's search for the “American talisman” that supposedly carries the soul of America and the encounter with Gaia, the personification of the earth that the Specter after the passing Extinguishing the sun warms until it can be reignited.
Other stories show the Specter in classic superhero scenarios. He experiences adventures with heroes like Superman and Batman and engages in duels with super villains like the shaman or Parallax. Another frequent adversary is the demon Eclipso , who, according to some versions, is a predecessor of the Specter as the personification of divine anger, but now goes its own, apostate, evil ways.
In 1998, in the last issue of the third Specter series, Corrigan finally found his peace and went into posterity redeemed.
Hal Jordan
After Jim Corrigan has passed into posterity redeemed, he is followed in the 1999 miniseries The Last Judgment by the late test pilot Hal Jordan, who for decades was the focus of the series of science fiction comics of the same name as the superhero Green Lantern Specters after. While the Specter, at the time when Corrigan was his host, saw his main task in exerting vengeance on the guilty ( Spirit of Revenge ), his view of things changed under Jordan's influence to the guilty redemption ( Spirit of Redemption ).
Crispus Allen
In the Infinite Crisis storyline from 2006, the role as Specter's anchor finally passes from Jordan to the murdered black police officer Crispus Allen (US Gotham Central # 38; 2006), whose dead body stored in the morgue is taken over by the Specter.