Though clearly on the side of law and order, the early Spectre was hardly a compassionate or personable hero.

This last, ruthless aspect of the character, though not overplayed in the 1940s, played a significant role in the Spectre’s impact.

Last but not least, evildoers would look into his skull-pupiled eyes and drop dead of fright. He could expand his discarnate body to planet-dwarfing proportions, journey into space and into mystical dimensions, and command supernatural energies. Unbound by mortal restraints, the Spectre’s powers proved to be virtually limitless. As some guy named Alan Stewart wrote twenty-nine years ago, in the 112th issue of the fanzine Amazing Heroes : To expedite this, the Voice would allow the ghost to resume his existence as Jim Corrigan (though as an incorporeal spirit, rather than a flesh-and-blood man), and would also give him the power to do - well, pretty much anything that he needed (or wanted) to do. Upon his arrival in the afterlife, Corrigan’s shade was charged by a celestial “Voice” (the Judeo-Christian God, to all intents and purposes) to return to Earth and fight evil. The Spectre, on the other hand, was quite literally what his name implied - a ghost, who came into being after a police detective named Jim Corrigan was murdered by gangsters. Siegel, the co-creator of Superman, in some ways one-upped himself with the introduction of the Spectre - a character even closer to omnipotence than the Man of Steel, who, though incredibly powerful, was still a physical, mortal being.

The character had made his debut in More Fun Comics #52 (February, 1940) in a tale written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Bernard Bailey. Only the relatively small number of adult fans, and younger fans who’d happened to acquire or otherwise peruse a copy of Jules Feiffer‘s The Great Comic Book Heroes (published earlier that year), would be likely to be familiar with the Spectre. I had no idea whatsoever who he actually was, however - nor would most of the rest of DC’s readership at that time. Nevertheless, I can recall being vaguely curious about this “Spectre”, the eerie green lettering of whose name suggested that he might not be the warmest and friendliest of characters. It was an unusual marketing campaign - although my eight-year-old self didn’t know that at the time, since I’d only been reading comics for a few months. For a couple of months in the autumn of 1965, readers of most DC comics were confronted with this enigmatic message, which appeared in the borders of pages, and even within the panels of stories, all through the publisher’s line:

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