In the mid-1960s, DC Comics’ house ads created quite a considerable drum beat for the Spectre, heralding his first Silver Age appearance in Showcase 60 (Feb. 1966).
It was a reappearance, really, because this wasn’t a retooled, updated version of a Golden Age hero like the Flash, the Atom, Green Lantern and Hawkman, but the original 1940s Ghostly Guardian who, we learned, had been trapped in his human host body for two decades.
The art was sumptuous — Murphy Anderson at the height of his form — and the story of The War That Shook the Universe! was the usual fact-peppered super-science stuff that writer Gardner Fox could handle in his sleep (while salting it, this time, with a tinge of the supernatural).
But the Spectre’s audition issues led to only a short-lived title. Something was off, and it was the same something that sometimes troubles the characters Dr. Fate and Dr. Strange.
Jerry Siegel’s Superman was the premiere, the most popular and the most powerful superhero by early 1940, when Siegel debuted his second such character, the Spectre. So how do you top Superman? With super-Superman, a ghost bent on justice who could grow, shrink, vanish, read minds, catch comets and cause death with a glance. And therein lies a plotting problem, because omnipotence is condition that contradicts suspense.
Dr. Fate, Dr. Strange and the Spectre all have vast but ill-defined powers that always make it somewhat difficult for readers to believe them to be in any understandable peril. The fact that their publication histories have all been sketchy is, I think, no coincidence.
Mark Engblom said, "Superhero comics are, at their core, a project of science fiction, so it's no surprise that creators who obviously prefer writing about rockets and ray beams are mystified (no pun intended) by the supernatural. They, curiously, complain about the lack of rules or boundaries, yet the rules and boundaries in the science-based features are also ill-defined and routinely revised or even scrapped altogether. In the Spectre's case, I think it had less to do with his omnipotence and more to do with DC just not having a clear idea what it wanted to do with the JSA-era characters beyond their annual team-up with the JLA. It didn't help that, even by the mid-60's, DC was still very much locked into their formulaic storytelling methods, so nothing truly innovative was put forth in any of the JSA revivals...nor do I think, frankly, was it even considered. It wouldn't be until the late 60's and early 70's that truly groundbreaking stuff would begin to emerge on the supernatural front, such as the Neal Adams Deadman or the Englehart/Brunner Doctor Strange run."
ReplyDeleteMark Engblom said, "It didn't help that DC editorial put together some very strange pairings of JSA characters in Showcase, their official "try out" title. Issues #55 and #56 featured the head-scratching combo of Dr. Fate and Hourman, whose magic and science-based powers never gelled against an otherwise interesting upgrade of the Psycho Pirate. Showcase #61 and #62 saw the cosmic-powered Starman teaming up with the street-level Black Canary against a tuned-up Mist (#61) and the duo of Sportsmaster and Huntress (#62, which also featured a Wildcat cameo). Again, the imbalance of power and m.o. did neither of them any favors. So, even with a batch of interesting Golden Age characters, DC didn't seem to have the slightest idea of what to do with them, or much of a desire to really find out."
ReplyDeleteMichael Uslan said, "As a pushy kid and fanboy starting at age 13 and continuing until I left for college, I had a fairly regular correspondence with editor Julius Schwartz at DC Comics. I was inarguably a pest. I pestered him to learn who the people were who were really drawing Batman under the name “Bob Kane.” And I was relentless in requesting a revival of the Spectre. I received his initial response on a little white piece of paper that said at the top, “From the desk of Julius Schwartz.“ He said that DC cannot ever revive the Spectre because the Comics Code Authority forbids the use of characters who are “the walking dead.” So then I sent him a response that was shamefully smartalecky, “Well, what about Casper the Friendly Ghost?!” About four weeks later, I received another memo from the desk of Julius Schwartz. This one stated that I would be happy to know that the Spectre will return in Showcase number 60 along with Dr. Mid-Nite. Quickly, Dr. Mid-Nite would fade from that plan and never be mentioned again as a team-up partner, leaving the Spectre to make his Silver Age debut solo."
ReplyDeleteMichael Uslan also said, "If I was trapped on a deserted island and could take only 100 comic books with me, two would be “Dr. Fate and Hourman,” two would be “Starman and Black Canary,” and three would be the First appearances of the Silver Age Spectre."
ReplyDeleteJoel Canfield wrote, "I really liked the Spectre and was sorry to see him go. But I agree that the powers of "magic-based" heroes can be very confusing. I still don't really know what the hell the Scarlet Witch can do!"
ReplyDeleteF-michael Dunne said, "I agree with everything Dan wrote, another JSA character misght have been a better choice and had a longer publication life. I bought all the Anderson Showcase issues but did not purchase the series with the exception of the issue featuring Wildcat.. because it was Wildcat. Thanks to Bill Howard this Anderson gem hangs proudly in my house, but no longer in my office because the deep purple has slowly right before my eyes turned to lavender due to gradual sunlight exposure. It now hangs in a shadowed hallway."
ReplyDeleteRob Schmidt said, "You are correct about "vast but ill-defined powers." See also the Silver Surfer."
ReplyDeletePaul Zuckerman wrote, "All of Schwartz' heroes were SF based --but not so the world they lived in! Dealing with magic was one thing, but the Spectre was a whole other issue. Schwartz basically tried to sidestep the voice of God and he and Fox came up with enemies that were magical but not much different than the SF based villains or the kind that Fox used regularly in the JLA. (Broome was much more a straight SF man, and even his magician villain, Abra Kadabra, was really using science, although all of the science in those books were like magic anyway).
ReplyDeleteBut, you are right-you can't keep coming up with world-shattering protagonists all of the time--besides the unlimited power Spec bore, those kinds of battles get old fast---fast forward to today's comics, which are awash in near-omnipotent bad guys, who take months to fight, over endless titles.
Fox mostly managed to handle it, but I have to admit that by Spec 1, it was getting tiresome. Mike Freidrich dialed it back by focusing on Wildcat. After that, the book is a blur to me. I quit comics for a few years at that point, and didn't get to read the later, post-Adams issues until sometime later, and then only once. Some interesting stories and art, but it seemed like the book was a real mishmash for a while. As was the character, as he seemed to keep dying in the JLA.
The Fleischer/Aparo run was beautifully drawn and crispy written even if the Spectre was unrecognizable unless you were familiar with Jerry Siegel's earliest stories, one of which I was from the Feiffer book. But Fleischer seemed to have more of a sadistic bent in his tales. This Spec was nothing like the Silver age version."
Mike Woolson said, "Fleisher and Aparo's Adventure Comics run with the character was a big big fave of mine as a kid.
ReplyDeleteJerry Siegel's writing is so interesting. It's easy to say he was less a "writer" and more someone who had one Really Big Idea and spent the rest of his career trying to keep up with it. But some of his Silver Age Superman stories are really good, arguably better than his Golden Age work."
Cheryl Spoehr said: The try out issues of The Spectre are some of the best single issue super hero stories ever written,in my opinion. We get an interesting hero,a totally bizarre version of the "real" world,and a set of enemies. The only thing lacking is a life for the secret identity,but there just wasn't time for that. But having done all that...the series itself seemed lack luster to me. It is a case of "what do we do for an encore" to me. I really think the biggest problem was not his unlimited power, it was the lack of an interesting secret identity. So much space was given to The Spectre,that Jim Corrigan was lost in the shuffle. If I had been editor,I would have made sure that the alter ego had substance.I would also mostly limit Spectre's powers to traditional ghost stuff...invisibility,flying,immateriality,etc.A.C.G.'s Nemesis started out that way,but wound up as ill defined as all the other ghosts. I think it is fine for The Spectre to have unlimited abilities when in "ghost world",but when working in "the real world",should have standard ghost abilities,plus super strength. And yes,a consistent weakness would be helpful.
ReplyDeletePhilip Rushton wrote: As with his Golden Age Dr. Fate stories, Gardner Fox wrote the Spectre in full Weird Tales/H P Lovecraft mode, as opposed to the hard SF he usually produced for Julius Schwartz. Along with the Showcase issue in which Dr. Fate and Hourman fought Solomon Grundy, I began to see Earth Two as a much darker, more magical place than Earth One.
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