Welcome back to the first Demanded Character of 2009. At this time of the year people are trying to start fresh and fix mistakes made in the past, so what better time to talk about the one character in the DC Universe who does not forgive the past, the Spectre?
There have been have been a few looks to the character over the years, that all allow for some great variants; but before we get into the looks let’s talk about what is the Spectre.
Vengeance is something that most people are familiar with. From time to time everyone has wanted someone to get what they deserve. In our society there is a great call for equal forms of justice, but in the real world it does not always work out that way. In the DCU vengeance is something different altogether. The Spectre is the Spirit of Vengeance, the spirit that finds the guilty and makes them suffer for their crimes. It is a magical being who does to the wicked what most think should be done. It is uncaring and unbiased, but with all that power comes problems. For some, a crime is judged in black and white terms, but there are varying shades of grey in both the real world and the DCU. If a hero steals from a villain for the good of the people, is it a crime that deserves vengeance? If a boy kills an attacker in self defense, does he deserve the same vengeance as a serial killer? For the Spectre it is not grey at all, and those who sin will get an equal form of vengeance. To help offset this extreme sense of right and wrong, the spirit was bounded with human hosts. The hosts helped to keep the spirit in check, and when those hosts left or were removed, there was always trouble.
Our first and most famous of the 3 hosts was Jim Corrigan. His time as the Spectre was filled with adventures with the JSA as well as some dark times. Corrigan was a cop whose murder went unsolved, and his own spirit’s need for revenge made him an ideal candidate for the Spectre. When he was merged with the spirit and returned to earth, he used his new power to extract vengeance on his killers. This version of the Spectre seems to be the longest, most consistent version in the character’s history. The Spectre ,like most super-powered beings, used his alter ego to look for clues and walk among the living. Through time Corrigan started to feel less and less like he needed vengeance in his life, and left the Spectre.
With the Spectre alone, again he needed another human host. During Final Night his new replacement became apparent. It was someone who had done so much evil and deserved to suffer for his actions, a person who had to make up for his past, Hal Jordan. Jordan showed his true colors by both doing the Spectre’s work, and also doing what he wanted. His personal missions included resurrecting his pal Ollie, the Green Arrow, to helping Wally West, the Flash; to trying to defeat villains he was not able to take down during his life as a Green Lantern. Hal was a different kind of Spectre, but just like his time as a Green Lantern he started to change, and became more violent. The same entity, Parallax, that infected Hal while he was living was trying to infect the Spectre, Parallax. With the Spectre’s help Hal was able to rid himself of the parasite, and be resurrected, again leaving the Spectre alone.
Most recently, after the separation the spirit was seduced by the entity Eclipso. Realizing that there had to be a human host to control the spirit, another police officer was chosen. Crispus Allen was killed in the line of duty, and like Corrigan his murder was not solved. In his time as the Spectre he has had to find his own killer, only to watch his own child kill him, suffer the wrath of the Spectre, and fight alongside hope and the Question to fight against the Anti-Life equation and the coming of the 5th World. He has been tortured by his new role of trying to hold on to his own humanity while doing the work of the Spectre.
While all these seem to be ideal for a variant chase, the real decision who your number one choice is for the Spectre in the DCUC line.
Some images courtesy of Comic Vine.
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