So Fox seems to have gotten the series where he wanted it: the comic adventures of a bumbling detective assisted by an invisible ghost. I could certainly see that as a humorous B film from the 40's, so much so that I almost want to imagine this strip published in black and white. It's not what we started with, but it's not a bad premise for a comic strip of the time.
Corrigan's parting terms with the Spectre provide at least some additional insight into their relationship. Without Corrigan, the Spectre is invisible, so there's at least some diminishing of the Spectre's power as a consequence of their extended separation. As a pure ghost, the Spectre was immensely powerful; once Corrigan had been restored to life, his overall power levels seemed diminished. Actually, his powers had been winnowing even before the formal revivification of Jim Corrigan, but if we return to my hypothesis that the Ruby of Life was slowly working to guide Jim back to the land of the living, while tempering the Spectre's brutal tendencies, this gradual fade makes some sense. As more of their shared energies were expended on the process of living, less were available for the exercise of supernatural ability. I imagine some balance was necessary: transforming fully into the Spectre would expend the life forces more rapidly, and thus those times were reserved for critical things (like JSA adventures), but that when less supernatural energy seemed needed, it was worth while to leave Corrigan's form behind, sometimes even asleep. So there was some rationale behind whether the two would operate independently or as a single, united entity, whether we were made explicitly privvy to it or not.
With this twist, it appears there has been some negotiation between them. Corrigan doesn't need the Spectre to maintain normal human health, apparently. That's the gift of renewed life. But deprived of the re-energizing benefit of Corrigan's life force, the Spectre has to make some sacrifices. Maybe by forgoing visibility, he retains other, more important supernatural abilities, but I think there is still, clearly, an overall down-shift in his ghostly powers--maybe he's operating at "standard" ghost level now, not needing a living being to keep him at super-hero-level, but not retaining enough to fully materialize in the world of mortals.

All-Star Comics # 16 (April/May 1943)



Synopsis: Reporting to the team of information garnered through one of Hitler's spies, Hawkman relates the madman's plan to foment the same hatred and discord which made his rise so successful in Germany, over to America.

"We must 'Divide and Conquer' as we did here in Europe! Father's must be taught to hate their sons! Brothers must hate their brothers! Work up class hatreds! Make even the poor hate each other, set Gentile against Jew - Protestant against Catholic - sow hate even among their children!"

With this tactic in place, Hitler sends out eight agents (one of whom was captured by Hawkman as previously noted) and with eight members of The Justice Battalion ready to face them, The Spectre will get his crack at one of the Nazis in the town of Shelby.

Defense worker Jan Szybowski is framed for the burglary of the factory within which he works when the Nazi agent Spectre has been informed is working in this town plants papers incriminating him of that larceny upon him. Arriving just in time to see his fellow workers turn Szybowski over to the F.B.I., The Spectre takes note of his wife Peg. Assuring her of his intentions to catch the stranger who planted this evidence on her husband, he flies off as the story shifts to the new worker who claimed to have overheard Szybowski brag about his thievery.

Gathering around the hero of the hour, this stranger uses the newfound attention to his advantage. Sharing his views on the Polish, he pronounces that "I haven't anything personally against the Poles! But in times like these you can't trust anybody who's not pure American! Even if they were born here, their folks weren't and they must've brought over all those foreign hates that are so Unamerican!"

Having said his piece, The Spectre arrives upon the scene and offers his rebuttal in the form of a severe beating upon the stranger. Though accused of "Nazi-Talk" and of having "framed young Jan", The Spectre is regarded with suspicion by the amassed crowd.

"We always thought you were on the side of law and order, Spectre, but now you're hitting a guy because he speaks the truth!"



Bristling at the suggestion that he's made a mistake, The Spectre nevertheless promises to provide proof of the stranger's guilt. Sneaking into the stranger's room that evening and flies his sleeping figure to a celestial body near enough to the sun to approximate the flames of Hell. When the stranger awakens he is informed "You are dead! You are now outside the gates of Hades! I am Satan! I am about to judge ye! Confess the evil ye have done on Earth!"




And so the stranger tells The Spectre (who has nicely distorted his hood to simulate the horns of Satan) what he already knows, but adds the missing piece of the puzzle - the means by which he's been getting in touch with his masters in Germany. Learning of the secret radio hidden in his room, The Spectre knocks the stranger unconscious, returns him to bed, and lets him think the preceding events were but a nightmare. Rounding up the members of the stranger's fan club, The Spectre flies them to his home, and has them eavesdrop outside as the Nazi agent radios Berlin. Letting the men take care of the stranger (the panel shows them beating him up but no mention is made of what happened thereafter) The Spectre watches the aftermath from a distance - Jan and Peg are reunited and Szybowski's fellow workers apologize and announce that "We like all Americans... so long as they are good Americans!"

Thoughts: A very powerful tale and strongly told. Though I would have liked to have seen more representation of African Americans within this comic, there is a black member of The Junior Justice Society in the Dr. Mid-Nite tale and a black worker towards the finish of the comic declares "I represent fifteen million colored Americans who are working to get rid of those rascals, Hitler, Hirohito, an' Mussolini!" Neither are tarnished with the exaggerated features usually forced upon black people when presented in comics of this period and no attempt was made to dumb them down either. The sentiment - encapsulated so wonderfully with that powerful Frank Henry cover - rings strong throughout the comic and should be applauded.

And, as is sadly becoming an all too familiar refrain when reviewing these All-Star stories, the evil The Justice Battalion battles against here isn't unrecognizable close to eighty years later. The stranger's diatribe against the Polish which helped him win the hearts of those whose own prejudices he sought to exploit brings to mind the bigoted "they're rapists, criminals" anti-Mexican speech Donald Trump made to help secure the presidency. This also helps underscore one of the greatest and bravest strengths of this tale - that though it might never be acted upon, there is an element of racism within a lot of people which can be brought to the surface through only mild prodding. While hatemongers such as the Stranger or Trump might espouse bigoted and racist views, their words are powerless until a mob acts upon them. "We never cottoned much to strangers", admits one of Szybowski's co-workers when speaking with the stranger (admittedly as a way of welcoming him into their world by following up with "but saboteur-catching strangers like you will always be welcome!") and there is the seed for the stranger's success.

Beyond this however, there are quite a number of elements which work well simply as a Spectre story. I've complained that all too often, Fox's Spectre simply punches his way to victory story after story after story. Here, he attempts just that when he first goes after the stranger (which is kind of odd seeing as how he told Peg earlier that he needs evidence before he can act) and is made to realise for once that yes, sometimes he'll have to use his brains. Still, I like his getting miffed about not being trusted in a "how many times have I saved the world and you still don't trust me" manner and impersonating Satan himself really shows that had Fox taken over this strip in its early days, he could have emulated the horror of those great Siegel adventures quite nicely (and perhaps even exceeded it). Truth to be told, I was a bit worried about this tale given the fact that it opens on a rather blandly depicted image of Peg introducing herself to reader as if copied from a cigarette advert. "Hi, I'm Peg. I think my husband's going out". "I'm her husband. I'm going out".


However, Baily (or someone closely approximating his style right down to the cartoony stars and planets) does a great job on The Spectre's silhouette outlined against the rays of the sun and his subtle yet effective impersonation of Satan.

Not quite sure what actually happens to the stranger at tale's end. The Spectre tells himself "After the mistake they made, the towns folk will feel better if I let them handle that Nazi!" as we watch the stranger take a beating and then that's it. No mention is made of what happened thereafter. Given the fact that these men turned Szybowksi over to the F.B.I. rather than subject him to a lynching, it's possible that the stranger received the same fate, but man, "I'm a Nazi, I made you turn against an innocent man, and you just heard me tell Berlin how I used you to further Der Fuhrer's cause - now, what are you going to do with me?" Not that I'm going to lose any sleep over what happened to him, but I am curious.




OK, so a great one from Fox. No further word on Jim Corrigan (and The Spectre wasn't invisible here) and I didn't really expect there to be, but I am wondering if, since this Spectre isn't aligned with the More Fun one, if we've really seen the last of his other half. Interesting that Fox just watered The Spectre down further over in his main title, but gave him this strong outing here. He does keep me guessing...

It's always so tempting to believe that what is happening in America right now is a recent phenomenon. Hard to still have the kind of hope this story had eight decades later.

I'm now wondering whether Popp's drop in intelligence is due to the expectation Fox has that readers would pick up on the trope of 'Real hero acts in secret while making powerless guy look good' to simply assume that since this approach usually has a dumb guy fill the role of the face of the team, then no explanation is needed for Popp's stupidity other than "that's how these partnerships work". 


I doubt that anyone would take Popp seriously if he claimed to be working with The Spectre - in fact, he'd probably claim that The Spectre is working with him - but, at the same time, should word get out, it might be interesting to see whether crooks decide to steer clear of Popp from here on out or regard The Spectre as someone they could hoodwink as if he's Popp's slightly more intelligent and dangerous partner as opposed to a force to be reckoned with in his own right.  

And good catch on the Johnny Thunder/Percival Popp connection - I wonder if the reason Fox isn't using Popp over in All Star is so he can avoid making the similarities too obvious.

I'd argue that The Spectre softens a bit around More Fun Comics 64 when, from out of nowhere, he adopts a "let the law decide who lives and dies" attitude in contrast to his original "let me decide that" system.  It isn't portrayed consistently after that - he does kill again later on - but it's the first real indication of The Spectre having to follow the rules set out by publishers regarding what's acceptable/what's not as opposed to the set-up established early on.  Can't say that change makes him "less serious" in the way you mean, but he does become a more reasonable guy in that respect.

Once Percival Popp shows up in More Fun Comics 74, things are pretty much done for the serious nature of the stories.  The Spectre will remain a solo feature over in All-Star Comics where he's pretty much just one of the gang when the team is together (for those brief opening and closing bits which bookend each comic) but retains some of his serious nature within his own tales if for no other reason than Popp doesn't appear.

So assuming that the rest of his run continues along the path it has (his appearances end in More Fun with issue 101 and All-Star with, I believe 24) perhaps about 40% of his showings in More Fun are serious whereas with All-Star it's harder to say - there's no Popp interfering with things, but The Spectre becomes friendlier and more familiar with those around him while also adopting a jokey attitude at times.  Perhaps the first ten issues or so have him as a dark force to be reckoned with while the remainder present him more as a two-fisted daredevil sort of Batmanesque type of figure.

Thanks