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Post by chadwilliam on Mar 3, 2021 17:01:17 GMT -5
chadwilliam , I want to thank you again for such a thorough and engaging overview of The Spectre's published adventures through the 70's. I appreciate the exhaustion such an effort can bring on, and the satisfaction of reaching a suitable stopping point. You had so many excellent insights and observations, and with The Spectre being one of my very favorite characters, it was a great joy to be along for the ride. Since you have given your blessing, I'll take up the baton for one more entry that I think deserves attention in this thread. I don't pretend I'll do justice to the approach you took to the material, but I'll give it my best! The Spectre and Dr. 13 in Ghosts Thank you for the kind words. I had briefly considered including these stories within my reviews thinking that the presence of Earl Crawford would make this thread incomplete without them, but felt that their Crawford was too far removed from the one we've met to want to muddy the waters. Really? Earl Crawford finally meets someone who believes in The Spectre (even if he believes he's just a guy using advanced science) and "I wanted to talk to you about something totally different!" is what he tells Thirteen? I guess with Thirteen taking over his role, Crawford suddenly become redundant, but why use him at all? I guess so he could get his hands on his files since information about The Spectre is supposed to be hard to come by, but it still seems like a waste. And what's with him not looking like Clark Kent anymore? That line about hearing stories of him since the 1940's contradicts that birthdate of 1940 we've already seen on Corrigan's tombstone, but it is in keeping with the modern idea that Corrigan is only been passing himself off as a 30/40 something year old man and presumably taking steps to ensure that no one knows that this Jim Corrigan is the same Jim Corrigan who you might find in old police registries. I wonder if this is the first time the idea's been used though I don't know if Kupperberg understood the full implication of what he was doing when he wrote that line. It bugs me when comics takes a believable skeptic like Dr. Thirteen and makes him look like an idiot by tossing him into the world of the supernatural and not believing a thing he sees. Suddenly, a man of logic, observation, calm, rational thought suddenly becomes a bumbling, naive, stubborn simpleton and I don't know where such a character goes from there. Actually, The Phantom Stranger started off as a skeptic but found more mileage out of realizing that it paid better to live in a world of the supernatural. I can't imagine that Dr. Thirteen has been used quite as much since the 80's. I really enjoyed this, M. W. It's insights such as yours which inspired me to start this thread in the first place. Any further additions you want to make would be great. Thanks again!
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Post by chadwilliam on Mar 3, 2021 17:09:21 GMT -5
Alright, so with my little Percival Popp update and the abrupt cancellation of the Fleisher run, I have reached the end of these Golden to Silver to Bronze Age reviews. I want to thank all of you for contributing - whether with a thought or simply a 'Like' - and encourage anyone with opinions, questions, knowledge, whatever about anything even remotely connected with this thread to post when the mood strikes them. Not an easy thread to follow along with given the fact that the earliest stories reviewed date back some 80 years now, but if you're reading this in the far future after just getting into any of the tales contained herein, please, by all means, resuscitate this thread. Or if you want to keep things going, do so with my blessing. I hope you enjoyed. In few word, how was the Moench's comic? It gives me the impression that it is considered little more than a parenthesis between Fleisher's and Ostrander's runs. (Obviously if you read it! ) Thank you for your reviews! You're very welcome! Thanks for your contributions and generous words! I never read the Moench run. I did read the two-issue Spectre-Batman team-up (of sorts) in Batman 540-541 written by Moench when it came out in I believe 1995/96, but that would be all I've read by him on the character. His Spectre there stuck me as very much in keeping with what Ostrander was doing on his series which, in turn, owed quite a bit to Fleisher's unrepentantly Old Testament styled guy, but since that appearance was likely intended to draw attention to The Spectre (which had a Joker/Batman tale over in its own series at the same time) it be could be that Moench was attempting to write in Ostrander's style to maintain continuity as opposed to illustrate how he saw him himself (or even how he would have seen him in the 1980s when he helmed the preceding run).
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Post by MWGallaher on Mar 3, 2021 18:26:53 GMT -5
Thank you for the kind words. I had briefly considered including these stories within my reviews thinking that the presence of Earl Crawford would make this thread incomplete without them, but felt that their Crawford was too far removed from the one we've met to want to muddy the waters. Really? Earl Crawford finally meets someone who believes in The Spectre (even if he believes he's just a guy using advanced science) and "I wanted to talk to you about something totally different!" is what he tells Thirteen? I guess with Thirteen taking over his role, Crawford suddenly become redundant, but why use him at all? I guess so he could get his hands on his files since information about The Spectre is supposed to be hard to come by, but it still seems like a waste. And what's with him not looking like Clark Kent anymore? That line about hearing stories of him since the 1940's contradicts that birthdate of 1940 we've already seen on Corrigan's tombstone, but it is in keeping with the modern idea that Corrigan is only been passing himself off as a 30/40 something year old man and presumably taking steps to ensure that no one knows that this Jim Corrigan is the same Jim Corrigan who you might find in old police registries. I wonder if this is the first time the idea's been used though I don't know if Kupperberg understood the full implication of what he was doing when he wrote that line. It bugs me when comics takes a believable skeptic like Dr. Thirteen and makes him look like an idiot by tossing him into the world of the supernatural and not believing a thing he sees. Suddenly, a man of logic, observation, calm, rational thought suddenly becomes a bumbling, naive, stubborn simpleton and I don't know where such a character goes from there. Actually, The Phantom Stranger started off as a skeptic but found more mileage out of realizing that it paid better to live in a world of the supernatural. I can't imagine that Dr. Thirteen has been used quite as much since the 80's. I really enjoyed this, M. W. It's insights such as yours which inspired me to start this thread in the first place. Any further additions you want to make would be great. Thanks again! The one thing I did kind of appreciate about Crawford's role in this story was that he had the (informed) sense to heed Dr. Geist's advice, and part ways while Dr. 13 carried on the hunt. If the story had had more breathing room, that choice could have been played for more impact, with Crawford recalling what he knows, finally talking "Spectre" to Dr. 13 with a little "Look, man, I know you're skeptical but this guy's a for-real supernatural terror, and we're both idiots if we keep up this chase." But we know that it was really just about taking him out of the way since he couldn't fit into the climax Kupperberg had in mind. As for Dr. 13, I think it would have been better had he never been a direct witness to The Spectre's deeds, or if Spec had doled out some more ambiguous fates, so that 13 had a plausible theory of a natural explanation, so Kupperburd didn't have to resort to an ending that didn't come close to justifying him clinging to 13's beliefs. In a 21st century context, I can appreciate the value of depicting a character who clings to the cause that defines him despite persistent evidence to the contrary. That kind of stubbornness has verisimilitude to me that it might not have in 1981. As for the Moench run, there's a lot to like about it, especially when Gene Colan and Gray Morrow are drawing it. Both men were good fits for the character. I don't have it in me to re-read and review it in detail, but allow me to leave an image from that run of one thing we haven't seen yet:
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Post by MWGallaher on Mar 16, 2021 20:29:24 GMT -5
I have posted my thoughts in several places about this before. I feel that the stories in Wrath of the Spectre #4 were supposed to be Adventure # 439-441. However DC decided to cut Spectre from the title so I think Fleisher shelved these scripts & wrote the 2 part conclusion that appeared in #439-440. I'll bet you're right. Jim Corrigan's new lease on life is cut so abruptly short that I can't help but wonder why Fleisher didn't take more time with it. This would explain why. I just noticed this in the letter column for ADVENTURE COMICS #442, which featured comments on the final published Spectre installment: While I think most readers would infer from this that the WRATH #4 stories would have been published after the final published installment, I don't think this actually does contradict the hypothesis. "If the series had run a little longer, we wouldn't have had to toss those intermediate stories where Gwen and Earl met" is a plausible interpretation, given that the letter column writer wasn't inclined to go into detail about the behind-the-scenes stuff, aside from this tantalizing bit of info. I have seen some questioning whether the "lost tales" published in WRATH #4 were legitimate leftovers or newly-scripted, and this suggests that they were for real, given the specifics of "three more issues" and Gwen and Earl's "first meeting".
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Post by chadwilliam on Mar 18, 2021 16:33:06 GMT -5
Fleisher was asked at the time of Wrath whether or not he'd be interested in doing more Spectre stories should the opportunity present itself and he said that he didn't think so as his approach had changed too much. For that reason, I take it for granted that these were old scripts. Might have been nice if Fleisher had tidied things up a bit to not leave the series dangling as he did, but it doesn't seem to be the case.
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Post by steve on Aug 29, 2021 21:28:30 GMT -5
An internet search on "Charles Reinsel" pointed me to this post, and inspired me to registering at the Classic Comics Forum so that I could read the post in full and respond. I am probably the only person on the forum who actually met Charles Reinsel in real life. That was back in 1965, when I was on the select (?) mailing list of his fanzine, Norb's Notes,and when he sold me a stack of more ratty old comics than I really wanted to buy. I made the mistake, commonly requested by dealers at that time, of mentioning "alternate choices" for issues that might be previously sold. I think I got everything I wanted and all of those alternate choices.
It was years later that I first read that Norb Reinsel had murdered his former wife and her husband. It was not until the broader scope of the internet made the facts widely available that I believed the story was true and not a falsehood spread by folks Reinsel had alienated in the overlapping fannish worlds of comics, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and (postal) Diplomacy. Reinsel's reputation at the time is suggested by the fact that another fan, John Stockman, published a fanzine largely devoted to lampooning Reinsel and his fanzines, along with the characteristics of other collectors of ERBiana and comic books. Selections from Stockman's fanzine were published in a print and e-book collection entitled The Crackpot, edited by Dwight Decker, forward by Richard Lupoff, Ramble House & Surinam Turtle Press, 2015. Judging from the forward of the book, neither Decker or Lupoff was not familiar with Reinsel's murderous future.
I eventually created a page for Charles Reinsel in Fancyclopedia 3, a reference work focused on science fiction fans and fandom. Leah Zeldes Smith enhanced that account with additional details, including a wanted poster for Charles Reinsel. That poster did not include Reinsel's rubber stamp.
What I remember mostly from my encounter with Reinsel in 1965 is his great bitterness about Jerry Bails and others receiving egoboo as the founders of comics fandom. Reinsel had long been a comics collector and had published a little known popular culture fanzine in 1962 and 1963, Comics, Cinema, and Collecting. (Other comic book fanzines came from other earlier years, of course.) I can only speculate that the level of his rage about perceived unfairness contributed to the failure of his marriage and his future as a murderer whose remains are stored at a state prison.
By the way--many issue of Reinsel's Diplomacy fanzine, Big Brother, are available on Diplomacy websites. Interest for comics fans is probably minimal, though Reinsel often reused covers and art from Norb's Notes in Big Brother.
Steve Johnson (not the writer or the artist)
I wanted to read along with this review thread, so I looked up some online scans of More Fun. Clicking through to the first story page, I was distracted, as I often am, by a name I found: I've been tempted to play "Internet Detective" many times because of old comics I've seen online. I've looked up the whereabouts of people known to have purchased Action Comics #1 (prize winners announced in issue 3), all of whom, alas, appeared to be dead. I've followed up on people who appeared in advertisements. I've alerted a college professor in Arizona who had had a letter printed in a Supergirl comic so that she could finally see a scan of the story she requested, but never got to see as a girl. So when I see a name like "Charles N. Reinsel", a fairly unusual name with a specific home town, I was tempted to see what I could find out about him. Was he a kid who had his own rubber stamp, who bought this comic in 1940, reading the debut of Dr. Fate? I quickly found his gravesite on findagrave.com, showing he was 10 years old in 1940. He might have bought it, and might have had a stamp, but more likely, a kid would have just scrawled his name on the comic. Let's see what else I can find about Mr. Reinsel... a Charles was a sergeant in the US Army during the Korean war. He appeared on the cover of a magazine for soldiers, and appears to have had aptitude for technical subjects like "topographic computing". Interesting! Further digging led to this: a Reinsel, in the 1960's, published a mimeograph fanzine devoted to Edgar Rice Burroughs. So he was a fan of heroic fantasy into his adulthood! This made me suspect that the issue of More Fun #55 was an adult acquisition, as adults seemed more likely to mark their possessions with a rubber stamp. Still, kind of cool to know who this belonged to, right? A veteran, an active participant in fandom...what else is there to learn online? How about this: In 1970, Reinsel sought the Democratic nomination for Pennsylvania General Assembly Representative. He was a policeman and a math and science teacher! aa Married, with four children...but wait...his findagrave listing didn't include any spouse or children... Oh, no... Presumably he died after 18 years in prison. A depressing end for a man who should have learned better lessons from the Ghostly Guardian...
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Post by MWGallaher on Aug 30, 2021 8:26:44 GMT -5
An internet search on "Charles Reinsel" pointed me to this post, and inspired me to registering at the Classic Comics Forum so that I could read the post in full and respond. I am probably the only person on the forum who actually met Charles Reinsel in real life. That was back in 1965, when I was on the select (?) mailing list of his fanzine, Norb's Notes,and when he sold me a stack of more ratty old comics than I really wanted to buy. I made the mistake, commonly requested by dealers at that time, of mentioning "alternate choices" for issues that might be previously sold. I think I got everything I wanted and all of those alternate choices.
It was years later that I first read that Norb Reinsel had murdered his former wife and her husband. It was not until the broader scope of the internet made the facts widely available that I believed the story was true and not a falsehood spread by folks Reinsel had alienated in the overlapping fannish worlds of comics, Edgar Rice Burroughs, and (postal) Diplomacy. Reinsel's reputation at the time is suggested by the fact that another fan, John Stockman, published a fanzine largely devoted to lampooning Reinsel and his fanzines, along with the characteristics of other collectors of ERBiana and comic books. Selections from Stockman's fanzine were published in a print and e-book collection entitled The Crackpot, edited by Dwight Decker, forward by Richard Lupoff, Ramble House & Surinam Turtle Press, 2015. Judging from the forward of the book, neither Decker or Lupoff was not familiar with Reinsel's murderous future.
I eventually created a page for Charles Reinsel in Fancyclopedia 3, a reference work focused on science fiction fans and fandom. Leah Zeldes Smith enhanced that account with additional details, including a wanted poster for Charles Reinsel. That poster did not include Reinsel's rubber stamp. What I remember mostly from my encounter with Reinsel in 1965 is his great bitterness about Jerry Bails and others receiving egoboo as the founders of comics fandom. Reinsel had long been a comics collector and had published a little known popular culture fanzine in 1962 and 1963, Comics, Cinema, and Collecting. (Other comic book fanzines came from other earlier years, of course.) I can only speculate that the level of his rage about perceived unfairness contributed to the failure of his marriage and his future as a murderer whose remains are stored at a state prison. By the way--many issue of Reinsel's Diplomacy fanzine, Big Brother, are available on Diplomacy websites. Interest for comics fans is probably minimal, though Reinsel often reused covers and art from Norb's Notes in Big Brother.
Steve Johnson (not the writer or the artist) Thanks for chiming in, Steve! We don't get nearly enough information or discussion around here on early comics fandom and fanzines (just a bit before the times for most of us), and I think the regulars here would be very interested in any other recollections you'd like to share. From what I found, Reinsel seemed to have a broad range of life experience--military, law enforcement, teaching, politics, marriage and family--but also was apparently heavily invested in fandom as a big part of his identity, and being neglected and, worse, lampooned within the community, was likely a very big blow to his psyche. I've learned to be sensitive to "crackpots", and I've seen several cases in the internet era when ganging up on someone with (probably) psychiatric issues has led to suffering and even tragedy. I even gotten a very prominent and beloved modern comic book writer to unilaterally disarm from an online engagement with a troubled person, even though the flames were delighting this writer's fans. I wouldn't presume that that sort of thing led directly to Reinsel's crimes, but it couldn't have helped the mental health of someone who clearly wasn't in good psychiatric shape.
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 30, 2021 15:34:01 GMT -5
Thank you very much for this, Steve and welcome to the boards. I hope you'll stick around.
A teacher, police man, comic reader into adulthood, and yet...
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Post by chadwilliam on Aug 30, 2021 15:35:23 GMT -5
Thanks for chiming in, Steve! We don't get nearly enough information or discussion around here on early comics fandom and fanzines (just a bit before the times for most of us), and I think the regulars here would be very interested in any other recollections you'd like to share. From what I found, Reinsel seemed to have a broad range of life experience--military, law enforcement, teaching, politics, marriage and family--but also was apparently heavily invested in fandom as a big part of his identity, and being neglected and, worse, lampooned within the community, was likely a very big blow to his psyche. I've learned to be sensitive to "crackpots", and I've seen several cases in the internet era when ganging up on someone with (probably) psychiatric issues has led to suffering and even tragedy. I even gotten a very prominent and beloved modern comic book writer to unilaterally disarm from an online engagement with a troubled person, even though the flames were delighting this writer's fans. I wouldn't presume that that sort of thing led directly to Reinsel's crimes, but it couldn't have helped the mental health of someone who clearly wasn't in good psychiatric shape. Probably best not to push other peoples' buttons without knowing what those buttons connect to.
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