There was a version of the Vision created by Joe Simon and Jack Kirby early on, so I think the android Vision was based more on him, though interestingly enough, it’s said that the Duke of Darkness story inspired Steve Ditko on Doctor Strange and Nightmare.

All-Star Comics #2 (Fall 1940)
Author:  Jerry Siegel
Artist:  Bernard Baily

Synopsis:  So ancient is the scroll which has disappeared from The Oriental Museum that it “must be the remnant of a lost civilization” declares the museum’s head.  Little solace to guard Benson who lays in a hospital bed raving “Kulak! Kulak!”.  Benson regains his senses long enough to relate to Corrigan who has been called in on the case that the loss of the parchment was precipitated by plumes of black smoke emanating from the case which housed it.  Within those plumes floated the head of the unusual looking (he has three eyes, blue skin, ear rings- look he has three eyes and blue skin – that’s pretty unusual) Kulak, High Priest of Brztal. Having had his tomb profaned, Kulak is now set upon a path of vengeance directed at all of human civilization. Separating himself from the body of Jim Corrigan to confirm the threat contained within a copy of the scroll which he’s summoned, The Spectre finds himself confronted with Kulak who confirms that yes, he intends to carry out his plan to destroy human civilization.

Though The Spectre lunges at Kulak, his foe manages to hold him off with a barrage of power bolts before fleeing – but not before informing our hero that “The Whispering Death” shall serve as his first instrument of revenge against the populace. Corrigan learns just what this means when at noon, a dark cloud obscures the sun thus submerging the city into darkness. From the blackened skies comes a whispering which soon turns into a “maddening drone” intoning the word ‘HATE!” again and again and again. People everywhere act as though they’re part of a crazed mob – scenes of automobiles running down pedestrians ensue, followed by brother attacking brother, parent spanking their child, in short, chaos fills the streets.



The Spectre puts a stop to this by rendering everyone immobile and chanting an incantation which reverses Kulak’s spell. Though he wins this battle, Kulak reponds by siccing a swarm of locusts on the city. The Spectre counters by ripping open a piece of space itself and drawing “the locusts vacuum-like into the depths of infinity”. Clearly, a showdown is called for.

Materializing before The Spectre, Kulak begins to disintegrate the very soul of the grim ghost. Recognizing that he is outmatched, The Spectre directs a plea for help heavenward. It arrives in the form of The Ring of Life. I’m not going to pretend that I really know what The Ring of Life actually is, but Kulak and The Spectre seem to realize that with it popping up on The Spectre’s finger, it’s pretty much game over for Kulak. Kulak flees into another dimension, The Spectre gives chase, Kulak calls up “the long dead legions of Brztal” to attack, and with our champion occupied with Kulak’s blue-skinned goons, Kulak once again turns his attention towards Earth.



He floods the Earth and seemingly no corner is left undisturbed. We see a skyscraper collapse under the force of the deluge, a lone figure dying of thirst in a barren desert come face to face with an onrushing tidal wave, and a shamefully racist depiction of Africans fleeing the same. However, hope is not lost for The Spectre has defeated Kulak’s men and has now turned his attention to the priest himself. Noticing that he’s lost the ring (whether it clumsily slipped off his finger or was taken back by The Voice isn’t clear) The Spectre nevertheless rushes at Kulak who is in the midst of chanting another incantation. A left hook interrupts the chant which causes Kulak to burst into flames “consumed by the evil forces he has created” and The Spectre wills the oceans back to their rightful place.

Thoughts: And this story answers one of my previous questions…

So what happens to Jim Corrigan when The Spectre vacates his body? Apparently Corrigan’s mind goes where The Spectre goes. When Corrigan visits the museum at the start of this issue and The Spectre goes off on his own to investigate Kulak, we cut back to Corrigan for the following exchange:

“er—Corrigan! I was addressing you!”

“He doesn’t reply! His mind seems to be wandering!”

Hard to reconcile this with The Spectre jumping in and out of Corrigan’s body when the latter is closing in on a bad guy alongside the police as he did in More Fun #56, but there you go.

In his final battle with Zor in More Fun #58, The Spectre uses ectobane to defeat his foe. Never before mentioned in the texts and I suspect unlikely to reappear again, ectobane was really a tool Siegel provided The Spectre with to wrap up his tale quickly and succinctly despite squaring off against perhaps his most powerful and dangerous foe to date. What should have been a difficult corner for Siegel to write himself out of however, simply becomes an exercise in getting off work as quickly as possible. Because Kulak has been built up as a being of seemingly limitless ability (his threat to destroy human civilization certainly seems to be well within the parameters of his capabilities) a left hook to the jaw just isn’t a satisfying coda to this tale any more than Zor’s sudden paralysis in the presence of ectobane was during his sendoff. Hopefully, Siegel will either resist throwing too many more of these overly powerful figures The Spectre’s way, or find some way of having his hero use his wits to overcome them. It seems that the more powerful the opponent, the more pugilistic The Spectre becomes which is frankly beneath him.

It's ambiguous as to whether or not Corrigan managing to get a statement from the raving guard whom he visits in the hospital is a result of his powers or simply an effect of the guard’s sanity restoring itself. Despite appearing to be “in a sort of daze”, the guard instantly becomes lucid when pressed for details from the detective. If Corrigan is capable of restoring sanity to the crazed, it’s an impressive feat, but as I said, it’s unclear if that’s what’s actually happening here.

You know, the ending was enough of a let down that I’m really hoping we get more horror stories and less sci-fi in the coming adventures, but there are some nice moments to be found in the body of this yarn. The Whispering Death is an effectively moody danger thrust at the city and The Spectre ripping open space itself to dispose of a swarm of locusts is a sight to behold. Unfortunately, once you’ve raised the stakes to this level during the body of your story, what do you do for an encore? 

Oh, and the image of The Spectre used on this cover, was taken from a panel from the previous issue of All-Star.

I've been puzzled too by Baily's penchant for treating childlike depictions of stars and rings around planets as literal representations of those objects.  It's almost as if Baily thinks that the rings of Saturn are something you can walk around on.  Bill Finger would provide his artists with reference material on a regular basis - I'm wondering if Siegel is supplying Baily with Valentine Day cards or children cartoons for Baily's benefit instead.  Not really sure who's to blame here (or if blame should even be assigned because part of me likes the idea that what we're seeing isn't a literal representation of what's actually happening) but if Siegel is expecting Baily to draw The Spectre grabbing an actual star in a given panel or hitting someone over the head with a planet, can you really fault Baily for going with something cartoonish when the real thing would be fairly indecipherable on the page?

Siegel doesn't really seem to be building an ongoing narrative here the way he did with Superman.  The Superman/Lois/Clark relationship grew and developed into something you could chart.  Sure, it got repetitive after a while but only because DC didn't let him have Lois discover Superman's other identity as he intended as that story's natural progression.  Of course, he had years to think about Superman before it even got published whereas he's clearly coming up with things on the fly as you point out.  Siegel doesn't seem to know what to do with Clarice Winston for example.  Wayne Grant has potential but Siegel doesn't seem willing to tap into that perhaps because he doesn't want to tie himself down before figuring out his long term plans for the character.  Is Jim Corrigan supposed to be a tragic figure doomed to walk the halls of eternity without knowing love or rest until figuring out some way of getting The Voice to free him from his curse or has that aspect of the character been abandoned?  Siegel has certainly introduced a lot of interesting possibilities with his character, but he seems to either feel he's exhausted their potential or is waiting for some other avenue to explore before being tied down to any one direction.  

That's a good point. The apparently unavailable option of splash panels, especially full page ones, would have hobbled Baily from doing the kinds of things Murphy Anderson would do when his Spectre was wielding cosmological objects as weapons in the 60's. Symbolic representations may have seemed like the best option, and it may even have seemed neat-o to the youthful audience of the time. I mean, your reference to Valentine's cards has me imagining some of the fanciful illustrations I would see in my childhood. 

Yes, Siegel was floundering with his cast. He seems to have wanted to set Grant up as a complication to Corrigan's secret ID, but then separated them as roommates, then brought Grant back only to ignore him. Clarice was dumped as a romantic partner, but then brought right back in, making me think the romance angle was supposed to add some ongoing tragedy and tension, but that never really panned out. And as we know, he eventually brought in Percival, who, unfortunately for us, did stick. 

Best cover yet!^^

More Fun Comics #61 (Nov, 1940)


Synopsis: Picking up soon after the events of the previous issue, this tale begins with headlines emblazoned with The Spectre’s successes. “’Spectre' Foils Bank Robbery!’”, “Vanished Train Found By Wraith!”, “’Ghost’ Foils Bank Robbery!”

Not only do these headlines suggest that The Spectre is recognized as a hero despite the previously expressed confusion over why the guy seen hi-jacking the Black Chief Limited last issue was also seen returning it, it also finally provides Jim Corrigan with a name for his city – Center City. But not everyone in Center City is convinced that The Spectre is a good guy…




While being reminded that it’s his duty to bring in The Spectre, Jim Corrigan is given another opportunity to understand just why his Chief is so anxious to capture Center City’s ghost.

“You’ve thirsted for gold! Now – Die of the Golden Curse!” reads the note (accompanied with a gold coin) received by promoter Jeff Crane.

Although Corrigan’s senses “detect the gathering of sinister elements forecasting impending doom”, he is powerless (or maybe just apathetic since I’m still not clear what the limits are on his abilities) to prevent the transformation of Jeff Crane into a statue of solid gold.

Soon after, Corrigan’s Chief (who doesn’t seem to have a name so “Corrigan’s Chief” it has to be) gets dozens of calls from men threatened with the same curse. A promising break in the case arrives in the form of a timid looking man who enters the office with a claim that he knows who is behind these threats. Unfortunately, just as he’s about to tell all, he turns to, yes, that’s right – gold.

Though Corrigan is forced to admit to himself that he’s flummoxed by these proceedings as he leaves headquarters, when his attention is caught by a decrepit looking man offering free gum to passerbys he suspects that things are finally starting to make sense. Accepting a sample, Corrigan leaves the scene, realizes that he’s being followed by a car, and feigns the symptoms of The Golden Curse – a simple feat for a man of his powers. Husked away into the car by the gum vendor and an associate, Corrigan is driven to a bridge and tossed into the river which, also, is no big deal for a man who’s done this before.



Transforming into The Spectre and trailing the vehicle leads him to the gang’s next intended target, a man named Calloway. Calloway is offered some free gum but somehow the sample changes into a worm (guess who?) before it reaches his hand. The vendor makes a call to his boss, The Spectre travels through the phone line (actually, to put it Siegel’s way, “The Spectre’s decomposed body” does the travelling) but is blocked when the big man hangs up before he can complete the connection. Just as I’m wondering why The Spectre doesn’t simply take this info from the minds of his underlings, he attempts to do just that.

Rising to gigantic height, he demands that he be taken to their boss but, again, The Golden Curse strikes and even The Spectre can’t interrogate statues. Besides, Jim Corrigan is due at Clarice Winston’s home. Huh. I guess Siegel and Baily aren’t quite done with her after all.

At his ex-fiancee’s, Corrigan is introduced to Gustave Gilroy, a friend of Winston’s father. Discussing The Spectre’s seeming penchant for turning men into gold, Gilroy informs the detective that such an idea isn’t so far-fetched and that “an obscure scientist” is working on just such a project. Giving Corrigan the scientist’s address (a shanty on the waterfront) our hero finds himself walking into a trap. Entering the gloomy dwelling, Corrigan is on the receiving end of a noose wrapped around his neck and a “Thus perish those who oppose The Spectre!” good-bye message played over a microphone. Corrigan turns into a flat, one-dimensional caricature of himself, slips through the rope, and The Spectre lands upon the floor.

Leaping through the metal door separating himself from his would-be assassin (and by leaping through I mean simply walking through it as if it weren’t there) The Spectre confronts a man who has clearly learned that he’s bitten off far more than he can chew. Demanding an explanation, the crook whimpers that he was hired to impersonate the ghost though he doesn’t know by whom. Using something described as “L-Rays” (I really don’t like this pretext of ‘Why, you’re not so ignorant as to not know what L-Rays are, are you?’ I’m getting from Siegel here) The Spectre eliminates all vestiges of evil from the toady’s mind and returns to Clarice as Jim Corrigan.

Finding that Gilroy has left the scene, Corrigan learns that Clarice is about to do the same after having received a call informing her that if she doesn’t surrender to The Spectre, her father will be the next victim of The Golden Curse. It’s an awkward two panel sequence when the first panel has Winston explaining the situation to Corrigan and the second has Corrigan shouting out the window at Clarice as she drives away “Don’t do it!” I mean, did it take him two minutes or however long it took her to get her keys, go to her car, start it up, and pull out to think up that rebuttal?

Anyway, Clarice drives off, is followed by The Spectre (in the form of the hood ornament on her car), and upon arrival at the docks, is greeted by a fellow in a green robe making not an exact double of The Spectre, but a fairly close approximation. Actually, it’s a nice touch – instead of the impersonator looking identical to the hero as is often the case in situations such as these, here, the villain either doesn’t know exactly what The Spectre looks like or simply can’t make himself look like him as so has opted for a green cloak and hood and bit of white face paint.

Offering Clarice immortality if she will be his, the young lady struggles before the real Spectre appears. The Ghostly Guardian punches his ersatz counterpart on the jaw and there things would likely end if only…

“I’ve been flung into space by a freak occurrence!”



Yes, that’s correct – The Spectre just randomly shoots off into space for reasons beyond his control. He materializes back in the city as Jim Corrigan, but does so, one hour in the past. He’s approached (actually, tracked down, I guess) by Wayne Grant who informs him that he has one hour to arrest The Spectre or he’s fired. So that’s pretty much what he does. Separating from The Spectre, Corrigan walks into police headquarters with his alter-ego who congratulates The Chief on being “the better man” in a “tough battle” before promptly disappearing. Corrigan chides his boss for letting him get away and is sent back out there to track him down again.



Returning to the docks now that an hour has passed (wait a minute – do you mean to tell me that Corrigan spent a full hour pulling that ‘arrest myself’ gag when he knew that at the end of the hour his ex-fiancee would be attacked? Shouldn’t this have taken, like, ten minutes tops?)

eh. Alright, so The Spectre gets back to Clarice as she’s fending off The Fake Spectre, knocks out the villain, tells Clarice to head back home, and changes back to Corrigan in time to arrest the fiend when he revives. This time, it is the phony Spectre who accompanies Jim Corrigan back to headquarters. Unmasking his prisoner as Gustave Gilroy who had learned how to transform anything he wanted into gold and settled on those who had cheated him out of money he should have made for earlier discoveries, Corrigan and The Chief watch as Gilroy swallows the agent which now turns him into gold.

Though agreeing with Corrigan that The Spectre is innocent of Gilroy’s crimes, it is still the detective’s job to bring him to justice.

hmmm.

Thoughts: At first glance, this entry seems to pick up immediately following the close of the preceding adventure with The Chief’s order in More Fun 61 that Corrigan capture The Spectre being recapped here. However, a few distinctions – 1. Corrigan’s enthusiasm for being handed this responsibility in 60 (“I won’t rest until I do so!”) seems a bit dampened in the cold light of day here (“I’ll capture him – if you can make him stay on one spot!”). 2. More Fun 60 suggests that The Chief’s interest in catching The Spectre is motivated by his uncertainty as to whether or not the fellow’s a criminal (“Maybe he is, maybe he isn’t”) here however, his remark that “he’s making the police look silly” could be interpreted as professional jealousy. Sure, this could be in reference to The Spectre’s continued disregard for the law, but the fact that The Chief makes his declaration immediately following a rapid succession of “’Spectre’ Captures This! Foils That!” headlines can’t help but leave the impression that he’s being viewed more as competition than as a threat.

I can’t really see where Siegel can go with assigning Corrigan the task of catching his alter-ego and yet given the fact that he’ll introduce the character of Sgt. Casey over in the Superman titles next year just so he’ll be able to explore the idea of having a powerless cop try to bring in the super-powered Man from Krypton, it seems like an idea which he has a certain fondness for. Corrigan’s “I’ll capture him – if you can make him stay on one spot!” remark only draws attention to the unworkable nature of this idea if any were needed.

Another piece of continuity is restored but not quite in the way we remember it in the form of Jim Corrigan’s relationship with Clarice Winston. Having established and reiterated the fact in earlier adventures that though he might love her, Jim Corrigan can no longer remain romantically attached to his former fiancée and isn’t shy about reminding her of this fact, here things seem to be going swimmingly for the couple.

“Jim! I was afraid you wouldn’t show up!”

“With a pretty girl like you waiting for me – why shouldn’t I?”

A far cry from his previous go to line of “It’s no use, Clarice! I’ve told you before, everything is finished between us!” (More Fun 54)

I kind of liked how in calling off his engagement to Winston, Corrigan had made himself persona non grata with her family as established in that yarn. I thought the idea of establishing Corrigan as a heartless SOB in the eyes of the family of the woman he’s trying to protect would set create some nuanced tension for future installments. Now however, we seem to be heading in a far more generic direction for their relationship.

Of course, one has to wonder how much Corrigan really cares for Winston given the way he blows an entire hour arresting himself even as the deadline of her encounter with The Phony Spectre approaches. Coupled with his “Clairce – Don’t do it!” delayed response to her announcement that she intends to turn herself over to The Spectre (well, the fake one) I’m not really convinced that there ever was much of a relationship here to begin with.  As some of you may recall, this isn't the first time this thought has occurred to me.

Criticisms aside, there is quite a bit I do like about this adventure. Victims turned into gold statues (though it's not quite clear how Gilroy's victims contract The Golden Curse - do they have to inject it through, say, gum, or simply touch it, say, through contact with a gold coin), The Spectre turning a stick of gum into a worm, Corrigan’s strange transformation into a flat one-dimensional being so as to slip out of his noose is an odd sight to behold, and as I mentioned above, the fact that this story takes into account the fact that you probably couldn’t walk into a shop and buy an exact replica of The Spectre’s outfit hence Gilroy’s makeshift robe, is a nice touch. Actually, The Spectre doppleganger ends up looking creepier than the real thing.

That whole “I’m being flung into space by an occult occurrence” bit? Even though it’s designed to draw out The Spectre’s fight with a human opponent who is no match for him, kind of has an appeal. I mean, why shouldn’t there be weird unexplainable things going on around someone like The Spectre? There are laws of nature in our world we can’t grasp, so why shouldn’t there be bizarre occurrences such as The Spectre being plucked by some unknown force and dropped one hour in the past? I certainly wouldn’t to see this happen all the time and certainly not with enough regularity that once he’s about to face off against the bad guy the reader expects something weird like this to happen, but as an occasionally side-track to the main story it might contain possibilities.

Oh, and after establishing that Jim Corrigan just sort of zones out when he’s not attached to his ghostly form, here the two converse as separate entities as they prepare to walk into Police Headquarters. As M.W. Gallaher suggested earlier, this will likely be the way things will continue from here on out now that Siegel operating less “on the fly”.

Further continuing the trend of softening The Spectre is the fact that while Gilroy’s fate of being turned into gold himself seems perfectly designed as the sort of fate our hero would bequeath unto him, Siegel has the villain transform himself as Corrigan rushes to save him. I suppose Corrigan had to bring him in alive to establish The Spectre’s innocence, but it still leaves The Spectre taking a back seat to his partner. In contrast to this however, this issue reveals that The Spectre has the ability to cleanse a villain’s mind of evil through the emission of L-Rays. One has to wonder why we haven’t seen this power before and if we’ll see it again. I mean, this issue marks the third instance of his trying to reach the bad guy by travelling through telephone lines and striking out for the second time in a row. Odd that hanging up your telephone could flummox a guy who could erase all evil from your personality with but a glance.

Odder still, that there are even characters who upon learning that such a supernaturally endowed killer of criminals exists decides that it’s a good idea to try and impersonate him and practically invite him to their doorstep. Of course, in a very short time, The Spectre will be so well known that he’ll receive membership as part of a very esteemed superhero team. But that will have to wait until after my next review.

Maybe Cliffland is a borough or neighborhood of Center City, chadwilliam.

Or at least that sounds like it could have been a Roy Thomas solution.

Baily's approach to drawing the Spectre is as all-encompassing (and as fun) as Shakespeare's was in writing a play: hats popping off for the youngest kids, and brushes with theology for the older kids.