You keep reading them - I'll keep writing them!  We're all in this together, you know!

I can see it being a bit of a task to have to write a self-contained story which will serve as a good indication of what to expect in a character's home title, while at the same time, serving the purposes of the larger story by not having those individual tales be too complete.  Sort of 'Win the battle, lose (or at least postpone) the war'.

Not sure whether I prefer Baily's more "developed" work or his earlier approach with its 'penciled at midnight by candlelight in a dark, creepy attic' feel.  I can certainly see how much more real he seems (your comparison to Murphy Anderson is very astute) but given my mood, I'm either in favour of a Spectre I can lay my eyes on or a Spectre who I couldn't quite describe in detail without looking at the page (and even sometimes that can be difficult),  

I look forward to that - as I may or may not have said before, your own reviews are the gold standard for these things as far as I'm concerned, so I appreciate the praise.  Though if you disagree or find anything wanting, please let me know, old friend!

More Fun Comics #69 (July 1941)


Synopsis: A locked room murder mystery for Jim Corrigan begins when Thomas Bardsley puts in a call to the police and has the misfortune of having Chief answer. Explaining that his life has been threatened, Bardsley is immediately dismissed as “some guy with a powerful imagination who is getting scared silly over nothing” by Chief when Corrigan asks what’s up (I’m surprised that Chief was just intelligent enough to place his hand over the phone when relaying this opinion so that Bardsley didn’t overhear it). Chief has to reassess his judgement of Bardsley’s safety when he overhears a shriek coming from the other end of the line. A race to Bardsley reveals the man dead by strangulation. “The killer must possess extraordinary strength, for the head is crushed, almost torn off!” remarks Corrigan.

Just as Corrigan considers the fact that the doors and windows in the room in which their victim was discovered were locked from the inside and had to be broken down by the detective to gain entry, the phone rings. Assuming that it is Bardsley who answers, a voice quickly threatens to kill him should be not pay the $10,000 dollars he owes. Corrigan traces the call (the way a normal person would by calling the operator and not by climbing into the phone like a weirdo) and discovers that Daniel Lakespur placed the threat.

Lakespur admits to making the threat but “only to frighten him”. He claims innocent of Bardsley’s murder and Corrigan’s intuition informs him that the man speaks the truth. Nevertheless, Chief hauls him in…

…and lets him go when he learns that since Bardsley’s murder, there have been five other deaths which Lakespur couldn’t have carried out. Lakespur however, does remain involved in the case when he receives a threatening note demanding that he leave $5000 in a sack beneath the Carlson Bridge that evening “or die”. The killer also leaves his name – The Tentacle.

Though Lakespur is terrified, Chief is thrilled as he believes that this provides them with the perfect opportunity to catch their killer. Using Lakesur as bait, Chief, Corrigan, and a few policemen guard Lakespur in his home. Lakespur meanwhile, decides to lock himself in his room. “Go ahead if it makes you feel any better” suggests Corrigan. After an undisclosed amount of time passes, Chief and Corrigan begin to suspect that their killer won’t show up. Suddenly, a scream comes from Lakespur’s room. Corrigan and Chief race in to find Lakespur as dead as the others. A policeman stationed outside the room didn’t witness anyone entering or leaving and Corrigan concedes “Frankly, I can’t understand how the crime could have been committed!” At that point, Chief solves the case – “The Spectre!”

I’m kind of surprised that it took him this long to figure it out.

Still, when Jake Carstairs calls and reports that his life has been threatened, Chief comforts him by assuring the worried man “Never fear, we’ve a plan! --er—we have a plan, haven’t we, Jim?” Good Lord, this man is an idiot.



Corrigan reassures Chief who reassures Carstairs and that evening, is on hand as The Spectre (invisibly, of course) to watch over The Tentacle’s intended victim. At the hour at which death is scheduled to strike, The Spectre hears a buzzing noise. Turning to face the source, he spots a strange plant extending its leaves towards its unsuspecting victim. The Spectre destroys the plant, Chief and Corrigan burst in (yes, Corrigan is a separate entity at this moment) and The Spectre heads for the Carlson Bridge where he disguises himself as a sack of cash. 



When The Tentacle (a rather undistinguished, homely looking, red-headed fellow) retrieves the sack of Spectre and returns to his hideout/greenhouse, The Spectre plays his hand. Chasing The Tentacle through the greenhouse, the villain trips and is destroyed by one of the plants he “sold to [his] wealthy customers [after] plac[ing] time mechanisms within them”.

“A horrible fate, but one of his own devising”, remarks the dark knight.

The next morning, Corrigan fills Chief in on the details while clearing his other identity. Upon doing so, he is reminded that regardless of innocence or guilt, “The Spectre gets in my hair! You’re to arrest him, see – on sight! Remember that!”

Thoughts: In the previous issue, Lakespur was one of the cities marked for destruction by alien invaders. Here, it serves as the last name of one of The Tentacle's about-to-be victims. Siegel must have either liked the name or was including it as something of an in-joke here.

Why would Chief dismiss Bardsley as a nut when he reports that his life has been threatened? If he had screamed into his phone something like “My plants are trying to kill me! Help!” I’d understand, but “I’ve received an anonymous letter threatening my life! I’ve locked myself in!”? What’s so crazy about that? Insisting that the next victim make himself bait for a killer isn’t much better either. Not sure what Siegel’s trying to accomplish with this character- he’s an idiot to be sure, but not exactly what I’d call comic relief.

Corrigan doesn’t exactly shine either, forgetting, as he does, that he should be able to do far more as The Spectre than as Corrigan. Stories involving superpowered beings have to overlook things like that from time to time to work of course, but his cavalier response to Lakespur announcing that he intends to lock himself in his room (“Go ahead if it’ll make you feel any better!”) doesn’t exactly acquit him of any culpability in his death.

Interestingly, the line between where The Spectre begins and Jim Corrigan ends becomes further blurred in this issue when Corrigan races into the room after The Spectre has saved The Tentacle’s intended victim as if the two are separate beings. When the detective remarks, “Now if we could only locate the creator of this fiendish thing…”, The Spectre remarks, “Thanks for the suggestion, Jim!” as if the two aren’t privy to one another’s thoughts and actions while apart.

As a locked room mystery it’s pretty basic – it doesn’t ever really contradict itself, but at the same time, doesn’t give the reader a chance to figure it out on their own. I like that in The Spectre’s corner of the world, a natural explanation is a plant which can grow and reach out and crush the life from its victim as opposed to a poison excreted from a pen or a gas from a cigar – it has to have that little touch of surrealism even when rooted in the real world. Perhaps Corrigan’s laziness this time around was due to things being too normal and therefor boring for him.

Not a bad tale, but the biggest take away is that Chief is an idiot which we already knew. Hoping that he’ll go the way of Wayne Grant and just disappear from the series if Siegel isn’t going to do more with him (even if it means replacing him with Percival Popp).

Perhaps the best summation I can give of my thoughts is that while the story is pretty basic for comic book locked room mysteries, the change of pace is appreciated and a good indication that Siegel is still looking for ways to do something new with the series.

Good point.  I will say that from the looks of these things, it's pretty obvious why all of The Tentacle's victims were assured to be having their backs to them at all times.

Even if Siegel is constrained from having the Spectre be the death-dealing force from the earliest stories, he has at least hit upon one convenient way to incorporate murderous violence--he can have Jim Corrigan be the victim. This is something that few if any of the Spectre's contemporaries could carry off--yeah, there might be some cliff-hanger escapes and apparent demises, but only a ghost can be flat-out murdered on-panel and pop up none the worse for wear. Not that Jerry really relied on that gag to any great degree, but it was an option for thrills that wouldn't have worked with Superman or the Star-Spangled Kid.

Ah, possibly one of the biggest art highlights by Bernard Baily from his work on the Spectre.