I first learned about the Spectre through reading Alex Ross and Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come, I though he was a really cool character with a lot of power. Like so many other characters in mainstream comics they’ve retold his story over and over and tweaked it each time. For the most part he’s stayed the same, the right hand of god, and the spirit of vengeance, whatever you want to call him he’s a force not to be taken lightly.
Depending on whose writing the character he can be very interesting to read about, I think for the most part he’s been handled fairly well, but in some cases like in recent years I think they’ve made some poor choices for the character. I myself prefer Jim Corrigan over Crispus Allen, in some stories they say depending on the host of the Spectre will determine how powerful he is, but in some stories they say it does not matter who the Spectre uses as a host his power set will be the same.
I much prefer when Spectre is truly a spirit of vengeance going after anyone or anything that has done wrong and punishing them, sometimes in a very extreme manner. I loved the Batman Brave and Bold episode “Chill Of The Night” in which the Spectre and Phantom Stranger are watching over Batman and Spectre see’s Batman as potential killer and tries to encourage him to kill his villains instead of just locking them up in jail, while Phantom stranger thinks that killing a person is not the right course of action for Batman/Bruce Wayne no matter how evil or devious the bad guy might be.
The animated short that DC/WB put out was also a good representation of him, I am disappointed it was not a full length feature they could have done so much more with the story. The Spectre is to regular ghost what Superman is to ordinary men, he’s not a joke at all, I’ve seen the Spectre do the impossible and then some, but he’s not invincible and has been beaten, but it takes high level guys to take him down and keep him down, Eclipso and Mandrakk are some of the few I can name off the top of my head that have beaten the Spectre.
I have always wanted to know why doesn’t Spectre go after guys like the Joker or Lex Luthor or even Darkseid since his whole character theme is punishing the evil and Joker, Luthor and Darkseid are amongst the most vile people in the DCU, maybe it’s just bad writing or DC really not knowing what do with him, hopefully he shows up in the new DC 52 universe books or gets his own series for that matter (written by Neil Gaimen I might add).
I have heard that they want to make a television show based around him, this would make me very happy if not for the fact that live action superhero shows have a bad track record and especially DC related characters Smallville, Birds Of Prey or the failed Wonder-woman pilot ring any bells? Personally I think he deserves a movie, done right it think he would have a new fanbase, but what do I know I’m just a fan.
Anyway that’s why I like the character of The Spectre, if you want know more about him check out his wiki page here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectre_(comics)
