The Spectre

Does anyone know a good place to start with the Spectre. I reckon those initial comics will feel dated but I also don't want to read some re-imagining of the character either. Also general Spectre thread? What does co think of him? is he a hero all about justice and junk or just a butthurt dead bro out for revenge

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Spectre is one of those characters that I feel like I should have been into, but never really was

The 80's Moench & Colan run is good, but 90's Ostrander version is more well known and more beloved

The Ostrander run is where to start definitely. Although I think Gotham By Midnight was a lot more atmospheric and definitely underrated.

Different medium-wise the DC animated short was great

Moench, Ostrandere and Dematteis hal spectre are all good.

DeMatteis' Spectre was horrendously dull to me. I don't even remember anything from it.

Call me old fashioned but
I like the golden age stuff
I also like the Hal Jordan run
& Gotham by midnight

haha- I like this is there any other example panels of the spectre like this kicking around.

There hasn't really been a bad spectre book.

The golden age stuff is actually pretty smart and grim for the time (and being done by the guy who created superman doesn't hurt either), the 60s-70s appearances in showcase and adventure are bombastic and epic if you can track them down, but the ostrander run is probably your best best.

Days of Vengeance is pretty exciting too

Golden Age Spectre is one of those few Golden Age comics that hasn't aged too poorly at all. I would strongly recommend checking it out, OP. It's some strong, really neat horror/crime stuff.

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>Spectre didn't get a 75 Years collection

Fuck this gay earth

Can confirm.

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>I'm not drunk, you can't tell me what to do

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Would you guys consister kingdom come a spectre story

No, he's featured sure but the story doesn't revolve around him. He's a spectator to it.

I have this. Brilliant.

One thing that royally sucks about Golden Age comic book scans is the "fiche" stuff. Looks like someone went batshit the sharpen and grain filters in photoshop

why can't ben templesmith do more spectre

A Spectrator, if you will.

What's the deal is there a spectre
In all 52 universes? Or like just the one

I'd go with Adventure Comics.
Yeah, stuff from that era can be kinda wordy and repetitive but all you really need to do is not read a whole bunch back to back.

I vote for One that can exist on lots of planes. Heaven is outside of the 52 cluster on Morrison's map, and his power comes from the Prescence

Can we go smaller? Is there even one for every planet?

In the run where Hal is the spectre he was omnipresent

So just how powerful is the Spectre anyways? Could he kill superman? What about big bads from the MCU? Like idk Dormammu or Surtur? Someone like Odin or the Beyonder?

Is Ghost Rider basically Marvel's Spectre? Who is stronger between the two?

I'd say Spectre would have to be stronger than ghost rider what with all that weird astral plane stuff.

I believe that The Spectre is on par with The Living Tribunal, so yeah, he could beat all of the characters you mentioned.

The Presence calls in Michael the Archangel to reign in Spectre when he really gets off his leash and no one fucks with Michael, so yeah he's pretty tough

Lucifer > Michael

Spectre's power level varies wildly depending on circumstances and interpretation. From comic to comic he might have issues taking down magical entities, or he may juggle universes. But in general he's pretty high up there, and rule of thumb is that if he's after you, you're fucked, no matter who you are.

wait... is that a real example? juggling universe!? ffs

When Hal was Spectre he was able to one shot Darkseid with a thought.

Darkseid got back up because apparently it's a fundamental law that he needs to exist, but still. Also while I haven't read many of the crisis events, I'm pretty sure Spectre just rewriting the universe is BASICALLY how one of them ended.

So yeah. He's pretty fucking strong.

No, he didn't do that. But in COIE he basically arm wrestled the Anti-Monitor while holding all of creation in his hands. He had help there tho.

aaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH
BABE

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What part of 'Batgod' is it that people have trouble with?

Then again, that probably wouldn't fly today, because Morrison nerfed the Judeo-Christian God/buffed the New Gods to the same playing field with Multiversity

That was a freebie

Spectre is INVERSELY as powerful or powerless as the situation.

A guy kills his wife for the insurance money? Spectre turns him into glass & shatters him while sending his soul to hell & bringing his dead wife back...and curing her blindness to boot.

The Anti-Monitor, Darksied, Krona & Nekron decide to team up & ass rape the multiverses? Spectre either jobs immediately or says "I am forbidden to interfere for...reasons."

Jon Constantine had a good line about the Spectre in Books of Magic "Sometimes it is LITERALLY THE MOST POWERFUL BEING in the universe and sometimes he's just a bloke in tights..."

Interesting. I've liked the Spectre since I saw a DC animated short about him offing some robbers in a museum or something.

So in short the Spectre is best suited to dealing retribution to street level and minor league criminals, even though he is grossly overqualified?

Has it ever been actually explained why he jobs during a real crisis? Like how the most powerful entity in the universe can suddenly be as useful as Gary in accounting?

I guess the most likely answer would be the human host 'holding them back' or something else like that. Without a host, he's basically just Eclipso. Dude nuked the worlds magik because he wanted to slip his dick into some pussy. That's why you need a host.

At his strongest, he's above 5D imps.

Did he have a human host when he literally genocided all the people from Count Vertigo's country?

The fuck is a 5D imp?

Yes, but at that time Jimbo was hardly even human anymore. He'd been dead for so many years he just acted on instinct when he saw how bad the war was.

Mxyzptlk.

Yep, think he got a stern talking to about that though

Mxyzptlk

>find #1 of the Ostrander run in LCS
>bring it home, it's fucking amazing.
>leave it on desk while I go to sleep
>COVER GLOWS IN THE FUCKING DARK

So cool.

Also interesting.

So Spectre's power I guess is limited by the hosts capacity? Almost like overcharging a battery?
Or would it be more like the Green Lantern rings? The Spectre's capability is only limited by how far the host is willing to go?

Either way the Spectre is quickly becoming my favorite Cape

>The Anti-Monitor, Darksied, Krona & Nekron decide to team up & ass rape the multiverses? Spectre either jobs immediately or says "I am forbidden to interfere for...reasons."

I don't know man, he had a good showing in COIE.

>The Spectre's capability is only limited by how far the host is willing to go?
Yeah, essentially. He was specifically given a human host so he doesn't go around doing shit like this all the time

It's usually some variation of "God doesn't want me to interfere because mysterious ways and whatnot".

The most recent excuse that he can't punish beings without a soul (even though he had zero problems fucking up explicitly souless beings in the past).

Really though, it's mostly that writers love putting him in huge events even if he has no place in them. I'm looking at you, Johns.

The character is quite literally a Deus Ex Machina. If Spectre were allowed to intervene, a lot of DC events wouldn't even happen. But then there'd be no story.

>So in short the Spectre is best suited to dealing retribution to street level and minor league criminals, even though he is grossly overqualified?
yeah pretty much

during a cosmic crisis he'll be mostly useless, but bank robbers better watch the fuck out!

occasionally he'll take on bigger threats but if they're in his solo he'll be okay, if it's in an event book forget it

>Yep, think he got a stern talking to about that though
He got a stern talking about trying to blow up the world, however in regard to blowing up Vlatava Micheal couldn't have given less of a fuck.

Depending on if you considered the Michael from Lucifer to be the same one who talks to him, Michael might have had his hands full at the time. But then again, no one other than Mike Carey was paying attention to Mike Carey's Lucifer series

>I don't know man, he had a good showing in COIE.

Agreed but that was the exception to prove the rule. Ever since then during crossover events he always has to be taken out of action or accounted for since he should be able to fix it but then you'd have no event.

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The Spectre is closely tied in with the Presence, and how the fuck that is handled varies wildly between writers. Gaiman goes super Gnostic with it, Morrison's cosmology doesn't leave much space for a truly omnipotent, all-encompassing Abrahamaic capital-G God.

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in my opinion, one of the hypest cliffhangers in comics history.

Anti-monitor is about to unmake creation. Last page of the issue

"I liked him better when he was Jim Corrigan." - Alan Scott

Hal had nice stint and Crispus was pretty boring, but Jim really is the definitive Spectre.

Well are there?

How exactly does hell and heaven work?

>Goldberg
>steals coins
lel

Of all sad words of tongue or pen the saddest are these: "Sup Forums was right again".

Yep, Spectre's sense of horror still holds true today, which is pretty rare as most horror back in the day is laughable. Also the villains are smart and deadly. Even though the protagonist is more powerful than God there is always some good tension

Yes.

In Final Night it's explained that he was busy keeping the Earth alive.

I consider them to be the same Michael, it actually works in continuity if you shuffle stuff around a bit.

Yeah, my point was that the writers keep pushing into stories despite that. Like he didn't need to be in Blackest Night at all. So why was he?

In DC, you only go to Hell if you believe that you deserve to be punished or if you're forced in there.

The Golden Age Captain Marvel and Plastic Man stories are masterpieces, and Dr Fate is seriously underrated. Haven't read em myself, but I can vouch for the probable quality of the GA Spectre.

And you can actually leave whenever you want.

Has anyone ever seen Doctor Doom and the Spectre in the same room both with a cape on?

Looks to me like they have timeshare on it.

youtube.com/watch?v=ifAtvI48R_0

>red hair, white stripe
Who is to blame for this visual trope? I'm still not convinced these aren't pages from The Demon or Grendel.

The funniest thing is all these types like to congregate in Gotham.

isn't a white stripe a side effect of being rezz'd via lazarus pit?