the collection: recent additions
Been in a bit of a collecting lull of late, mostly sticking with new comics releases and the occasional “ok I can’t pass this up” splurge, this sheet of Walter B. Gibson’s memo paper being among them…
Been on a Spectre kick lately, too…
Scratch one off the “comics I must own before I die and even then” list…
With No. 6, DICK TRACY SMASHES THE BOMBING RACKET, I’ve now only one more to go to complete my set of the 1934 Goudy Big Thrill booklets…
And, finally, in “I’m sure I’m now on a list somewhere” additions...
“refold to make 9 funny pictures”
The similarity between myself and “bad-tempered hermit” is striking.
THE SPECTRE, Vol. 3, No. 8 (Ostrander / Mandrake; DC, 1993)
Every Wednesday morning, I make a blind pull from Siri's (randomized) choice of one of the 20 alphabetically-organized shortboxes that constitute my comics collection, (re-)read it, write about it, and publish the resultant review / memory / whatever. Earlier installments live here.
(Box16): One of the crown jewels of the 90s (words rarely uttered though the era does hold a special place in my heart), DC doesn't get much better than this SPECTRE series, a perfect collision (similar to the 00’s JONAH HEX series) of writer and artist and characters – Corrigan / Spectre (Mandrake's Spectre, like Kaluta's Shadow and Adams's Batman) is THE Spectre, as far as I'm concerned), Amy, Nate – pushed to their limits in a deft balance of the topical (HIV ignorance) with the timeless (demons and the afterlife and human nature and all): in a just world, this volume of THE SPECTRE would be spoken in the same breath as Gaiman's SANDMAN.
I've always imagined (supported by evidence of previous lackluster efforts) The Spectre – a mostly-naked, pasty, all powerful vehicle of wrath and vengeance in pixie boots, a hooded cloak, and a speedo – to be a difficult character to get right: while he has limitless power and can do anything (not always a good thing), from punishing a mugger to stepping in to bring one Crisis after another to an end, he's not the most elastic of DC's stable (a la Superman or Batman): punishment, wrath, green cape, a dead cop powerless to stop his perpetual companion.
Ostrander and Mandrake succeed where others failed (and continue to do so (while all have been solid – I'm a big fan of Hal Jordan’s time as The Spectre, as vehicle of redemption, one of those rare transformations that, to me, worked; and I wish Crispus Allen had had a longer tenure – there hasn't been a capital-G Great take like Ostrander/Mandrake on The Spectre in awhile) by leaning in and pushing the character and his staples to their nth degree: their Spectre is both heroic and terrifying, a potent mixture of hardboiled private eye and embodiment of vengeance; I would both love and hate to see Tom Mandrake draw my greatest fears.
While it's been in the "pick them up whenever you see them" file, I'm adding this series to my list of "runs to complete”; an absolute pleasure to revisit.
Silver Age DC extravaganza.
