The Spectre: You Can’t Go Home Again, Chapter 1: The Body

by Dave Barnowski

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As the Nelsons left that Sunday afternoon, Jim Corrigan was grateful to have had an uneventful, fun weekend with old friends.

That night he was awakened by the memory of the first time he had died. It was as clear as the horrible night it had happened forty-eight years earlier. He was fighting the Gat Benson gang, defending his fiancée at the time, Clarice Winston. The gangsters knocked him unconscious, then placed him into a large barrel full of cement before throwing the barrel into Lake Erie. Corrigan was dead, his soul on its way to its just reward, when it was intercepted by a disembodied Voice and a bright, multicolored light. Corrigan was given the choice of returning to Earth and fighting evil as a spirit, or go on to his reward. Corrigan chose to return to Earth. (*)

[(*) Editor’s note: See The Spectre, More Fun Comics #52 (February, 1940) and The Spectre, More Fun Comics #53 (March, 1940).]

That had been February, 1940. Today was September 2, 1988. Jim Corrigan awoke in a fright, not knowing where he was or what year it was. His wife awoke with him, noting that the bed was soaked with sweat, as was the man she loved. She’d seen this before, because she had gone through the horrors of Jim’s post-traumatic stress disorder with him in the past, and she knew all about his flashbacks. She didn’t reach out to hold him, but merely waited for him to reach for her, as she knew he would. After a moment Jim’s breathing calmed down, and he took stock of where he was and what year it was. Reaching out, he held her in his arms as he told her what had happened.

“You haven’t had a flashback in a long, long time, Jim,” said Andrea. “Something might be up psychologically.”

“Yeah,” said Jim, wiping the sweat from his brow. “But just as likely it’s a warning sign of some kind, given the fact that I’m the Spectre in my spare time.”

Andrea looked long and hard at her husband before saying in a soft voice, “Maybe the Spectre’s trying to warn you about something.”

Jim’s face became as grim as Andrea had ever seen it. She knew that he was becoming very angry. The idea of his becoming angry at a manifestation of rage personified was a bad idea. “Jim, I need you to calm down, if you’re going to the place where you and the Spectre talk.”

Now Jim flashed her a look of anger, but it was fleeting, because anger was no longer the dominant emotion in his personality; love had replaced it. Andrea and their children were the reason for that. Corrigan was a man redeemed. He gave his wife a simple smile, the kind a man gave his lover when he knew he’d been acting foolishly. Jim leaned over and gave Andrea a peck on the cheek just before he vanished.

Andrea looked at the clock and saw that she had an hour before she had to get the girls up for school, anyway. She decided to treat herself by taking a quick, hot bath before the bathroom became a hotbed of activity.

***

The Ghostly Guardian once known as the Spectre dwelt in a place beyond time and space. He was a powerless spirit now; all he could do was watch as Jim Corrigan meted out justice as the Spectre. Corrigan was redeeming the souls of the murderers and ignoring the victim’s cries for vengeance. The spirit disapproved of the way Corrigan used his abilities, but the Voice had given James Corrigan total control over the powers of the Spectre, and had told the Ghostly Guardian that he had much to learn from the Gotham City police detective.

Corrigan was teaching the Spectre mercy. The Spirit of Vengeance wasn’t finding the lessons very palatable. From this place he could only watch Corrigan. This was very hard on the spirit. As the Spectre, he had formerly been able to move about the multiverse at will. He had been known to destroy evil places he happened upon. Whole planets, universes, and dimensions had been obliterated in his anger. Unfortunately, he had done so without regard for any goodness that also existed there. The spirit now knew he had been wrong.

The Spectre was a powerful spirit directed by Heaven to fight evil. He had to have an anchor, a mortal to serve as mooring. The Ghostly Guardian came to Earth from time to time; one of those times was the year 1940, but something happened then that hadn’t ever occurred before. The self-proclaimed Spirit of Vengeance had always thought that it was an accident until recently. During the last few months he had come to realize during his months of reflection and learning that the Voice did not have accidents.

James Corrigan was always going to be the one whom the Ghostly Guardian would ask to be his anchor. The Cliffland police detective had been a gruff, tough cop, whose preferred methods of dealing with criminals mirrored the Spectre’s. Unfortunately, Corrigan died before the Spectre could ask him. Therefore, the Voice gave the man’s soul a choice whether he would continue on to his just reward, or return to Earth and become the Spectre.

The Voice dictated to the Spectre that James Corrigan would now be given all of his power and abilities, as well as the spirit’s basic knowledge. Corrigan was not to know how he knew these things. The Spectre therefore also set up mental blocks so that the detective did not even question why he knew them; he just accepted them as they were.

James Corrigan was the Spectre in the 1940s. He was the charter member of the Justice Society of America, while the Ghostly Guardian — the real Spectre — was relegated to the background. The ageless spirit had hated it then just as much as he hated it now.

In 1945, an evil spirit named Azmodus merged with his first human host. Once that occurred, neither Azmodus nor the Spectre could operate on Earth, and both were trapped within their respective mortal bodies until 1965.

The Ghostly Guardian was in control of the Spectre when he emerged once more from James Corrigan after twenty years had passed, and Azmodus’ first human host died. The Spectre dispatched Azmodus, while James Corrigan battled and arrested Paul Nevers, his new human host. (*) Corrigan accepted that he and the Spectre were two separate beings without any difficulty, thanks to a spell cast upon him by the Spectre. At the same time, the Spectre didn’t have his nearly overwhelming thirst for vengeance on criminals and evil, at least at first.

[(*) Editor’s note: See “War That Shook the Universe,” Showcase #60 (January-February, 1966).]

That very lack of need for vengeance saved the world when an incredibly powerful alien spirit possessed a small boy and wreaked all kinds of havoc on the planet. The Spectre and the possessed child fought across the globe until the Spectre vowed that he would continue the fight forever, if he had to, but would not harm the boy. The alien spirit admitted defeat, because that had been its purpose all along — it had wanted the Spectre to kill the child. Thus it left the boy unharmed. (*) That particular memory had been nagging at the Ghostly Guardian of late.

[(*) Editor’s note: See “Stop That Kid Before He Wrecks the World,” The Spectre #4 (May-June, 1968).]

Eventually came the day in 1969 when the Spectre’s anger flared, and he killed a criminal who was about to shoot Corrigan in the back. When Corrigan argued that the Spectre had no right to take a life, and should have let him arrest the criminal, the Spectre abused him by trying to force his way back into his body. After Corrigan flatly refused to let the Ghostly Guardian enter his body and rest, the Voice intervened and separated James Corrigan and the Spectre, and each went their separate ways for the next seventeen years. (*) Despite some initial disciplinary measures, the Spectre started down a long road in which he became crueler and crueler in his meting out of justice against murderers.

[(*) Editor’s note: See “Journal of Judgment,” The Spectre #9 (March-April, 1969).]

Finally, much more recently the Voice once more decreed that the Spectre would again be tied to Jim Corrigan, with Corrigan in charge. (*) There was nothing the self-proclaimed Spirit of Vengeance could do to change that. Now, after more than a year and a half, the Ghostly Guardian finally accepted that fact.

[(*) Editor’s note: See The Spectre: Chance of a Ghost.]

That wasn’t the reason he had contacted Corrigan tonight. He had, in fact, been trying to contact the detective for the past two weeks, because he needed to warn Corrigan. The detective had been ignoring the Ghostly Guardian, and he needed to take more drastic action. The Ghostly Guardian was connected to Corrigan, body and soul. Not just his body in Gotham City, but also his original one.

The last time his body had been at risk of being discovered was in 1942, when the Voice allowed Jim Corrigan to regain his original body while retaining the powers of the Spectre, thus preserving the secret that he was a dead man. (*) It was thanks to Corrigan’s physical body being restored to him that he and the Spectre were able to be separated a couple of years later in 1944. At that time, Corrigan was able to enlist as an officer in order to fight in World War II, while the Spectre was reduced to an intangible, invisible phantom. (*)

[(*) Editor’s note: See “Crime-Buster by Proxy,” More Fun Comics #90 (April, 1943), which necessarily takes place in 1944 after the Spectre’s last case as a JSA member as seen in “The Plunder of the Psycho-Pirate,” All-Star Comics #23 (Winter, 1944-1945).]

In 1945, toward the end of the war, the Spectre needed to regain full power at a critical time, so Jim Corrigan and the Spectre were once more reunited. (*) However, this restoration of power to the Spectre had come at a high cost — for Corrigan had been forced to give up his precious original body, which was then restored to its original state, that of a lifeless corpse submerged in a barrel of cement in the deep waters off the pier at Cliffland.

[(*) Editor’s note: This is an untold story that happened sometime before the events of “Tomorrow’s Gods and Demons,” Wonder Woman #242 (April, 1978) and “The Five-Sided Square,” Wonder Woman #243 (May, 1978), taking place on V-J Day on August 14, 1945, by which time the Spectre had regained his power and briefly rejoined the JSA.]

That body was entombed in what was now a rotted-out barrel of cement in Lake Erie under the wharves of Cliffland, Ohio. The Cliffland waterfront was supposedly undergoing a renovation, but what was really going on was that someone was looking for the body of James Corrigan.

***

James Corrigan was still smoldering with anger when he went to the realm in which the Ghostly Guardian resided. He had heeded his wife’s admonition that he should not confront the spirit in an angry manner, because the Spectre was an ethereal manifestation of rage personified. He had waited until his ire was controllable. The last vestiges of the police detective’s wrath had disappeared when he saw the spirit.

This place had no height, width, nor depth; it was akin to an endless cloud. When Corrigan entered, no doorway opened; he just appeared in the middle of the cloud and floated face-to-face with the Ghostly Guardian, who looked like the Spectre, while Corrigan looked like himself. However, Corrigan had never seen the Spectre like this before. The Ghostly Guardian’s hood was off his bald, bowing head, and he stood erect with his arms at his side and his gloved hands palms outward facing Corrigan. It was posture of submission. Corrigan’s curiosity rose as his anger shrank.

“I apologize for giving you that dream, James Corrigan, but you did not come when I called for your attention before,” said the Spectre in a voice that frightened even the bravest of men.

“That’s because our conversations are always about how the murdered victims cry out for vengeance. It grows tiring after a while, Spectre,” said Corrigan in a terse, irritable tone that spoke volumes.

The Spectre remained quiet for a time as he contemplated Corrigan’s words. “That is a point of contention between us, James Corrigan. I have been reflecting on your attempts to give murderers redemption. But that is not why I called for you.”

Corrigan’s right eyebrow rose at this piece of information. “Then why have you called me?” he asked.

“I am tied to you, James Corrigan. I am always aware of what you are doing and where you are.”

Corrigan looked at the Spectre and thought of his wife as he said, “You’re always with me? You always know what I’m doing?”

“There are times when I look away, James Corrigan.” Corrigan could have sworn that his ghostly counterpart would have had a tinge of red on his cheeks if the Spectre had been a creature of flesh and blood instead of ectoplasm. “Watching the bonds of love you have for your family gives me pleasure. But again, that is not why I called.”

“Then why did you call, Moon-Face?” Corrigan noted that the Spectre had a momentary look of hurt when the detective called him by that nickname. Before the Spectre could answer, Corrigan said, “You don’t like when I call you that, do you?”

“No. We were once friends, James Corrigan,” said the Spectre. “When you call me that, it reminds me of how badly I have treated you and other innocents in the past.”

“I’ll remember that, Spectre. Why don’t you call me Jim, like you used to?” said Corrigan, who was thinking that perhaps his efforts with the Spectre were paying off, after all.

“Very well… Jim. I called you here because it is not just you that I am always with. Before the Crisis, I was aware of all the Jim Corrigans in the Multiverse, but now I am only with you.”

Corrigan interrupted by saying, “So you said, Spectre, but what does that have to do with anything now?”

“Jim, I am also in constant touch with your body — your original body — the one that Gat Benson murdered, then threw in a barrel filled with cement before dumping it into the lake in Cliffland.”

Corrigan hadn’t thought of that body — his body — for a while, at least since Easter the previous year when he paid a visit to that old pier in Cliffland where his body had been dumped back in 1940. (*) He audibly swallowed in a fear that was rising in him just by talking about his corpse. “What… what does that have to do with anything, Spectre?”

[(*) Editor’s note: See The Spectre: The Specter of Easter.]

The Spectre waved his left arm, and suddenly Jim could see the block of cement where his original body was, the surrounding barrel having rotted away years ago. “Someone is looking for this, Jim. They’re hiding their search by including it as part of a renovation project for Cliffland’s waterfront. Whoever it is, their purpose is evil. They wish us ill, Jim. You need to remove the body and hide it.”

Corrigan’s post-traumatic stress disorder was rising fast; he was having trouble concentrating. “Who?”

“I do not know. Remove it now, Jim, before it is too late!” exclaimed the Spectre.

Corrigan, who now controlled all the power of the Ghostly Guardian, tried to do as the Spectre bade him, but instead he dropped to his knees and sobbed. “I can’t, Spectre.”

“I thought you were over this,” said the Spectre.

“You don’t get over something like dying, Spectre. You learn to live with it.” Corrigan again tried to move the cement block that held his corpse, and was again unable to do so because of his overwhelming emotions.

“If you cannot do this, Jim, you must ask another to do it — one of your friends from the Justice Society.”

Jim looked up at the Spectre with tears in his eyes. He was unable to explain why he was so overcome with emotion. “I could give you back the power of the Spectre.”

“No, the Voice has assigned us our roles, Jim. We cannot change them, no matter what the reason.”

Jim nodded, then wiped his eyes and said, “Okay, Spectre, I’ll visit the JSA’s mansion before I go to work.” The Spectre nodded. Corrigan stood and exited the Spectre’s realm without another word.

The Spectre was once more alone. “Godspeed, Jim. I fear for both of us,” he said in a whisper.

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