Cheap Golden Age Spectre Archives, Vol. 1 (DC Comics Archives) (Book) (Jerry Siegel) Price

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Customer Reviews of Golden Age Spectre Archives, Vol. 1 (DC Comics Archives)

A haunting read!!!

Appreciate it for its originality
Jerry Siegel's writing is energetic and fast-paced, and Bernard Bailey's art gives The Spectre a simultaneously bright and creepy feel. As stated in the previous review, The Spectre himself was a truly original idea for the time. He dresses unlike any other hero of his day, and his powers are almost limitless.

This is, however, my main complaint with this collection. How do you create difficult, dramatic situations for a character with seemingly ultimate power over the entire universe? Why does he not just blink every gangster on earth out of existence? If he can heal the sick and bring back the dead, why not end all disease? And so on... While often providing entertaining scenarios to read, this collection never really answers those questions. Comics historian Jerry Bails tries to justify this in the foreward, but with limited success. Basically, he just says read it and don't think about that kind of thing.

Overall, this is a collection to be appreciated for its scope and ambition above its practicality. If you're a fan of the golden age, I'm sure you'll enjoy this. If you're not, this may even make you one. But either way, I'm not sure you'll end up with a satisfied grasp of the character or his place in the DC universe.

Surprisingly impressive
Most of the early war comics from the late 30s and early 40s tend to be the same story told over and over again. While a number of The Spectre stories follow a pattern, they are told with a panache lacking in most other comics of the day.

The Spectre is a slain police detective whose spirit is returned to earth to rid it of crime. The very concept makes it the most original character of its time. Jerry Siegel, half of the duo that created Superman, uses this extraordinary concept to explore the idea of a hero with no real limitations and takes us places no other writer in the 40s thought of. The Spectre faces his enemies with an amazing battery of powers, sometimes just willing them out of existence. He travels to other planets, even other dimensions.

Bernard Bailey's illustration, while not spectacular, holds up to just about any other artist of the day, with the possible exception of Bill Everett. The costume he created for The Spectre is unusual, break the unwritten rule of the era. Heroes were always dressed in primary colors and villians in seconday. The Spectre is garbed in green and white. It is suitably erie for a rather creepy character. (Green Lanten would later break this rule as well, dressed in a tacky orange, green and purple ensemble.)

This is actually some of the best the golden age of comics has to offer.