In the late 1960s, DC comics decided to give The Spectre his own series. To say that this series was weird is an understatement. It’s not quite on the level of the Fleisher/Aparo stories (in Adventure Comics), but those are top of the food chain for Bronze Age comics. This title had a few different creative teams on it even though it was only a ten issue run. Some huge names involved and the stories are all over the place (in a good way).

In this issue (the main story), we see The Spectre as he’s chained to a “Journal of Judgement” for his failings in the eyes of the creator. We get to go back in time, as Jim Corrigan and his partner try to bust up a crime ring. The Sargent gets shot and killed and then another crook tries to shoot Jim in the back. The Spectre rises up and kills the man. Corrigan then confronts The Spectre, and the two fight. It appears as though he kills Corrigan, and that’s when he’s forced back to the spirit realm, and gets punished.

This story is pretty wild, but very consistent with the others from this run (and the subsequent Adventure Comics run). We see that the Spectre has no problem killing people, no matter what the cause! Written by Mike Friedrich, art by Jerry Grandenetti and Bill Draut. Another incredibly awesome fact about this issue is that it has a back up story (told by The Spectre) about a magician that runs afoul of the devil! Oh, and did I mention this story was written by Denny O’Neil and illustrated by Bernie Wrightson? There’s also a third story (Shadow Show, writer- Mark Hanerfeld, art by Jack Sparling), where The Spectre terrorizes a thief! All of this is kicked off by a great cover by Nick Cardy!