By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service

DC Comics is undergoing something of a superhero renaissance of late, which is reflected in a host of terrific collections in my Teetering Tower of Revew Stuff:* The history leading up to “Final Crisis” ($29.99, by Grant Morrison, J.G. Jones and Doug Mahnke) is a long, strange trip – as is the book itself.

Short history: DC’s superhero books have a tradition dating back to 1963 of an annual crisis of some sort, generally in the summer, bringing together its biggest stars for a huge adventure (or if you’re cynical, a huge sales event). Last year, the Powers That Be determined that 2008 would be the last: a Final Crisis.

Tapped to write it is one of the amazing writers of our generation. Grant Morrison thinks laterally, and has an encyclopedic knowledge of DC’s publishing history. The result in this case is a crisis that stretches from the first boy on earth (“Anthro,” a short-lived caveman book of the ‘60s) to the last one (“Kamandi,” a ‘70s book set in a dystopic future run by animals). In between we’ve got a giddy adventure involving the transition from the “Fourth World” of gods to the Fifth, the return of the most famous Flash from the dead, the triumph of the anti-life equation, a trip to the “overvoid” involving 4-D Vision, the death of Batman (sorta), Japanese cosplay, the land of canceled characters, an army of transdimensional Supermen and the end of the world.

It took better than a year, but in the autumn of 1967, the Spectre was awarded his own title.  For the first time since the concept of parallel Earths had been presented to the readers, DC launched a series set entirely on Earth-Two.

But why the Spectre?  DC had floated a few concepts for an Earth-Two series past the readers.  The Doctor Fate-Hourman team in Showcase.  The Starman-Black Canary team-up in The Brave and the Bold.  That’s not to mention the occasional appearances of the original Flash, Green Lantern, and Atom in the titles of their respective Earth-One counterparts.  Those stories had always proven popular with the fans.

Common sense says that sales dictated the decision.  I don’t have any way of accessing the sales figures for the Ghostly Guardian’s three Showcase try-outs, but DC insisted that they had found overwhelming favour with the readership.  In the letters page of that first issue of The Spectre, editor Julius Schwartz explained:

But you can’t keep a good man down . . . not when the insistent clamor from the readers demands otherwise!  So once again---thanks to his admiring public---the Spirit Sleuth has been resuscitated---in his own regularly scheduled magazine.  We’ll work like the devil (villain-wise) to give you the tops in thrilling entertainment.  We won’t fail you---so don’t fail us to---KEEP THE SPECTRE ALIVE!

To corroborate this reported popularity, the lettercol carried strongly congratulatory letters on the Spectre’s Showcase appearances by regular correspondants such as Joseph Arul, Bob Butts, and Paul Seydor.

By Andrew A. Smith

Scripps Howard News Service 

He launched the superhero revival in 1956, which continues to this day. He ran for 30 years as the Fastest Man Alive, in his own title, in the Justice League, as a guest star and on TV. He’s been gone for 23 years, after having died heroically in a cosmic crisis and replaced by his own protégé.

And now he’s back.

Barry Allen, a police scientist, was the second man called The Flash. (The first was a 1940s speedster who remains a supporting character.) And with “Flash: Rebirth” No. 1 (of 5, DC Comics, $3.99), DC’s star writer Geoff Johns is returning the character to his rightful position in the DC Universe of superhero books.

Scripps Howard News Service

As “Star Trek” continues to soar effortlessly at the top of the box office, it’s obvious that auteur J.J. Abrams has figured out how to stretch the franchise’s appeal beyond the hard-core fans. And yet, the new movie also appeals to the Trekkers (or Trekkies, or – as I call ‘em – “my peeps”).

How’d he do that? By being very, very smart.

For example, more than a few new fans have asked about the central conceit of the film, the temporal paradox that allows two versions of Spock to exist at the same time. Not being regular Trek fans, they saw it as an unnecessary complication. Not being regular SF fans, the idea of parallel timelines was difficult to grasp. So howcum?

Answer: It may be the smartest part of the film.

DC immediately followed up its reintroduction of the Spectre with a second adventure, in Showcase # 61 (Mar.-Apr., 1966).   As with all the Golden-Age revivals of 1965, the golden talents of Julius Schwartz, Gardner Fox, and Murphy Anderson – who, among the fans, were rapidly becoming known as the architects of the Silver-Age Earth-Two – were brought to bear.

Unlike the previous Golden-Age efforts, this second Spectre tale directly followed on the events which saw the Ghostly Guardian’s return after a twenty-year absence.  “Beyond the Sinister Barrier” opens with three vignettes of individuals in peril.  A Mongolian bandit dying of thirst in the Gobi Desert.  A French spelunker trapped by a cave-in.  A big-game huntress in Africa, about to be trampled by a rampaging bull elephant.  In each case, the victim’s doom is inescapable.  And in each case, a mysterious disembodied voice promises salvation – in exchange for the doomed one’s shadow.   In desperation, all three agree to the barter, and as their shadows vanish, the bandit receives water, the caver finds his path to the surface instantly cleared, and the huntress shoots the elephant with bullets magically inserted into her empty rifle.

There is a fourth instance.  In  Gateway City, a window-washer’s safety belt breaks forty stories up.  As he plunges to certain death, the mysterious voice offers the same trade:  his shadow for his life.  The man agrees and instantly finds himself floating to the ground.  Bystander Jim Corrigan, captain of detectives, witnesses the spectacle in amazement.  Then, his ghostly persona within him points out that the man no longer casts a shadow.

Realising that a supernatural force is at work, the Spectre leaves Jim’s body and  trails the window-washer.  As the Ghostly Guardian hovers invisibly overhead, suddenly he is drawn inside the man’s body, where the detached shadow lies in wait.  The sinister shade hurls the Spectre out of the physical universe.

It’s a great opening hook.  Five pages in, and already a fistful of mystery and danger has been thrown at the reader.  It’s the best part of the book.