Resurrecting a godlike being
1. The Spectre #1 by Doug Moench and Gene Colan
Doug Moench had a rather strange place in DC Comics in the 1980s. While he would have his last major work in the comics field a few years later with his run on Batman, in the eighties his focus was mostly on oddball out-of-continuity titles. He created books that most people have completely forgotten like Slash Maraud, Lords of the Ultra-Realm, and The Electric Warrior. Gene Colan was nearing the end of his regular monthly comics work. They don’t seem like the obvious team to debut the post-Crisis relaunch of the character.
The story kicks off with two separate plot threads. The Spectre is being chastised by disembodied figures for his recent failures both during the Crisis and the recent events of Swamp Thing. Meanwhile, a young woman named Kim Liang suddenly quits the job she’s been highly effective at for some time. A literal object falls out of the sky to force her down an alley… and into the shop of Madame Xanadu.
This disembodied voice declares a need for The Spectre on Earth, but his as punishment takes away his powers and alters his relationship with his host Jim Corrigan. Meanwhile, Xanadu compels Kim to retrieve an ancient vase. From it, they free the dead Corrigan’s body just in time for the Spectre to whisk back to Earth and enter his form. But now the…
