comicbooks.com Join Free
Home › Jim Corrigan
Jim Corrigan

Jim Corrigan

226 appearances · Golden Age · 1940–2026 · 18 key issues
Who is Jim Corrigan?

A hard-boiled New York City police detective, Jim Corrigan was murdered and his soul refused entry into the afterlife. Instead, a divine force bound him to the mystical Spectre — the embodiment of God's wrath — transforming Corrigan into an nearly all-powerful agent of vengeance on Earth.

Few characters in DC's vast library carry the weight of history quite like Jim Corrigan, who first stepped onto the page in Adventure Comics #47 in 1940, making him a genuine Golden Age original with roots stretching back to comics' earliest heroic era. With 217 catalogued appearances spanning an extraordinary 86 years — from 1940 all the way to 2026 — he is one of the medium's most enduring figures, a testament to how deeply a character can embed himself in a publisher's mythology. His most frequent haunts include The Spectre, All-Star Squadron, and The Brave and the Bold, and he shares his pages with some of DC's most iconic presences: Batman, Bruce Wayne, The Flash, and the Spectre himself. Eighteen of his appearances carry key-issue status, which tells you everything about how seriously collectors and fans have always taken this corner of DC history — Jim Corrigan is not a footnote; he's a foundation.

Identity

Real name. James "Jim" Corrigan

Powers. As host of the Spectre: vast magical/divine power — near-omnipotence, reality alteration, intangibility, invisibility, flight, energy projection, size alteration; agent of divine vengeance.

Affiliations. Justice Society of America; All-Star Squadron; (in life) NYC Police Department detective

★ First appearance
More Fun Comics #52
Feb 1940

Trivia

  • Jim Corrigan stands as one of DC's earliest and most enduring posthumous superheroes, his body effectively shared with a divine avenger—a setup that defined the Spectre as a uniquely theological crimefighter in mainstream comics.en.wikipedia.org
  • The Spectre stories built around Corrigan made a dead detective a recurring member of the Justice Society of America, establishing him as one of the first supernatural figures folded into a superhero team rather than kept outside the genre's core ensemble.en.wikipedia.org
  • Following the Silver Age revival, DC used Corrigan as the Spectre's human anchor in stories that shifted him from a straightforward vengeance engine into a more conflicted, morally weighted character—a transformation that proved especially significant in later DC continuity.en.wikipedia.org
  • John Ostrander has written more of Jim Corrigan's comics than any other writer in our catalog — 45 issues.

Top series

Covers through the years — 1940–2020

Superman #7 1940
Superman #7
House of Mystery #156 1966
House of Mystery #156
Justice League of America #110 1974
Justice League of America #110
DC Comics Presents #38 1981
DC Comics Presents #38
Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #3 1985
Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe #3
Congorilla #1 1992
Congorilla #1
The Spectre #62 1998
The Spectre #62
Green Arrow #17 2002
Green Arrow #17
The Brave and the Bold #17 2008
The Brave and the Bold #17
The Spectre #1 2014
The Spectre #1
Justice League of America by Brad Meltzer: The Deluxe Edition #[nn] 2020
Justice League of America by Brad Meltzer: The Deluxe Edition #[nn]

Appearances (1–150 of 226, oldest first)

Adventure Comics (1938)
More Fun Comics (1936)
Batman (1940)
Superman (1939)
Flash Comics (1940)
#13
All-Star Comics (1940)
#8
Sensation Comics (1942)
#2
Teen Titans (1966)
#1
House of Mystery (1951)
Showcase (1956)
Justice League of America (1960)
The Brave and the Bold (1955)
The Steranko History of Comics (1970)
#1
DC 100-Page Super Spectacular (1971)
#6
Famous First Edition (1974)
Bumper Batcomic (1976)
#2
Wonder Woman (1942)
The Comics Journal (1977)
DC Comics Presents (1978)
All-Star Squadron (1981)
The Best of DC (1979)
#21
Les Géants des Super-Héros (1981)
#4
L'Escadron des Etoiles (1982)
#4
All-Star Squadron Annual (1982)
#2
Who's Who: The Definitive Directory of the DC Universe (1985)
Crisis on Infinite Earths (1985)
#8
Hawkman (1986)
#9
Action Comics (1938)
Who's Who: Update '87 (1987)
Young All-Stars (1987)
Detective Comics (1937)
The Spectre Annual (1988)
#1
Adventures of Superman (1987)
Justice League Europe (1989)
Justice League America (1989)
The Superman Archives (1989)
Hawkworld (1990)
#8
Hawk and Dove Annual (1990)
#2
Hawkworld Annual (1990)
#2
Green Lantern Corps Quarterly (1992)
Congorilla (1992)
#1
Star Trek (1989)
#49
Swamp Thing (1985)
Guy Gardner: Warrior (1994)
#39
JLA Secret Files (1997)
#1
Superman: The Doomsday Wars (1998)
#2
Starman (1994)
#69
Great American Comic Books (2001)
JLA (1997)