Spectre

Police detective Jim Corrigan was murdered and denied passage into the afterlife, instead becoming the earthly host for a godlike spirit of divine vengeance. Returned to the world of the living, he wielded near-limitless supernatural power to confront evil as the Spectre.

Few characters in comics carry the sheer mythic weight of the Spectre, a figure who has haunted the DC Universe since Jerry Siegel and Bernard Baily conjured him into existence in More Fun Comics #65 back in 1941 — one of the most atmospheric debuts of the entire Golden Age. Over an astonishing span stretching across more than eight decades, this supernatural force has proven genuinely timeless, accumulating six key collector issues and 132 catalog appearances that trace a legacy few Golden Age creations can match. He moves through the grandest company imaginable — Green Lantern, Batman, The Flash, and Hawkman share his pages — yet the Spectre always feels like a visitor from somewhere older and stranger than any of them. Whether headlining his own series or haunting the pages of All-Star Squadron and Deadman, he remains one of DC's most enduring and genuinely eerie presences, absolutely essential for any serious collector of the genre.