The Spectre #2

The second issue of DC's 1987 "New Format" Spectre series opens with a hauntingly atmospheric cover by Michael Wm. Kaluta — a swirling, ghostly green Spectre looms and coils behind a poised woman in a flowing red dress, her gaze cool and composed as mystical energy spirals down toward a ring of lit candles at her feet, a black cat prowling nearby. The tension between the supernatural force and the eerily unrattled woman sets a deliciously dark, occult mood that feels right at home in the series' gothic sensibility. Inside, writer Doug Moench and artist Gene Colan carry that atmosphere forward in "First Stirrings," a creative pairing well-suited to stories where the shadows have real weight.