The Phantom Stranger and Spectre are both 'limited' in use due to their powers...but the 70s comic book, drawn by aparo, did manage to put Spectre into some errie storylines. This was before he became the 'fall back position' in every DC event..
The spectre, as seen in this short, may not be as powerful as his later self, which is fine with me if they can tell stories like this one...maybe not every week, but once a month..I found it appealing with the film/noir they were striving for as well...kind of like bringing a 40s hero into now..
And wasn't he created by one of the SUPERMAN creators? I wonder if they own HIS rights or not?
rob
He and Doctor Occult are Jerry Siegel's. Doctor Occult was drawn much like early CK. But no one is making billions off of them, so I doubt the families are seeking anything. I would say to DC/WB - while contracts like the ones S&S signed were and are standard fare, you did go out of your way to treat them shabbily for years to come. Make the families an insane offer that hurts for a year or two but ends this. They are trying to avenge a wrong and get some compensation for an all-time fiction and marketing icon, but as long as their attorneys are whispering in their ears, 'we'll farm out the rights' threats will recur. Make it 1.2 or 12 Billion, to match up with the 1200 S&S took and felt they were taken by. But make the offer huge enough that pride and the courts are put aside. I've heard that they refused, but amp it up until they don't.
Back to The Spectre--in any form he is essentially an avenging angel, so his limits are what the writers want of him in this or that story.
When they reprinted the Aparo stories some years back, one of the eeriest was a side story about a family with a young son who would scare people by turning into a demon. That was all he did--scare them with the sudden transformation. For this he was lobotomized and then sat out on their front lawn with a vacant stare. The family was proud of making him conform--and that was how it ended. The narrator-- Lucien or Cain, I'm not sure which - ended with a warning that this was what happens to nonconformists. And it seemed to be on the conformists' side!
After that, seeing criminals made into kindling (literally) just didn't seem so bad.
