Just because you're dead, doesn't mean you get to go around without pants.
Jeez, third issue of The Spectre this year. Today finds the Spirit of Vengeance hunting pieces of the American Talisman, a spiritual MacGuffin the Founding Fathers used to create an avatar of the colonies to help them combat Great Britain. I think Ostrander retcons Uncle Sam to be one of the later representations of that avatar, but maybe it was already that way.
One of the pieces was sent to Helen Belcanto by an author she works with. Helen's the best editor at thus publisher, but has hit the glass ceiling hard. All the execs, all old men, sit around laughing about how they won't let her in, and she can't play hardball because she 'hasn't got the equipment.' Not really accurate. It may require balls, but it also requires something to strike them with, and I'm sure she has no shortage of options there.
Anyway, the talisman seized on her frustration and anger and created Hellion. Who promptly lit those execs on fire. Well, the Spectre's not down with that, so away we go. Hellion smacks him across the chest with some flaming chains, and when he's surprised it left a mark, asks if he's surprised a woman is capable of such a thing, then binds him up in the chains. He doesn't seem too troubled. Probably thinking, "Man, I make my chains out of spiders or animated children fingers. This stuff ain't shit."
Then Madame Xanadu shows up and complicates everything. Helen, or rather a past life of hers, is Xanadu's daughter. Originally, Xanadu taught her magic, but Past Helen reached for power she couldn't control and it destroyed her. This has repeated itself through the ages, while Xanadu keeps trying to save her. She thinks this might be the last chance. Well, yeah, if the Spectre casts her into Hell.
The Spectre, showing an unusual amount of restraint, leaves them to this and summons live cop Nate Kane to Salem. By pulling him through a railway station bathroom mirror and dumping him out a different mirror. Nate's not pleased, but agrees to locate Helen's home. Except things are getting weird when he steps outside. He's back in Pilgrim times, right as a bunch of folks prepare to hang a woman accused of being a witch. Nate, in period appropriate clothes, barges in and pulls a flintlock pistol on the leader, right as everything snaps back to the present, leaving a lot of confused people. The time distortion is coming in waves, so Nate goes against the flow, figuring he'll find the source.
Back in the boardroom, Hellion and Xanadu are arguing about the best ways to achieve the freedom to be women, however they define that. Xanadu doesn't think using repression and violence against men, as they have against women, will achieve it. Hellion, who points out she didn't kill the executive circle, merely used her version of the Penance Stare on them, plans to do that to everyone. The Spectre finally rejoins the conversation, stating he's not going to allow that.
Moonface acknowledges Hellion has a fair complaint about how women have been abused, but points out somehow Hellion's causing these ripples in time, causing women in this time to suffer horrors that were inflicted on women in the past. It's harming the innocent, and he'll stop her if he has to. Xanadu warns he has to go through her first, over Hellion's protests she doesn't need protecting. I mean, she hasn't been destroyed yet, but the Spectre also hasn't really attacked her, either.
Hellion is very similar to the "man-killer" type super-villainesses the
comics had back in the '70s and on from there, which is kind of rough to
read. It can easily feel like someone using a strawman argument, but I
think the point is this is just Helen's anger and frustration given
physical form. It's not all of what she thinks and feels, just the part
that's hurt and tired, which is why it's causing unintended harm, as
Xanadu warns her. YMMV.
Hellion senses Nate breaking into her apartment, where Helen's body is in a sort of stasis. She rushes off, Xanadu sics her pet demons on the Spectre to keep him away from her daughter. He swears she'll suffer if Nate's harmed, which Xanadu rebuts, pointing out she can't die. I don't think the Spectre would really make her life unending torment as he warns. He'd get bored eventually.
You can imagine how happy Hellion is to find a strange man in her apartment. The Spectre and Xanadu follow before she can harm Nate. Ultimately, everyone agrees (well, not Nate, no one asks him) Helen has the right to choose what she's going to do. She'll just have to accept the consequences. Helen rejects the power, wishing to be more than just anger, and hands off the talisman piece, remarking, 'it's not part of me or any other woman.'
Xanadu offers to teach her more about magic, and Spectre's left wondering if the talisman can ever be whole if it truly excluded so many from the dream of America? Well, you get enough people who agree with its vision of America, like the Republican Party, sure.
[10th longbox, 40th comic. The Spectre (vol. 3) #44, by John Ostrander (writer), Tom Mandrake (artist), Carla Feeny (colorist), Todd Klein (letterer)]
2 comments:
On the whole I loved Ostrander and Mandrake's run on The Spectre, even though I thought the American Talisman storyline was probably the weakest in the whole run. So weak that I actually had a letter printed in an issue either just at the end of or just after that storyline. :)
There are definitely parts of the American Talisman storyline that work better than others, but I think I dug. Definitely liked the idea of a living "legal entity", who was soulless and actively repellent to the Spectre.
The thing from the series I didn't like was there was never a proper reckoning for Spectre killing everyone in the country of Vlatava. Superman and the governments went after him briefly, but then everyone just kind of dropped it. Batman even shows up for Corrigan's funeral.
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