Will I Dig the New Spectre?

Newsarama has been bursting at the seams lately with DC goodness, mostly with the steady trickle of awesome projects that Grant Morrison will be tackling in the months to come. Now, buying what Morrison creates has pretty much become a no-brainer for me, so (this time) I won't bore you with detailed knowledge of how stoked I am for his Batman run, or his WildCATs run, etc.. etc...

However, there is a book featured on Newsrama which I'm cautiously excited about, that might be more interesting to discuss: Will Pfeifer's new Spectre miniseries.

I am emphatically not a Spectre fan. Although I've heard nothing but praise for the John Ostrander run, and am in fact a huge Ostrander fan, I've only read a couple of issues, and wasn't grabbed the was it seems many readers were. A large part of the problem might be that horror comics have never been an interest of mine, and the Spectre comics, while incorporating some of the tropes of superherodom, are at heart horror stories of comeuppance and retribution.

What might make me take a second look at the new Spectre? Two things. Will Pfeifer's writing and Cris Allen in the lead role.

Pfeifer made me like Aquaman. I think we should all pause for a second and take a good look at that short sentence. Aquaman. Buffon of the High Seas. The scaly-shirted tool. Captain Hookhand McBeardy.

I didn't even like Aquaman when Grant Morrison was writing him in JLA. But when Pfeifer took over the solo book, and managed to take him back to his roots while at the same time thrusting him into an innovative, fresh situation (Sub Diego).

So, if anyone could make me give a rat's about The Spectre, Pfeifer is certainly top of the pack.

Plus, Cris Allen is a terrific character. I'm glad he's surviving the end of Gotham Central (um, surviving is probably a poor choice of wording).

So, I will be giving this book a shot. Mostly because Pfeifer's rundown of the concept sounds intruiging:

“This is the kind of mini-series where there’s big, cosmic stuff happening, and there’s action, and violence and weird visions, and the Spectre’s classic ironic sense of punishment, but ultimately, it’s about a man accepting his role in the cosmos, and a man dealing with faith in his own way. That’s the real essence of the series, and the big, flashy colorful stuff is how we get to that point.”

Sounds good to me, and Pfiefer, based on his track record, has earned at least a first issue pick-up from me.