Editing Spectre (DC Comics character) (section)

===Modern Age version===
Three years after the cancellation of the Doug Moench version, the Spectre was again given his own series, this time written by writer and former [[theology]] student [[John Ostrander]], who chose to re-examine the Spectre in his aspects as both the embodied Avenging Wrath of the Murdered Dead and as a brutal 1930s policeman.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Riley |first1=Shannon E. |title=The Spectre: John Ostrander and Tom Mandrake Revisit Their Acclaimed Series |journal=Back Issue |date=August 2018 |issue=#106 |pages=71–76 |publisher=[[TwoMorrows Publishing]]}}</ref>

Ostrander placed the Spectre in complex, morally ambiguous situations that posed certain ethical questions, one example being: What vengeance should be wrought upon a woman who killed her [[Domestic violence|abusive husband]] in his sleep? Other notable dilemmas included:

* The nation of Vlatava, the history of which was an endless cycle of [[civil war]], [[ethnic cleansing]], retribution, and blood feuds that had endured for centuries. The Spectre responded by judging the whole nation guilty, razing the land and killing the entire population except for two opposing politicians, one of them the supervillain [[Count Vertigo]].
* The pending execution of a wrongfully convicted man. His [[Capital punishment|death sentence]] was [[Pardon|commuted]] to [[life imprisonment]] after the Spectre threatened to kill the entire population of the state of [[New York (state)|New York]] in retribution, arguing that if the execution was carried out, the "people of the state of New York" would become guilty of murder in his eyes.
* A 90-year-old woman who had spent her entire life trying to atone for the single murder she had secretly committed in the 1920s. The Spectre found her on her deathbed.

Ostrander also added several new concepts into the Spectre's history: He revealed that the Spectre was meant to exist as the embodiment of the Wrath of God, and Jim Corrigan was but the latest human spirit assigned to guide him while he existed on Earth. It was also shown that the Spectre was a [[fallen angel]] named Aztar who had participated in [[Lucifer (DC Comics)|Lucifer]]'s rebellion, but then repented, and that serving as the embodiment of God's anger was its penance.

Furthermore, the Spectre was not the first embodiment of God's anger, but was the replacement for the previously minor DC character [[Eclipso]]. Ostrander chose to portray this as a distinction between the Spectre's pursuit of ''vengeance'' and Eclipso's pursuit of ''revenge''. In a historical context, Eclipso was responsible for the biblical [[Noah's Ark|Flood]], while the Spectre was the [[Plagues of Egypt|Angel of Death who slew the firstborn Egyptian children]]. The Spectre and Eclipso have battled numerous times through history, but neither entity can be fully destroyed.

The Spectre has also played a pivotal role in the ''[[Crisis on Infinite Earths]]'' and ''[[Zero Hour: Crisis in Time]]'' storylines. In both cases, in the final struggle against the main villain (the [[Anti-Monitor]] and [[Parallax (comics)|Parallax]], respectively), the Spectre is the only hero capable of standing against the villains directly, allowing the other heroes time to put a plan into action that would destroy the villains once and for all.

Although all of these versions are usually considered to be from the Earth-Two of the Pre-''Crisis'' [[DC Multiverse]] (the same continuity started during the Golden Age), an Earth-One version of the Spectre was shown to team up with Batman and [[Superman]] on a few occasions.