The Spooky Files #4

That's one nasty penis. Unless that's how they usually look and mine is deformed because mine is nothing like that thing!

Gotham has been inundated with spooky happenings lately and it's all up to the Midnight Shift to shut down the spookiness! They're spooky too but they're spooky in a good way even if they're treated like they're spooky in an embezzling kind of way by the other police task forces. Jim Corrigan is trying to hunt ghosts but his phone keeps ringing and it's Rook of Gotham Police Accounts Services and he's all, "You submitted this receipt last week, Jim, that says you ordered fifty deep dish pies from The Hellfire Club. Can you explain why we're paying for this?" And Jim is all, "You wouldn't understand! It's too spooky to discuss with you!" And Rook is all, "If you submit one more receipt for pizza parties or vats of holy water or refurbished Ouija boards,'m shutting you down, Corrigan!" And then Jim hangs up and he's all, "Nuts!"

That pretty much sums up Gotham By Midnight (aka The Spooky Files!).

"Tarr, so help me, if you submit a receipt for that weird glowing jar, I'm taking your badge!"

This issue begins with Corrigan and Rook getting to know each other better over fifteen shots of whisky. It's what cops do! They've got to let off some steam after a tough day of glaring and/or shooting at innocent people. What better way to do that then by killing themselves little by little with too much alcohol? I guess telling each other harrowing stories of their worst shifts is a better way of blowing off steam. That seems safer!

Except the kinds of stories Jim Corrigan likes to hear are Spooky Files! That can be just as dangerous.

This is how Corrigan explains putting his bar tabs on Midnight Shift's expense accounts.

The ghosts' attack on the bar forces Corrigan to turn into The Spectre. It's about time! I feel like I've been waiting three years to see the Spectre in action. He's really green and likes to use a lot of flowery language. Unless by flowery I meant biblically apocalyptic. Then he shoots green lightning out of his eyes and chokes the ghost. As he does, Tarr has a revelation about the ghosts. Children taken from their families and returned acculturated; death by smallpox; lives ruined by alcohol: the ghosts are the ghosts of the native people killed to make way for Gotham City. And they're a little annoyed with the way things went down, historically speaking.

It's about time! Wipe it off the map, Spectre!

Gotham By Midnight #4 Rating: No change. The Spectre is about to judge everybody in the city and, since it's Gotham, my guess is it will soon be just a smoking pit filled with salt. Unless Batman can save the day by swinging in and reminding The Spectre of his humanity. I think if I were living in Gotham, this might be my final night in the city. The murdering clowns and the wisecracking bank robbers I can deal with. But a massive green ghost judging me on behalf of a God I don't believe in battling a monstrous, angry ghost of the natives killed by the white settlers out for my blood when I just want to sit in my underwear and play on the Xbox? Fuck that. Metropolis, here I come!