his mortal ties, although he retained his job on the police force. As the popularity of superhero comics began to decline in the mid-1940s, the Spectre suffered as a result. He was reduced to playing the role of "guardian angel" to a bumbling character called "Percival Popp, the Super Cop." Introduced in #74, December 1941 (aside from a head-shot in a one-panel preview at the end of #73's Spectre story), he was a would-be civilian sleuth who, in his words, latched onto Corrigan "of all the detectives on the force because it appeared to me that you are the most intelligent of the lot! You and I ought to be an unbeatable combination, sir!" In the following story, the Voice allowed the physical body of Jim Corrigan, still in cement at the bottom of the river, to be resurrected with the Ring of Life, which had helped the Spectre out of some jams in a few previous stories. The Ghostly Guardian found that he could emerge from Corrigan and maintain a separate existence. In More Fun #90, April 1943, Jim Corrigan per se was completely removed from the feature — he enlisted in the military for World War II service — and the Spectre's reduction to guardian angel status was complete; he even became invisible to everybody but Percy. As the Spectre, Jim Corrigan ran with the JSA, but he was replaced in 1944, and afterwards Jim Corrigan and the Spectre disappeared from the DC Universe for more than 20 years. Spectre When the Spectre was revived in Showcase #60, (January–February 1966), Jim Corrigan played an important part, as editor Julius Schwartz and writer Gardner Fox made significant use of the resurrection of Corrigan's body depicted back in More Fun Comics #75. While the Ghostly Guardian crossed from one mystical plane of existence to another fighting occult menaces, Corrigan, now a captain of Gateway City's police force, was fighting his own battles against a more mundane criminal element. However, Corrigan often got involved in the Spectre's conflicts. In that first story, another spirit, named Azmodus, took possession of a small-time criminal, and while the two astral beings engaged in cosmic combat, the two mortal men slugged it out. In Showcase #64, September–October 1966, when the Spectre took possession of the body of a dying man, Ace Chance, to preserve its spark of life after his soul had departed, that spirit