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Hahahahahahah!

No.

He's a giant pasty half-naked guy in a green cloak. I'm not sure the goatee makes much of a difference one way or the other.

As usual, 3 speaks the truth.

In this case, Declarative Rabbit reminds me of Sister State-the-Obvious.

But in a good way. :- )

Wow, that's the first time thinking about goateed Spectre has ever made me smile.

He's a giant pale ghost in a green cloak. The goateee is an improvement.

No more so than a Spectre wearing a domino mask with a burning Green Lantern symbol on his chest.

Oh my god, CSBG should really just get over it already. It's always mentioned in the Juding Books By Their Covers month in and month out. It really, sincerely isn't that big of a deal. Honestly - it's facial hair.

yes, but its facial hair that looks completely stupid.

I'd take the goatee over the domino mask and lantern symbol any day. I thik from now on every spectre should have a goatee. Even if it's a woman.

Especially if it's a woman.

But really, the Spectre visual is itself such an oddity that the goatee shouldn't really be such a big deal. I'm thinking maybe we're just not used to it yet.

Alternatively, I guess that you could say hair on the Spectre looks weird in general, since you can't usually see the top of his head, and obviously he doesn't have any bodily hair. So maybe that's part of it.

Goattees are like Liefeld-shoulderpads,
They just shouldn't be worn.

I wouldn't want to meet him in a dark alley, that's for sure. I'd be too inclined to mock that thing and then he'd surely make my own ribcage bones become a monster that would slowly tear me apart or something else so horrific.

Patrick is right - it's a funny situation, because it a goatee on the Spectre *shouldn't*, in principle, look especially weird... but it does.

Another theory is that it goes against our standard "ghost" paradigm. While "sheet-white" ghosts *can* have hair, it's seldom *dark* hair - whatever "bleaches out" a ghost in general works on all parts of him. OTOH, trying to picture a "whitish" goatee seems even worse in my mental picture....

seeing a giant white version of crispus allen, an otherwise regular guy up until a while ago, is far dumber than an incarnation of god's wrath deciding to shave slightly less

is there any kind of facial hair that wouldn't seem silly? just imagine him with one of those beards like the guys from ZZtop

Spectre and Jesus go to the same barber, anyway

"Alternatively, I guess that you could say hair on the Spectre looks weird in general, since you can’t usually see the top of his head, and obviously he doesn’t have any bodily hair. So maybe that’s part of it."

That's true - when the Spectre got his ass kicked in Swamp Thing #50, the weirdest part was that HIS HOOD FELL DOWN. (He's bald, BTW)

Goatees are so 90s.

I've never really minded the goatee. Everyone says it's so horrible, and I'm beginning to wonder who the blogoverse is trying to convince. Because to me, it's really a pretty small detail, and I can't imagine that it actually takes away from people's enjoyment of the books that much.

Then again, I liked the Hal-Spectre costume. It looked better than gloves, elf-boots, underpants, and a cape. The original Spectre's someone I wouldn't want to meet in an alley not because I'd be afraid, but because I wouldn't want to be laughing on the ground in an alley.

I think the Spectre would look weird with any kind of hair, facial or otherwise. Like Ben said, he's a bald, white ghost. Isn't that creepy enough?

Hair--especially well trimmed facial hair--is such a humanizing characteristic that it takes away some of the mystique and eeriness about the character.

I don't mind the goatee. In fact, I think Crispus-Spectre ought to look a lot more like a green and white Phantom Stranger than a spandex superhero. Ostrander established in his criminally-underrated Spectre series that the Spectre looks the way the host sees him/herself. Since Corrigan became the Spectre at the "birth" of the superhero age, he pictured himself as a superhero. Hal pictured himself as a superhero. But Crispus should picture himself as a DETECTIVE. Give hime a green flowing trenchcoat and hat (in lieu of the cape and hood), white shirt, green pants and tie, etc.

When Crispus is the host for the Spectre he has a goatee. Shouldn't the Spectre look like its host? I mean, its not like he is wearing glasses.

This just in from our crack reporters at some blog:

"A white guy wearing nothing but green underwear, gloves, booties and a cape? Totally normal.

"A white guy wearing nothing but green underwear, gloves, booties and a cape and also sporting a goatee? F$#%ing ridiculous."

Next on the news: Fans of The Real World complaining about how fake wrestling is!

Geez, this post makes me sad. I don't mind the goatee myself, but I can see why others wouldn't. But I also can't see why people would be so offended by the facial hair that it'd be worth complaining about ad nauseum like this (and by "this," I mean the constant sniping that's taken place every time the Spectre's made an appearance in the last year). It's veering on stalkerish obsession at this point, the kind of fanboyish rhetoric you used to see around Chuck Austen. I expect better from this blog.

FYI, the one time the Spectre took off his hood in Ostrander and Mandrake's brilliant series, we saw that it was just a pasty-looking Jim Corrigan under the hood, hair and all. The Spectre's appearance changes both according to how his host looks and how assimilated the host is with the Spectre-force. (During the SWAMP THING days, Corrigan was belabouring under the assumption he and Spec were different people.)

Peronally, I LIKE the goatee. Of course, as a bearded man who's had multiple goatee phases in the past decade and change, I don't see the fault in the Vengeance of God having one -- I still say it's the pixie boots that need to be dealt with...

The goatee looks fine, and those who're saying that goatees in real life are lame don't know from cool.

I don't really *care* that much one way or the other, but what *is* funny as hell to me is seeing how much the *artists* seem to hate the goatee, or at least go out of their way to avoid drawing it!

The goatee is not an improvement. Know what would be an improvement?

Jim Corrigan.

DC needs to stop using the Spectre as some sort of mystic hand-me-down.

"The goatee looks fine, and those who’re saying that goatees in real life are lame don’t know from cool."

No, that's all opposite and wrong. The goatee is a blight upon the facially haired. It makes you look perpetually underage, and is the personal badge of those without a chin.

GQ called for an end to the goatee a few years ago. If only folks had listened.

The Hal Spectre was pretty lame-looking, too. The Spectre's a classic character design, and adding the goat to it is sticking a Calvin Pissing emblem to the back of your 1940 Rolls Royce. If they really wanted to update the look of the character, they should have just redesigned him altogether.

Hahahahahahah!

That's the danger of the in-joke. Folks who don't get the reference won't get the humor, but I like that danger aspect!

Like when Jennifer de Guzman missed the "Most indy comics are bad" joke.

The risk is part of the fun!

Yeah, about an hour after I posted my rage-filled diatribe, I realized this was likely a joke post. I don't get the joke, but I understand that there was one.

Which makes me even sadder, but for entirely different reasons.

Nah, it's cool.

Like I just posted, that's the danger of jokes like this. It's only funny to the folks who get the reference. But that risk is part of the fun!

There's nowt wrong with goatees. I used to sport one myself and occasionally consider growing it back

Dan

Yeah, um, ha ha. Except that unlike the "all indy comics suck" thing, the goateed Spectre really DOES suck!

"There’s nowt wrong with goatees. I used to sport one myself and occasionally consider growing it back"

Your first and second statements are contradictory.

Ha.

That's mighty fine words comin' from a rabbit with whiskers and a fluffy tail.

Yes, yes, it's a joke post. It's also something I've had to hear (read) you complain ever since the first goateed image of Spectre was released. Ignoring all the "Spectre takes on a physical form similar its host" comments that others have made, I have some questions for you.

Do you complain every time you see God portrayed as having a beard?

I have a beard. Are you complaining about me?

Because I have a beard, does that make me God?

Yeah, um, ha ha. Except that unlike the “all indy comics suck” thing, the goateed Spectre really DOES suck!

It's a funny joke post, yes, but I really don't like the goatee. It'd work if the cloak changed to black, at the cost of emphasizing the Spectre-as-death motif in a potentially cliche fashion. What I dislike about it is that the duotone costume of the classic and, yes, even Jordan designs retaisn a hint of the Spectre's Manichean morality.

Well, that and my sense that goofy or fantastic clothing on a spirit is tolerable, but something as earthly as contemporary-style facial hair really isn't. An analogy: The watered-down leprechauns we get in pop culture may look silly, but a leprechaun with dreads or an iPod is going to look far sillier still.

My lst posts came out completely wron - it was supposted to be

“There’s nowt wrong with goatees. I used to sport one myself and occasionally consider growing it back”

Your first and second statements are contradictory.

Ha.

Obviously I can't type today...

Oh yeah, while a joke post, the goateed Spectre IS goofy-looking and lame, as I have pointed out in the past gazillion Judging Books By Their Covers.