Plot summary: Jim Corrigan is resurrected as The Spectre, seeking out loose ends from his past… including Barbara Gordon.
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Notes and Trivia
Episode: 15 (S2.E5)
Original Air Date: July 31st, 2026
Directed: Christina Sotta (6)
Written: J.M. DeMatteis (1)
Animation: Studio Grida (7)
Music: Frederik Wiedmann (15)
The Spectre was created by Jerry Siegal and Bernard Baily in 1940. The spirit of God’s wrath, he is absurdly powerful, but is bound to a human host, most commonly Jim Corrigan. He delivers creative and often cruel punishments to evildoers.
Corrigan appeared in Season One, attempting to collect on the bounty on Barbara Gordon in the Onomatopoeia episode.
Bruce briefly dons a scarf around his face as an impromptu disguise making him strongly resemble The Shadow, the character that inspired Batman in the first place.
Dr. Peterson and the Osiris Project are inventions of this episode, though Osiris is of course the Egyptian god of the afterlife, so it makes sense to use the name given what happens to Corrigan.
The department store where Corrigan’s second victim tries to hide, Bergduff’s, is the same one Harley and Ivy wreaked havoc in from ‘Holiday Knights‘.
Recap
Jim Corrigan is promised early release from Blackgate in exchange for participation in ‘Project Osiris’ which claims to be able to resurrect the dead. The project fails and Corrigan is killed…
Except it actually worked! He returns to life en route to the morgue and escapes, going after figures from his past and killing them with the aid of supernatural powers.
Batman learns from Barbara that the three victims were all arrested by Corrigan but avoided jail time, so concludes Barbara herself may be next as more ‘unfinished business.’
Instead, Corrigan asks for forgiveness and then the power leaves him and he dies. Batman considers comforting her but instead heads home for Christmas cookies.
Episode Ranking
This is a serious and emotional episode but I just need to get something out of the way first: It is hilariously fucked up that Project Osiris invited a group of ostensibly wealthy potential investors to watch a doctor very slowly murder a guy and then he just kind of gives them an embarrassed expression and peaces out. They make it very clear everybody was observing for quite a while after Dr. Peterson administered the lethal injection. Things got awkwardly tense. And then they just zap the shit out of Corrigan, he briefly screams in pain as his body gets all fucked up… and then he just dies again. They all spectated a freakin’ murder! He wasn’t even on death row! I don’t care what waivers he signed, this is a craaaazy thing to have happen and then the organisers get to walk. Good on the residents of Blackgate to start a prison riot in response to be honest.
Barbara being haunted by her near-death experience with Corrigan in Season One and leaning on a gun range as a coping mechanism is a really nice touch. She wants a sense of safety and control following a traumatic incident where she was utterly powerless and seconds from dying. She gets her wish to ‘look that animal in the eye’ when she attends what turns out to be his execution (great call, as it suggests this had a hand in invoking the Spirit of Vengeance in the first place), and then reports to her father that she felt relieved to see him die, which fucks her up in a completely different way. She’s jumpy about innocuous noises, she calls Jim asking if she should wait up in such a manner that clearly suggests she would rather see him before she goes to sleep and still has an extensive case file on Corrigan.
Then when she finally draws a gun on her attacker at the end of the episode, she envisions how it felt for him to do the same to her, but overcompensates by calling him a “son of a bitch”, only for her hand to shake because she can’t pull the trigger, giving way to her essentially telling him it was unfair of him to hold a grudge against her. She was the victim, and he seems to be denying her that. All amidst the pathetic fallacy of a strong snowstorm that subsides when Corrigan dies again. It’s all really well done. This ends up feeling like a soft sequel to the Batman/Barbara part of ‘The Stress of Her Regard‘ where he considers being a human being at the end, as he again raises a hand, considering placing it on her shoulder as she cries… only to instead vanish when the police arrive. And she seemed to sense it this time too. They make sure that it ends with her conceding that she is not magically alright now just because Corrigan is finally dead, but that she now sees the path forward. A nuanced take on trauma!
I talked in ‘Rocket’s Red Glare‘ about how good Hamish Linklater has gotten at the Playboy Bruce persona, and I appreciated how well written his exchange with Babs and Montoya was at the start of the episode, annoying both women so much they say in unison how they can’t stand him. I appreciate them going to more trouble to justify why he attends things that are blatantly Batman Business but only Bruce has access to, and that he uses his repulsive billionaire schtick to make his inquisitors drop the subject faster. Best of all, he doesn’t look remotely suspicious for running out as soon as the alarm sounds, because that’s what everybody else does, albeit without changing into their concealed big rubber bat costume so they can go punch escaping inmates. Pretty badass shot of him waiting for them on the other side when the guards open the outer gate, too.
Batman in the snow is a train that is never late as far as I’m concerned, so I was having a great time throughout. They’re obviously using it to riff on A Christmas Carol – with Babs even saying “Not tonight, Jacob Marley!” when she’s spooked by noises outside, and a reading of the story over the radio – but as long as I get my sweet, sweet aesthetics. Likewise, Corrigan stalking one of his victims into a toy store is playing in some classic Batman lanes given how many of his villains use these kinds of motifs.
I think this is an episode that looks incredibly nice and handles Barbara’s trauma extremely well… but just kind of… exists, beyond that. That keeps it out of the top five, but only just. I did toy with placing it ahead of the Catwoman episode, which also had a lot of fun visuals, but with a more solid narrative through-line. One for the ‘highlight reel’ in terms of moments in the show, but not quite good enough as an overall episode. I could have gone for them engaging with the mythology behind The Spectre, too. More on that below.
- … And Be a Villain
- Deep Cover
- The Stress of Her Regard
- The Devil’s Due
- Kiss of the Catwoman
- The Spectral Hand (NEW ENTRY)
- Rocket’s Red Glare
- Brute Force
- The Night of the Hunters
- Night Ride
- The Killer Inside Me
- Moving Target
- In Treacherous Waters
- Savage Night
- Nocturne
Best Performance
Krystal Joy Brown very much had the spotlight on her here and mostly delivered. A large chunk of their exploration of Barbara’s trauma is done through visuals, so she only really gets a couple of short monologues, explaining to Renee Montoya why she wants to face Corrigan, and tearfully telling Corrigan she didn’t do anything wrong at the end. The latter is nice work and gets her the win.
Roger Craig Smith does find ways to keep his extremely limited zombie dialogue engaging enough, but you can’t win off the back of repeating people’s names and saying either “Vengeance” or “Forgiveness”.
Hamish Linklater is great as obnoxious Bruce and solid enough as Batman, but this was always Brown’s race to lose.
Rogues Roundup
The Spectre aka Jim Corrigan (Roger Craig Smith) (second appearance)
I totally forgot that I placed Jim Corrigan on the rankings already and this is technically the same character, so…
Pretty hard to fight someone who can kill you just by looking at you and seemingly cannot be harmed by gunfire. In fact the death stare isn’t just a death stare, as he’s able to manipulate inanimate objects that almost kill his targets too. With powers like that you can afford to slowly walk after your victims, say their names and shamble along. Although he also seems to be able to selectively teleport?
I don’t hate their more Frankenstein’s monster/zombie design for Corrigan, giving him a more normal looking green hooded cloak, but I would probably have just gone for the full on Spectre design if it were me.
Him trying to ignore Batman and keep going after his man was a good wrinkle, only really engaging with Bruce when he proved persistent. Because ultimately while he’s killing people and Batman wants to fight him… he’s not really a villain, as such. So it’s entirely appropriate for him to simply lay himself to rest after confronting Barbara.
All of this does improve his standing, but there’s still not a tremendous amount going on beyond the vibes of it all. The show deliberately refuses to engage with what’s actually driving his avenging angel deal, which I think makes the character a little weaker. Barely more than a zombie.
- The Mad Monk
- Clayface
- Harley Quinn
- Roxy Rocket
- Catwoman
- Two-Face
- The Riddler
- Firebug
- Rupert Thorne
- The Gentleman Ghost
- Hattie Tetch aka Mad Hatter
- Flass & Bullock
- The Terrible Trio
- Jim Corrigan/The Spectre (↑)
- The Penguin
- Hugo Strange and the Monster Men
- The Joker
- Onomatopoeia
- Nocturna
Title Card
The Matt Signal 
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