8 Underrated DC Superheroes Who Desperately Deserve The Netflix Treatment
8. The Spectre
DC Comics
The Spectre has taken on many forms in the DC Universe, but none more famously than Jim Corrigan.
Corrigan, a police detective murdered by mobsters, was refused entry to heaven and instead returned to Earth as a spirit of vengeance (think Ghost Rider, but without the whole devil dealing thing). The character's comic books quickly went on to gather notoriety for their portrayal of violence, with The Spectre, unlike the other heroes of the day, having no qualms with killing. Stretching the comics code was something the character did on a regular basis.
The character had a short-lived appearance on the equally short-lived Constantine show on NBC, played by Emmett Scanlan, but even the smallest amount of screen-time illustrated the character's live action potential. Given the opportunity to fully explore the spirit's lore, a Spectre show could be truly magnificent indeed, especially if it emerged as a spin-off from the aforementioned Constantine series.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
