In the later half of the 1930’s, peace began eroding around the world. Authoritarian socialist governments entered into an alliance and drove those that did not fit into their collectives from their soil--the minority, the free-thinker, and the superhuman. They dared the superhumans of the world to violently oppose them and prove their position that superhumans were innate tyrants willing to overthrow elected governments and force weaker basics to bend to their will. The socialists rattled their sabers, built up their armies, and tapped powers like the ancient thought-form Vril and the collective dream Dazrazum --but they still appeared far weaker than superhumans like the Circled Square, and that appearance was their greatest weapon.

The Circled Square did not want to be tyrants. Many of its members remembered the Great War in the Air and how through shows of intimidation they drove the Central Powers to desperation and contributed to the outbreak of the war. But the situation grew more dire by the day. Something had to be done.

Spectro directed his vision to solving the crisis. He promised that just as he saved the world from Dr. Styx he would save the world from the Axis.

Spectro promised that he would not use violence. The death of Dr. Styx weighed heavy on his heart and he vowed to do better. No one would die this time. He wasn’t dealing with a man whose mind was twisted by ghosts. He was dealing with states supported by loyal majorities. They had brutish aims, but any ideology supported by so many people had to have some kind of rational undercurrent. If he could appeal to their reason, he knew he could resolve the crisis peacefully.

Spectro, along with other influential superhuman like Gold Star, came to the Axis powers as a diplomat and worked to establish what history would call the “containment compromise.” The Axis would stick to their borders and develop their culture and armies however they liked, but in exchange the superhumans of the world would create homes for their undesirables and rootless cosmopolitans.

Earth’s superhumans raised the earth and parted the waters to create a string of island nations. These islands were small Edens. Their coasts were bountiful, their soil fertile. But they were not the homes of those forced to settle there. Their homes were in Russia and Italy and Germany. And often, they resisted being removed from their homes. It was a sad fact that superhumans like Spectro had to assist the Axis states in rounding up and removing dissidents. They had no other choice. Superhumans removed entire neighborhoods, houses and all, to the islands. The Axis states simply made them disappear.

Justified or not, Spectro still had to do the work of tyrants. It made Spectro wonder. He had put the authority of the Hanged Man, the member of the Circled Square who saved the universe from a threat all the other members didn’t see coming, behind the containment compromise because he didn’t want to use his powers tyrannically. But now he was using his powers to do the dirty work of tyrants.

Was there any way to avoid using power when one had power? Or was it like the sacrifice of Odin? Did power demand its continual use?

And so he wondered--if he could not help but use his power, why not use it to be the master rather than the servant of despots?

But Spectro knew, deep within his heart, that the containment compromise would be for the best. It was better than war. It was better than mass graves and six digit death totals.

Then the Vril walls went up in 1940 and divided up the planet like a glowing spider web.

Then the Worlds War began.

Then Spectro was broken.

He had failed. He had failed horrifically. He had failed so badly that the world was now trapped in a war the likes of which made the Great War in the Air appear a trifle.German energy dragons snaked their way through the worldtunnels to devour golden dream-world cities and the clouds they stood on. Japanese oni clashed with four-armed martians and made the jeweled streets of Helium run green with blood. Russian razum-extensions hollowed out gods with sickly light and puppeted them on telepathic strings.

Other worlds began to view the Earth as deadly if not doomed and shunned it as they would a raging fire.

The Circled Square told Spectro that it was not his fault. There was simply not just one cause for the war. Countless calculations and miscalculations brought it about. It was too big for any one man, even a man of magic, to have stopped.

But it was not their job to see what others could not.

It was Spectro’s, and deep in his heart he knew that he had failed. He failed to see what others could not and war was the consequence.

Spectro cast off his gentle diplomacy like a weight and prepared himself to be a soldier. He remembered killing Dr. Styx. He had hoped that it would have been the only time he would have had to take a life. The despair he felt in understanding that he would have to kill again and again and again fueled the merciless rage he brought to the battlefield. He threw himself into combat. He killed dragons and kami and men--many, many men. He killed so many men that he felt ill trying to recall the number.

He did not learn thaumaturgy to use it to kill. He never saw himself being a soldier.

But he failed to foresee so many things.

Spectro became a fearsome, unstoppable warrior. He did not sleep. He rarely rested. Battle after battle after battle wore Spectro down. He was a man in his twenties but appeared much, much older older. His skin sagged. His hair thinned. He skipped meals and grew thin. His powers kept his tired flesh going regardless of his appearance. But it was more than his body that suffered. His mind encountered death and suffering until it became numb to the horror.

He had promised that no one would die.

And now, the world was depopulating.

Every single death he saw with his eyes was a reminder of his failure. And every global fatality estimate was like acid upon his soul.

Between the stress and endless engagements with cosmic foes, his soul began to unravel. He kept it together as he did his body--as fragments strung together by his will.

He made his life the agony he believed he deserved.

The other members of the Circled Square feared for their friend. They begged him to stop and let the other members fight in his place. But he would not stop. And they could not make him stop. And pragmatically, they understood that his power was of great benefit to their side.

But eventually, they had to hold an intervention and speak to Spectro as their trumps and not as his friends. After a harrowing battle with a Vril-spawned energy dragon that cost the ARGO superhuman American Crusader his arms, Spectro appeared before the Circled Square to speak about an unknown threat he encountered while grappling with the energy dragon in the worldtunnels. Spectro could not name the threat. He could not even describe it. But he felt it. He felt it like a shadow large enough to swallow all the stars in heaven fell on his shoulders. It chilled him to the bone.

Spectro urged the Circled Square to prepare for the threat by increasing their forces in the worldtunnels. But the Circled Square would not pull forces fighting the known threat of the Axis to fight a threat that had no name and no form--a threat that given Spectro’s battered mental state and fractured soul likely didn’t exist.

They spoke as their trumps, and ordered Spectro to at long last take a rest.

Alone in his chamber, surrounded by his things which had grown layers of dust through years of inattention, Spectro’s mind was a bitter storm of speculation.

He remembered his mistake that started the war--he did not strike first.

He remembered his action that saved the universe from Dr. Styx--he struck first

They should have struck first. They should have obliterated the Axis in an instant. But they hesitated. They showed mercy. And now the population of Earth was in decline.

Incalculable death tolls. A generation of fatherless children and widows. Those were the virtues of mercy.

He would not hesitate again. He would not have mercy again. He would prepare for the threat alone if he had to.

He persisted in the blindness of the sacrifice of Odin.

And it is sad to say, but Spectro would once again act without understanding the repercussions of his actions until it was far too late.

The Hanged Man represents seeing. But the Hanged Man inverted represents blindness.