Spectro came about from wanting Stardust to have a Captain Ahab figure. I decided early on that I wanted Stardust to be far more sympathetic than the Hanks version. He would still be incredibly weird and disturbing. He would still be nightmarishly violent. But instead of being motivated by schadenfreude, he would be motivated by a kind of alien pity for humanity. He would be not so much immoral as misplaced.

Once I had that characterization for Stardust, I decided that the two other main characters were going to respond to him in polarized ways. One, who ended up being Roger the Ray, would try and reach an understanding with Stardust. The other, who ended up being Spectro, would just try and kill him.

Because he was going to physically confront Stardust, my Captain Ahab had to be able to hold his own against him. Now on the surface Stardust seems uniquely powerful for a golden age character. But that’s only if you compare him with just the small army of non-powered mystery men characters. The Golden Age had a lot of “I can use magic to do whatever I want” characters--Mandrake the Magician, Dr. Fate, and Specter among others. Superman might have been the strongest golden age character in terms of sells but he wasn’t the strongest in terms of power--not by a longshot, not even in his own book Action Comics where Zatara would pull off feats Superman wouldn’t be able to match until the silver age.

I wanted a magician character to be Stardust’s nemesis. It made a good contrast--the humanoid space monster that doesn’t have a clue how the universe works against a man that knows every secret of the universe. I pictured a burnt-out wizard at his rope’s end so overwhelmed by the insanity that is The Power of Stardust’s version of WW2 that he’s ready to snap--and then Stardust pushes him over the edge. For that kind of personality I needed someone close to a blank. And so I scanned through the public domain superhero wiki for the ultimate K-mart discount bin Mandrake the Magician knock-off I could find.

Anyone with a turban was out. I wanted the character to be a friend and student of Ibis but I didn’t want the character to be the Rock Lee to Ibis’ Might Guy. Captain Wizard? Too much masked mystery man, not enough wizard. Magic Morro? Put on a shirt dude. And his “jungle wizard” schtick was already covered by Fantomah and Tabuu. Craig Carter? His powers were an imitation of Kid Eternity and I wanted him in a Kid Eternity story. Merlin the Boy Magician? Ah, now we were getting somewhere! The red cape and blue suit combo was a nice look. But him being tied it Merlin would make readers wonder where the old guy was during the events of the story. Dr. Miracle? Same classy look but...the monocle had to go.

Spectro?

Bingo.

He even had cute little stars on his cape to help further the the star theme of Power of Stardust which shows up everywhere from the Eye of Light to Roger the Ray. We had to do something about those stars though. A cape with stars on it is a bit too kitsch. But a cape made of ACTUAL stars? Now that could work.

I think making his cape into a nebula was a great solution. It made Spectro look cool and helped communicate the idea that he was a match for Stardust. A guy that can pluck a nebula from out of the sky and wear it as a cape is clearly a pretty powerful guy.

And what great fortune was it that the red rectangle nebula in the monoceros constellation was red? Sometimes things just fall into place when you’re creating these characters.