Jim Corrigan began his career as the Spectre in the early 1940s, when the hard-boiled police detective was murdered. Put into cement and thrown into the water by crime-boss Gat Benson, Jim Corrigan's soul left his body and went on to the afterlife. Instead of going into Heaven, his spirit refused to pass into the afterlife, and his rage was heard by the archangel Michael, who bonded his spirit to the spirit of God's vengeance, the Spectre. He was condemned to return to Earth for sixty years of punishing wrongdoings.