Spectre #5 (1987)

A few days have passed since Jim Corrigan was brought back to life thanks to the Spectre's presence on Earth, but until this moment, he has not been concerned about the past. However, this is about to change as Jim Corrigan becomes interested in solving the mystery of his own death. Corrigan asks his assistant, Kim Liang if she has any clue as to how his body ended up inside the ancient vase she picked from the subway system, but she admits that she knows nothing. Jim tells her that he wants to find the truth about his death and Kim assumes that he had not thought about it because Madame Xanadu has been clouding their thoughts. Ignoring Kim's thoughts, Corrigan decides to investigate at the subway station after learning that a number of people have been found dead inside. Corrigan walks to the subway station at night and once inside, he is somehow lured into the farthest end of the platform, where he spots a red mist inside the dark tunnel leading out of the station. Corrigan is strangely attracted to the mist, but he is stopped from going further into the tunnel by a street mugger, who threatens Corrigan with a knife. Spectre jumps out of Corrigan's body and protects his human host by possessing the blade and transforming it into a demon, scaring the thug away. Once outside, Spectre advices Corrigan to stop risking his life by investigating the matter of his death, but when Corrigan refuses, Spectre is forced to get inside his body and accept Corrigan's actions. Unfortunately, the red mist has disappeared and Corrigan can't follow the lead anymore. Corrigan decides to return to his home, the apartment he had left prior to his murder, but he thinks the place would have been taken over as he had not been around to pay the rent. However, Corrigan arrives at the place and finds that nothing has been moved out of place, except for a strange note left inside a crack in one of his walls. The note is a call from help from "Stygia", written in code. After a quick change of clothing, Corrigan returns to the office, where Kim informs him that Madame X has been looking for him. The two of them decide to go down together through the concealed staircase between Madame X's store and Corrigan's office. Kim takes a flashlight to light their path, but midway through the staircase, they start to giggle and turning off the flashlight, both fall into each other's arms, embracing into their first kiss. At that moment, a subway station technician is called to repair a light bulb inside one of the dark tunnels, but as he enters the tunnel, he spots a woman in a rocking chair. The man soon notices that the woman is in fact his late mother, which breaks him to tears. Unfortunately, the man's flashlight fails and when he manages to turn it back on, his mother is gone and instead, a brutish man approaches him in a menacing way. Not long afterwards, the man turns into red mist and kills the subway technician. A few minutes later, Corrigan and Kim finally make their way to Madame X's shop, where she is waiting patiently for them. Corrigan asks her about his apartment and Madame X reveals that she has been taking care of that as well as some other matters. As this happens, Detective Peter Quarral investigates who issued Corrigan's P.I.'s license, but despite his suspicions of foul play, everything seems to be in order. Back at Greenwich Village, Xanadu tells Corrigan that she knows about his quest to find the truth of his death and in order to help him, she provides useful information. Madame X reveals to him that a woman came to her during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, seeking for help in a desperate state. Her name was Gina and just at that mention, Corrigan recalls that she was a lovely woman who had come to him seeking for help in finding her boyfriend, but their frequent encounters led to Corrigan and Gina to develop a romantic relationship. Madame X continues the story and tells them that Gina was distraught about the fact that she had an encounter with Corrigan in a subway station, but after a passionate kiss, a red mist engulfed Corrigan and killed him. Madame X read her the tarot cards and after learning the identity of the man she had "killed", she instructed Gina to place Corrigan's body inside a large vase and hide it in the subway locker. This finally gives Corrigan the answers about the mystery of the vase, but the mystery about his killer still remains. However, when he asks Madame X about Gina's fate, she reveals that the last card on her fate was death. Kim and Jim leave Madame X to herself, but before they leave, Madame X warns Kim to not follow her heart to her own destruction. Back at his office, Corrigan knows he needs information about his last case with Gina and the only way to do that is by getting back the files on the investigation. Corrigan calls Peter Quarral, hoping to get a favor from him, but the Police Detective refuses, forcing Corrigan to ask for Spectre's help. With nothing else to do, Spectre leaves Corrigan's body and goes to the NYPD, where he retrieves Corrigan's last files on the Gina investigation. With the files within his reach, Corrigan learns the address of Gina, but when he goes to the place, he finds her home completely in ruins. The ground below the building had caved in, swallowing the entire place and killing Gina. After recalling the passion of his relationship with Gina, Corrigan decides to find the truth at the core and he calls Kim, telling her to meet him at the subway station with her flashlight. Minutes later, the two of them meet at the arranged place and with the flashlight in hand, Corrigan tells Kim to leave. She refuses and Corrigan has no option but to let her tag along with him. The two of them go into the tunnel where Corrigan had first spotted the red mist and where he was apparently killed. Using the flashlight to light the way, the two of them go deep into the tunnel until they reach a series of caverns, mysteriously connected to the subway system. Spectre leaves Corrigan's body, sensing a great evil in the place, similar to his own presence. Spectre follows a dark trail until he finds the foundations of a big building above on the surface, which has been tainted with dark energy. Meanwhile, Corrigan makes a connection with the note found in his apartment, as the world "Stigia" also means "underworld" or "hell". As this realization comes to him, Corrigan notices that the red mist has surrounded them and is forming a demon's shape to kill him. He pushes Kim out of the mist's path while he attempts to escape, but falls face first to the ground as the red mist creep upon him, making the ground tremble on it's path.