The Top Ten Jim Aparo Spectre Adventure Comics covers.

Hooray! This is going to be the easiest Top Ten I've ever put together - mostly because Jim Aparo only actually did ten Spectre Adventure Comics covers.

It's also going to be easy because I'm not going to bother putting the covers in any kind of order, other than that in which they were first published.

This is because many long-term readers of this blog'll already know what my favourite is. A strong hint would be that it's got plenty of purple in it, proving the Incredible Hulk was right all along and that, in the world of comics, purple and green really do go together.

This was my first exposure to the Spectre. I can even tell you where I got it; a newsagents near Blackpool Pleasure Beach. It was run by a woman with light hair. I don't know what she was called. But how I thrilled as the cowled crusader melted one villain and reduced another to a skeleton.

 This is one of the few Aparo Spectre stories I never had, and can thus tell you nothing of its contents.

I didn't have this one as a child either. I have, though, read it since. Actually, I can't remember just what happens in it but have no doubt that had I read it when I was ten I'd be able to regale you with exactly how the villain meets his fate.

You can't go wrong with killer shop window dummies - and the Spectre didn't either. The villain thought he was Billy Big Potatoes but soon found himself as roasted as a spud.

Thanks to the twists of Fate, I had two copies of this. I do believe it's the one with the legendary buzz saw sequence.

The Spectre finds himself up against a gas-happy would-be Nazi. Needless to say, gruesome deaths soon follow.

 I've not read this one since childhood but I do recall it introduced me to the word, "Barracuda."

I've not read this one since childhood either but I suspect a museum may have been involved - and stuffed gorillas.

It's time to gasp in horror as Jim Corrigan suddenly finds himself alive again. But for how long?

I didn't have this one either. As it wrapped up the storyline from the previous issue, this was a matter of some concern to me. Happily, I've since read it and am happy to reveal that normal Spectre service is soon restored.

Sadly, after this issue, the Spectre was replaced in the comic by Aquaman. Oh the indignity of it all; to be supplanted by a man who's never melted a villain in his life.