Who's This? A professional atheist.
The facts: Dr. Terry Thirteen, headlined as The Ghost Breaker, premiered in his own strip in Star-Spangled Comics #122 (November 1951), where it lasted 9 issues before moving to House of Mystery for a further 7. Leonard Starr originated the art for the strip, but Terry's first writer is unknown. Then, a 16-year wait before appearing in Showcase #80 (1969) and then as a foil for the Phantom Stranger in that character's book. He got his serial back in a few issues of Ghosts (#95-102, skipping over 100), but otherwise his appearances remained sporadic. In the 80s, he had a story in Batman involving Man-Bat, and another in which he investigated the ghost of Hugo Strange. Post-Crisis, he gets a Vertigo Visions special, but it's a back-up in a Tales of the Unexpected mini-series that will bring him to modern reader's consciousness. Brian Azzarello and Cliff Chiang's story was later collected as Doctor 13: Architecture and Morality, and teams him up with a bunch of other forgotten heroes. His daughter, Traci Thirteen, will later become a memorable part of the DCU.
How you could have heard of him: For newer readers, a Doc 13 was New52ed to 1880s Gotham City in the pages of All-Star Western (#11-12), but his modern-day descendant also appears in the Phantom Stranger book. Otherwise, he's a bit of a joke in comic book geek circles as the man who doesn't believe in the supernatural but keeps teaming up with the Phantom Stranger and the Spectre.
Example story: Star-Spangled Comics #125 (February 1952) "The Hermit's Ghost Dog" by Ed Herron and Leonard Starr
Going back, wayyy back, to when he was just "The Ghost-Breaker", this random solo tale features a ghost dog in some kind of reverse Scooby-Doo, so yeah, I'm not made of stone, guys. First surprise: Dr. Thirteen narrates his own stories, which makes me think he'd be a minor YouTube star if he were real and/or contemporary. Terry, a dead ringer for Bruce Wayne, is hiking up to a cabin with a lady friend for a well-earned vacation (breaking ghosts is a tiring enterprise, but dude, this is only your fourth appearance), when suddenly...
I have it on good authority that that's the scream that inspired the CSI Miami opening. They track the source to a (now) dead body, ripped to death by some animal. What a way to start a vacation. Terry notes that, strangely, the animal left no tracks and like that, he's on his way to proving ghosts DO exist. And that his degree isn't in zoology, because he keeps talking about the man being CLAWED to death, CLAWED TO DEATH BY FANGS, and also considering the idea that it might be a DOG, which isn't my go-to when I think of claws. An old blind man tells them what he think happened:
Just blind? Or suffering from dementia too? Ok Marie, don't you know who you're dating? Can't we just chalk it up to the old man imagining his murdered dog is still leading him around without using the G-word? Now you've set Terry off onto a wordy investigation. The local cop tells him how old man Harley raised the dog from a pup and trained him as a seeing-eye dog after he lost his sight 9 years ago. A few WEEKS ago, three hunters shot the pooch thinking it was a deer (slim pickings that season) and the old man cursed them with the vengeful spirit of his dog. The townfolk started telling spooky stories about it, if you can believe them.
I can totally explain that, Sheriff. You guys live in a tiny community and the old man's lived there all his life. Muscle memory probably does all the heavy lifting. Terry next finds a red hand print on the hunters' lodge's door, an ancient charm to keep ghosts at bay. They're taking it seriously. The cabin has a trap door over a stream so you can do indoor fishing. A crucial clue, I'm sure. Terry tries to trip the old man up by putting a (disarmed) bear trap in his way, and the invisible dog steers him away from danger, so there goes my theory (and Terry's). He and Marie are too late to stop the ghost dog from scaring one of the hunters silly and making him run off a cliff that's right outside their lodge (which is also above a stream... this is some Silver Age topography!), so Terry arranges to wear the last hunter's clothes and stay in the cabin. I guess there's just enough of the hunter's smell for this ghost dog to make a mistake.
Wait. "Just like those fish"? This is new information. At no point do we see phosphorescent fish (common in the Poconos or wherever this is?), nor can you get "contact glowing" from walking in the stream where they live. The explanation is even crazier:
Terry can't believe in ghosts, but he CAN believe the third hunter got a very similar (but killer) dog (which we don't see again), and simulated ghostness with a sheet filled with lights (not supported by the art), and the glowing stuff in the river bed has nothing to do with this (inefficient), but is instead a motivation for the murder of the other two hunters who wanted their share of a uranium mine responsible for the glowing fish and Dr. Thirteen's future cancer. And then after the "meddling kids" moment, we get a FURTHER explanation of why the old man seems to see at night, while technically being blind.
I think I'd rather believe in the Phantom Stranger...
Who's Next? Who's Who's sole Canadian hero.
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