Because I love a good self-referential cover, and because I also love the "infinite regression" cover, allow me to give you two treats in one, with the cover of Ghosts #100 (1981):

Ah, but the self-reference hasn't stopped yet...look at the splash page:

Hey, they're allowed to celebrate. Just imagine a comc book reaching issue #100 these days...

But yes, that is Terry Thirteen, a.k.a. Dr. 13. Why is he here? Well, he was in the middle of a brief 7-issue stint in the pages of Ghosts.

If you don't know who Dr. 13 is, well, shame on you (and shame on DC). He started waaay back in 1951, in Star Spangled Comics #151, as a skeptical parapsychologist out to prove that all ghost stories are false. When we finally got his origin, we see young Terry learn that many of his ancestors had been executed for "practicing magic," when they were really trying to advance science.

So Terry made a pact with his father to debunk the supernatural, and to prove that there was always a rational explanation behind spiritual events. He became Scully without a Mulder, a one man Scooby Doo gang, proving that ghost and ghoul haunting were really hoaxes.

Which made this placement for his series a bit odd. You have a comic whose cover usually headlined that "You WILL Believe In Ghosts..."

...having a cover star whose raison d'Etre is ensuring that you don't believe in ghosts!

Yeah, that's a great logo.

Of course, DC had kind of lost Doc XIII's mission when they began to integrate him into the DC Universe proper.

In stand-alone stories, it's perfectly acceptable for him to be a skeptic, and to have every "ghost" he encounters be a scam.

But as readers of DC Comics, we KNOW that characters like the Phantom Stranger and the Spectre are real (within that universe). So when Terry 13 starts hanging around those guys yet still insists that they're fakes, he's violating the rules of suspension of disbelief for that particular universe. The reader knows that he is wrong, and this ruins his credibility as a likeable character. He stops looking like a rational skeptic and more like the idiot who won't believe the plain facts in front of his face:

The skeptic aspect of Dr. 13 kept shriveling away over the years, until the nu52 made him into an actual ghost-buster, a man who believes in the supernatural and hunts them down, a family tradition. Sigh...

Since I am apparently physically incapable of not sharing Popeye stuff with you guys whenever a new issue comes out...

Popeye has been hired to bust all the ghosts on Ghost Island! (You'd think they would have seen that coming...)

He was reluctant to take the job, until the ghosts kidnap Swee'Pea!!

But when he gets there...




Ahhh, but the moment of truth arrives...


From Popeye #3 (1948), as reprinted in Classic Popeye #3 (2012)

An unnamed woman just died in an auto accident, and now she's a ghost!!

She follows her unnamed husband out to the cemetary as he visits her grave. But they're stalked by...AN UNNAMED WEREWOLF!! (Yes, I'm subtly suggesting that the unnamed writer of this story didn't put a lot of effort into it...)

A dog that drools? Big revelation there, Pavlov.

But the real lessons begin once Furry attacks:

1) Werewolves talk like Doctor Doom!

And...

2) Even though they're insubstantial, ghosts can bitchslap werewolves!

Finally...

3) If you walk a ghost across it's own dead body it becomes a werewolf...?? Wait a minute, that can't be right, can it? Someone get me Fox Mulder on the phone...

From Star Studded #1 (1945)

Hmmm, I've been writing about ghosts a lot lately, haven't I?

Speaking of which, there's this, from the Ask The Answer Man column in Justice League Of America #168 (1979):

Oh, yes, Ghosts:

Starting in 1971, Ghosts was part of DC's ongoing horror line-up.

But unlike the rest of their horror mags, DC hype always contended that these stories were really, actually true...and advertised that fact on every single cover for the first 74 issues:

And as Bob Rozakis tells us in that Answer Man answer, the Ghost writers actually (snort) researched all these true (guffaw) ghost stories themselves before turning them into comic book stories that DC then challenged us to read each month.

Hey, why not, right? If Ghost Hunters and Ghost Hunters International and Ghost Hunters IN SPACE can go on for years and hundreds of episodes without actually, you know, finding a ghost, and still claim to be real, than I suppose DC isn't any crazier to have maintained that all of their stories were true. Besides, it amuses me to no end to think of writers like Leo Dorfman and and John Broome "researching" all their spooky stories.

Ah, but in a supernaturally ironic bit of bad timing, one month before this Answer man column, DC had dropped the claims that the stories in Ghosts were true, starting with the cover of #75:

Well, "new" at least rhymes with "true." right?

It seems that no one told Rozakis that they were going to drop the "true" claim for Ghosts. I've never heard any explanation as to why they did, either. Heck, within a couple of years, DC went even farther away from "these stories are true," as Dr. 13 The Ghostbreaker, professional ghost-debunker, became a regular regular feature in Ghosts.

Speaking of Dr Thirteen, have you ever noticed his career followed the Scooby Doo arc? During his initial run, 13 always--always!!--managed to prove that the ghosts or supernatural phenomena were fake, just as the gang in the Mystery Machine always--always!!--found that whoever was haunting the old amusement park was a crook or scam artist. Frankly, Scooby Doo helped me form the basis of my healthy sense of skepticism.

But modern day? Both Franchises became less Scully and more Mulder. Dr. 13 was turned into a kooky crank. He was teamed with the Phantom Stranger & the Spectre, dated Zatanna, has a daughter who is a sorceress...and is portrayed as an idiot to be skeptical when he's surrounded by magic. And modern Scooby Doo? Now the ghosts and mythical beasties and witches are often real. Sigh...

So, DC stopped selling Ghosts as real at about the same time that Dr. Thirteen and Scooby Doo stopped portraying the supernatural as always a scam. I have no idea what, if anything that means. But hey, it's Monday.