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...

If you thought that you knew how skeptical Terrence Thirteen was, well, you really don't. Check this out:

Dr. 13 is, of course, busting a "ghost"...

Well, he fails to save the guy, but it still counts as a ghost busted:

And our explanation?

You mean you don't believe in The Flash?!? That's hard-core skepticism, brother, since you live in the DC Universe.

Now, I know it wasn't Thirteen who actually uttered that line; and I know you could easily interpret "that character in the comic books" as an odd turn of phrase, and it doesn't necessarily mean you don't believe in a founding member of the JLA. (For the record, this story was meant to appear in 1973, but got bumped to Phantom Stranger #34 (1975), so it's not like the world wasn't very familiar the Flash)

But you know what? That strikes me as a viable course for the new nu52 Dr 13.

In the old universe, he was the "I don't believe in no ghosts no matter what evidence you show me" skeptic.

Now? He's a hard-core believer. He has the Phantom Stranger on speed dial--literally! He's "spent a lifetime tracking and cataloging every supernatural and mystic incident across the globe. I know the actions and locations of every known and unknown entity." (Quote from Phantom Stranger # 2 (2012)).

So he's gone from being Scully to being Mulder. Now he's the Oracle of the mystic world.

Boring.

So here's my proposal--13's most memorable character trait was skepticism. So don't throw that out--keep it! Just reshape it a bit!!

Now, instead of doubting the supernatural, he doubts super-heroes!! 

He doesn't believe a man could come to Earth from Krypton--he must be a demon. He refuses to believe a man could run at the speed of light--it must be magical trickery. A nuclear man? Pshaw--only fools would believe than humbuggery--Firestorm is clearly a minion from Trigon! Green Lantern and will power? Phooey, spell-power!!

Not only would this be a great set-up for the character (and justify a new back-up series in Phantom Stranger?); not only would that be a great way to tour some of the yet-unexplored corners of the nu52; but it would also be the set-up for the greatest twist of all time:

Because despite the evidence, Thirteen will never believe that the DC heroes aren't magical in nature, hiding behind fake science explanations. But in one case, he'll turn out to be correct, and we'll reveal that...

Well, that's why I'm not allowed to write comic books...

 Not that I needed any more reasons to be cranky, of course, but a couple of weeks ago we saw this:

That's right..."Last of your family line." Which means...

No Traci Thirteen in the nu52. She not only hasn't appeared...she hasn't even been born.

Which is odd...

...because pre-Flushpoint, DC seemed to be building up to bigger things for Traci--Blue Beetle's girlfriend, a back-up series in Teen Titans, etc. And she had her own mini-series during Flushpoint, as "the most important girl in the world." Heck, she was even created by Co-Uber-Poobah Geoff Johns, which you would think would guarantee the character's continued existence, if not prominence.

Not so much, it would seem. Apparently Johns doesn't have Jim Lee's pull, and it was more important to inject Voodoo in the DC Universe.

I suppose we can hope that the Haunted Highwayman is a sexist dick who only counts male descendants as the "family line."

Probably not, though. Traci was, of course, a legacy hero, and unless you're one of the Robins, that's verboten in the nu52.

So farewell, Traci. It was nice knowing you.

Panel from Phantom Stranger #2 (2012). Cover from Flashpoint: The World Of Flashpoint #1 (2011).

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.