The Dynamite Spirit!

In 2015 Dynamite Comics picked up the rights to produce new Spirit stories. More famous for their unending alternate covers, on this project they restrained themselves in that respect, save for the debut issue. The story which ran in all twelve issues was written by Matt Wagner and drawn by Dan Schade with colors by Brennan Wagner. Covers for the series were produced by Eric Powell, and those are uniformly magnificent. 

(Matt Wagner)

(Alex Ross)

Formally titled Will Eisner's The Spirit, the series returns to the vintage world of the classic series. It opens after two years have passed since The Spirit was last seen. The world has moved on as best it can. Commissioner Dolan is considering retirement, being pushed out by a seedy politician named Weatherby Palmer. Ellen has found romance of a sort with a district attorney named Archibald Shale, and she's found meaning as a member of the city council. Ebony White and Sammy Strunk (Sammy gets a last name at long last) have formed a partnership as detectives and at the end of the debut issue decide it's high time they investigated the disappearance of their friend The Spirit. 

We see The Spirit only in flashback as the detective duo interview past friends and enemies of the missing hero. P'Gell and The Octopus come into the story in fascinating ways as do others. Finally, we discover, at least in part what has become of Central City's defender, but I want to remain relatively mum on those details so as to not spoil it. Suffice it to say that he's come into conflict with a deadly and mysterious enemy named Mikado Vass, also known as the Crimson Tiger. Vass is a villain of such stature that few will even discuss him. Also on hand is a new femme fatale named Sachet Spice, a woman who takes a very special interest in our hero. 

This is as it turns out a very compelling mystery. The creators keep our hero off the board long enough to actually create some real mystery about his whereabouts, and the payoff makes sense. Schade's art becomes increasingly cartoonish, perhaps owing to a style choice or the pressures of production, but it's not as strong at the end as at the beginning, or maybe I just tired of it. 

This has been collected and that would be the ideal way to enjoy this story. I could only get the original issues from back issue vendors as I didn't follow this series when it came out. This one is recommended for Spirit fans, especially the early issues. 

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The Spirit Archives Volume Twenty-Six!

The twenty-sixty and final volume of DC's Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives features work done by Eisner for the character from the 1950's through his final work on his most famous character in the early 2000's. That quite a range of time, but this volume delivers. This one will read quite quickly because the bulk of the page count is made up of artwork and covers produced by Eisner for Kitchen Sink. The importance of Denis Kitchen and his Kitchen Sink independent underground brand cannot be overstated. Let's take it decade by decade as does the book. 

1950s 

We get two pieces from the 50's, the thumbnails by Jules Feiffer for the story labeled "Outer Space" which tells what happened to the farmer and the alien who kidnapped him in the final published Spirit tale. And we get the typed script for a story about a cigar-smoking villain and his henchmen who try to kidnap Professor Skol and Captain Delf, two of the survivors who traveled to the Moon with The Spirit. 

1960's

This section starts out with a five-page story produced for The New York Herald Tribune Sunday Magazine. In this story The Spirit lives and works in the actual New York City and not its fictional counterpart "Central City". This story sounds very much like a typical Spirit story but deals with the real mayoral race between candidates John Lindsey, Abe Beame, and William F. Buckley. My favorite moment comes when The Spirit tries to recruit Ebony only to find him fifteen years older and working as an executive and having no desire to follow on after his former pal. We even get appearances by Ellen Dolan and an eighty-seven-year-old Eustace Dolan. 

Then we focus on the Harvey Comics reprints from the mid 60's. The superhero boom was beginning, and Harvey was looking for heroes and snatched up The Spirit and cajoled Eisner to do some new stories. In the first issue we get a new version of his origin story and in the second we get an origin story for the archfiend The Octopus. Both issues also feature short two-page efforts called "Spirit Lab" in which a scientist pitches keen gimmicks to enhance The Spirit's crime-fighting skills, but ends up contacting a parody of the UNCLE organization. 

1970's

The 70's begin with The Spirit and Commissioner Dolan making a cameo appearance on a 1972 cover of the underground comic SNARF. This is the first of many appearances The Spirit will make for Kitchen Sink Comics. 

Then in 1973 we get what are called the "Underground Spirits" from Kitchen Sink. In the first of these collections which gather vintage tales we get four new Eisner pages, each a spoof of sorts about changing times and attitudes toward crime. Ebony does an interview with black journalist and attempts to kill the notion that he was demeaned by his role in the stories. In the second issue, Eisner uses his four new pages to give us a stunning P'Gell yarn in which she plays The Spirit as well as her two lovers against one another in a bid for a jewel. 

Then again in 1973 we get "The Invader", a full-color story from Tabloid Press which resulted from a class Eisner taught at the Sheridan College in Canada. This the story of a man from outer space who is the vanguard of an invading force but who finds life difficult on the Earth when he's mugged and then manhandled by various gangs before being saved by The Spirit. 

In 1974 we are treated to The Spirit Coloring Book from Eisner's own Poorhouse Press. This book takes classic Spirit splash pages and offers them up to the reader to color for themselves. I could never do that to a book and have never even thought of doing that to my copy. 

We then are treated to quite a bit of vintage Spirit artwork, including the The Spirit Portfolio plates as well as many pages of pencil drafts for that project. 

One thing not included in this volume are the covers from the Warren run of the series. It's an unfortunate oversight and I cannot fathom aside from page count why they didn't include what are some of Eisner's strongest images of the classic hero. 

But we are treated to ALL of the Kitchen Sink covers beginning with issue seventeen of the series which continued the Warren numbering. This includes a few pages by Eisner and Kitchen. 

1980's

We also get ALL of the covers for The Spirit comics produced by Kitchen Sink both for the magazine and the later comic. 

We also get the pages Eisner created for the "Spirit Jam" issue of the magazine's run in which other creators were invited to create a story. We also get four pages created by both Eisner and Dave Sim for a mash-up of Cerebus the Aardvark and The Spirit. 

Some novelty items like the cover of Will Eisner's 3-D Classics are included. Other bits of artwork that Eisner produced using The Spirit to promote things like conventions and other good causes pop up as well. 

1990's

We are treated to the rest of the Kitchen Sink covers as well as sundry spot art for various events such as the eightieth anniversary of Batman. 

2000's 

We get Will Eisner's final work on The Spirit with a few great illustrations and a story in which The Spirit joins forces with Michael Chabon's The Escapist. This is the final Spirit story produced by Eisner. 

This is an exceedingly fun volume, a proper peek at some of the more obscure Spirit artwork over the decades. There are pieces not included, save for the Warren oversight nothing too significant. And that's a wrap on my year-long look at these archive editions...almost. 

Next time we take a gander at the unofficial twenty-seventh volume of the series which was produced by Dark Horse Comics and gathers together the Will Eisner sanctioned stories by various talents from Kitchen Sink in the late 90's. 

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The Spirit In Pulp Friction!

The Rocketeer and The Spirit - Pulp Friction will have to be put into the missed opportunity section. Mark Waid creates a nifty story featuring the still largely experimental technology of television to bring together the sunny flying hero from California and the shadowy hard-bitten hero from Central City. The Spirit was the creation of Will Eisner arguably the finest comic book creator of all time, while the Rocketeer was the creation of Dave Stevens, one of the finest comic artists of his or any generation. 
Their milieus could not be more different. 

What brings them together is a murder, the murder of an alderman from Central City whose body turns up on the beaches of California in an impossible timeframe. Betty found the body and so becomes embroiled in this tale of corporate greed and government corruption. Cliff Secord is trying his best to keep her safe despite the fact she often seems more concerned with her career and with the Spirit's muscles. She meets the latter when he, Commissioner Dolan and his daughter Ellen fly to California to identify the body. The crime boss, a powerful businessman named Trask is in partnership with the Spirit's old nemesis the Octopus. Together they want to get control of the new technology of television with its potential for reaching the masses. It seems this technology has other uses as well which proves of interest to foreign powers. 

Paul Smith is the artist of the first installment and it's outstanding, offering up a nigh believable story which commands the reader's attention. Smith has always had an attractive style which is well suited to drawing dames such as Betty. Unfortunately for whatever reason Smith only draws the first issue and is replaced by Loston Wallace on the second. Wallace is an old internet colleague and once did some work for an early Yahoo group I managed for a time. I like his work immensely, but it seems a bit less dynamic here than I'd have hoped. The third and fourth issues are drawn by Jay Bone, a dandy artist, but one with a style much different than what had come before. There is nothing wrong with any single episode on its own, but the clash of styles does not do the storytelling any favors. It's a pity Smith couldn't have done all four issues. 

Below are the covers. The first and second issues are by the late Darwyn Cooke. Jay Bone does a bang- up job on the final two. 

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The DC Spirit - First Wave Part Two!

Following the mini-series The First Wave, The Spirit is awarded a second DC series which begins with a new number one. The first issue features an alternative cover by Mark Shultz who also writes the first three issues. Ladronn is the primary cover artist and does a magnificent job for most all of the series. The interior artist is Moritat who gives us a gritty but potent and atmospheric Central City, just right for crime. The Octopus is in this one but reimagined as the mysterious leader of eight crime families. The tone is more serious as The Spirit must fight for his life and the lives of his allies. In this one Ebony White is reimagined as a woman, a tough and sassy young lady who gives as good as she gets. The Spirit is also assisted by a what I dub the "Central City Irregulars", a gang of street kids who feed him info. Commissioner Dolan is presented as somewhat more corrupt police man but one finds his way in a dangerous environment. Ellen is present and empowered as well. 

David Hine takes over as the writer and remains steadfast alongside the artists for most of the run. We get some hard-hitting stories about drugs and their deadly effects. 

In the first nine issues of this run each issue also included an black and white short story back-up by a wide range of talents including writers Denny O'Neil, Harlan Ellison, Michael Uslan, Marv Wolfman, David Lapham, Brian Azzarello, Jan Strnad, Walter Simonson, and Paul Dini. The artists were Bill Sienkiewicz, Kyle Baker, Justiniano, Phil Winslade, Mike Kaluta, Eduardo Risso, Rich Corben, Jordi Bernet, and Mike Ploog. 

Hine and Moritat continue with their ongoing saga of The Spirit's battle against The Octopus gangs. The mystery of the Octopus is never solved though, and I guess we'll just have to live with that. 

Matthew Sturges and Victor Ibanez step in for one issue which offers up a light-hearted romp all about the tragic death of a cartoonist and original art. 

John Paul Leon steps in on the art for the penultimate issue. 

The final issue features a trio of short stories in black and white by writers Howard Chaykin, Paul Levitz, and Will Pfeifer. The artists are Brian Bolland, P. Craig Russell and Jose Luis-Garcia Lopez. The comic looks magnificent. 

I'm not aware that any of these issues were ever offered up in trades, but they should be. The black and white stories would make for a true-blue all-star offering of some great Spirit stories. And that wraps up The Spirit's stay at DC in new stories with a single exception produced in conjunction with IDW. But more on that later. 

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