The DC Spirit - Darwyn Cooke!

When DC was finally able to move forward in 2007 with new adventures of The Spirit they picked Darwyn Cooke to take up the challenge of continuing Will Eisner's magnificent creation. It was a superb choice as Cooke's animated-inspired style blended nicely a noir feel with a modern sense of comics storytelling. 

They kicked off the series with a booster when they crossed over The Spirit with Batman in a Cooke-drawn one-shot. Jeph Loeb wrote this roller-coaster story which featured not only the two heroes but most of both of their rogue galleries who had joined forces during a convention to do away with the twin heroes. 

The series proper began with an updated setting. This was a modern but weary Central City in which The Spirit still battled the baddies with the help of Ebony White (redesigned to remove his stereotypical aspects). Ebony was shown as a sharp assistant, who helped the out-of-step Spirit with modern technology such as cellphones and other aspects of the information age. J. Bone was tapped to ink Cooke's stylish pencils which in the tradition of Eisner played with the storytelling. Ellen Dolan was the love interest, though it's made clear she loves Denny Colt. We are also introduced to a new savvy female television reporter named Ginger Coffee. 

P'Gell makes an appearance and is up to her usual attempts to come by wealth through a bit of romance and a bit of criminality. 

The Spirit's origin is slightly revised to include a hood named Elvarro Mortez who ended up with Denny Colt immersed in Doctor Cobra's weird suspended-animation solution. Whereas Colt was put into a crypt and so was able to get free of his internment, Mortez had a more cruel resurrection. This story formed a spine which flowed in the background of the many of the stories going forward. 

Silk Satin returns, but this time she is made a member of the C.I.A. and Homeland Security and is a very capable ally. 

Cooke was all too ready to play with the graphics, well within the tradition that Eisner had established decades before. 

Cooke supplies the cover for the "Summer Special" but we get stories by Walt Simonson and Chris Sprouse, Jimmy Palmiotti and Jordi Bernet, and Kyle Baker. Truth told, The Spirit always seems more at home in these shorter stories. 

The Octopus also returns, as mysterious but perhaps even more deadly. This Octopus does not play around nor seems particularly entertained by The Spirit's shenanigans. 

Cooke gives us some fantastic and sharp satire when he looks at the landscape of television news shows which have become hotbeds of misinformation and so put the society at large at risk. Something we are contending with even more today. 

The Mortez storyline comes to a finish when a horde of zombies descend on Central City and it's up to our hero and his friends to save the day. It's a very close thing. 

Cooke wraps up his run on the series with a fantastic retelling of the Sand Saref story, giving it a modern polish while staying very true to Eisner's original intent. 

Cooke leaves off with the cover for the thirteenth issue which is a Christmas issue. Inside we get a Halloween story by writer Glen David Gold and artist Edwardo Risso, another story by Denny O'Neil and artist Ty Templeton, and a third by Gail Simone and Phil Hester. 

Darwyn Cooke was a top-flight choice to create some fun but still engaging Spirit stories. He created a continuity which alas would largely be ignored by the talents who followed him. His act was a strong one indeed. 

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