As I read the stories, I was at first confused. Then I realized that the Spirit was a lot like Jack Cole’s Plastic Man series. Totally malleable. (Yep, that’s a pun, and I’m not sorry.) I settled into the graphic novel for a light-hearted and fun read that vamoosed through the panels with the pacing of a runaway avalanche.
I call the volume a graphic novel, but that’s doing the book an injustice of sorts. In this day and age when every writer and artist is trained to produce a five- or six-issue arc that will fit neatly and conveniently into a graphic novel format a few months later, Darwyn Cooke decided to be daring and write standalone tales. That’s right, you can sit down and read a single comic-length story and get it all in one shot. That was like a breath of fresh air. It also made for more tightly plotted stories.
One of the other things I really liked about the book is the collection of secondary characters culled right from Eisner’s works: the ever missing-in-action Octopus, P’Gell, and others. Cooke even introduces us to Silk Satin, a hard-as-nails female character and member of the CIA, and she’s tough enough to take out Dirty Harry. You never know what to expect from story to story within the pages of this beautiful hardback book.
I do wish that some kind of primer with an art gallery of iconic Spirit characters had been included with the graphic novel as added value. I understood from the stories that some of the characters were ongoing from Eisner’s original run, but it would have helped with more. Eisner evidently created a deep, rich world and Cooke is running elegantly with the ball. There’s no reason for Cooke to try to stumble through all that had gone on before for Denny while in the middle of his own stories, and you can pick up enough to get by. But now that I’m hooked, that little bit of extra would have been great.
If you haven’t read the comics and still maintain your love of great storytelling combined with sheer fun, pick up this graphic novel and prepare to be wowed. Cooke has brought major wowness to a whole new level.
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