This book brings the Spirit into modern times as he and Batman meet for the first time. They team up to get their friends Commissioner Gordon and Commissioner Dolan out of trouble. In order to properly view this book I had to try and ignore my memories of the Will Eisner stories. Those stories may have taken place in the 1940’s but they were so well done that they still stand up in todays market. The real star of the book was The Spirit not Batman. You could have teamed him up with Hourman and gotten the same reaction.
With the updating nothing had to change. Ellen still pines away for The Spirit. The Spirit still live underground in the graveyard and Dolan still keeps The Spirit’s secret. I’ve always wondered how much of a secret it could be when he goes out in the daytime. The idea to update The Spirit was given the thumbs up sign by Mr. Eisner before he passed away. So I am sure that he would be happy with the way the art turned out. It is almost as good as Eisner’s but not nearly as close as when Kitchen Sink produced new stories based on The Spirit. One aspect that I am glad to see the artist kept in was the inventive way he used the Spirit’s name on one of the splash pages. That was one of Eisner’s signatures on the series. In this one the Spirit falls from the top of a building and the letter from the sign that fall with him spell out Spirit as they fall to the ground.
As you can see it was impossible for me to ignore memories of Eisner’s version. However, I did enjoy reading this book. It was well written and drawn and I can’t wait for the new series to come out later this month. I just hope they don’t turn Ebony into a computer whiz.
With the updating nothing had to change. Ellen still pines away for The Spirit. The Spirit still live underground in the graveyard and Dolan still keeps The Spirit’s secret. I’ve always wondered how much of a secret it could be when he goes out in the daytime. The idea to update The Spirit was given the thumbs up sign by Mr. Eisner before he passed away. So I am sure that he would be happy with the way the art turned out. It is almost as good as Eisner’s but not nearly as close as when Kitchen Sink produced new stories based on The Spirit. One aspect that I am glad to see the artist kept in was the inventive way he used the Spirit’s name on one of the splash pages. That was one of Eisner’s signatures on the series. In this one the Spirit falls from the top of a building and the letter from the sign that fall with him spell out Spirit as they fall to the ground.
As you can see it was impossible for me to ignore memories of Eisner’s version. However, I did enjoy reading this book. It was well written and drawn and I can’t wait for the new series to come out later this month. I just hope they don’t turn Ebony into a computer whiz.
If you want to buy it you can go to it's auction site by clicking on the title above.
No comments:
Post a Comment