Darwyn Cooke and J. Bone, The Spirit (DC Comics, 2007-). $2.99, monthly.

By Alex Boney

Probably the most disappointing news that came from the San Diego Comic-Con this year was Darwyn Cooke’s announcement that his run on DC’s The Spirit will end early next year with issue #12. For the past nine months, Cooke has birthed one of the most carefully-crafted, well-executed monthly comic books published by any mainstream comics company in years. Batman/The Spirit #1, published in January, was an interesting re-introduction of a character that has floated about in relative obscurity for several decades. The issue (written by Jeph Loeb and illustrated by Cooke) was fun and offered a taste of what would emerge when Cooke took over full cartooning chores on the subsequent monthly book. The Spirit’s team-up with Batman seems to have been a hook that exposed younger readers to a character they may not have seen before. But in many ways, Batman/The Spirit was misleading. The Spirit hasn’t been integrated into the DC Universe proper, and Cooke’s ongoing solo book has turned out to be more than an adventurous costumed romp. The most recent issue (#9), a horror story explaining the origin of one of The Spirit’s most ghastly foes, is a reminder that every aspect of this book represents the best of what this medium has to offer. Like most of the stories in The Spirit, this issue offers a satisfying single-issue “one and done” story that can stand on its own. But it also pulls in threads that have been introduced in previous issues and points toward conflicts that will have to be resolved in subsequent issues. This is a periodical book that’s not written for the inevitable trade paperback collection, but rather does what a periodical book should do. And Cooke is accomplishing all of this with distinctive flair, humor, and suspense. To this end, Cooke seems to be channeling Will Eisner’s Spirit in more than one way.

It would be wrong to suggest that the current Spirit book is wholly original. It’s not. Comics legend Will Eisner created The Spirit in 1940, and the character enjoyed a long run in newspapers for almost two decades. The comics section of the newspaper became known as “the Spirit section” by the 1950s for a reason. Eisner was already a gifted cartoonist by the time he conceived The Spirit, but the ongoing strip allowed Eisner to hone his craft and to create graphic techniques that are taken for granted (or attributed to other creators) today. Darwyn Cooke did not create the elements that made Eisner’s strip work so well six decades ago. But he has updated and re-introduced familiar characters and settings in a way that feels modern and believable. The Spirit is actually Denny Colt, whose background and origin are essentially unchanged. Ellen Dolan and Commissioner Dolan are here, as are recurring ostentatiously-named characters from the original strip such as P’Gell, Silk Satin, The Cossack, Carrion, El Morte, and Ebony White. But familiar as these characters are, they are reinvigorated in Cooke’s hands. In Eisner’s original strip, Ebony was portrayed as a stereotypical African-American sidekick. His lips were enormous, he spoke in exaggerated dialect, and he was generally presented as comic relief that comes across as uncomfortable and offensive today. Rather than simply writing Ebony out of The Spirit, Cooke transformed him into a 14-year-old kid who, trying to survive on the Central City streets by driving a cab, gets caught up in The Spirit’s adventures. This Ebony is a comedic character, but it’s not because he’s black. He could just as easily be white, Hispanic, or Asian. (After all, he does seem to be modeled in part on Short Round from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom.) Ebony’s youthful perspective simply provides a clever way to point out the absurdity and real danger of the situations in which Denny Colt finds himself. Ebony is funny, but he’s also likeable and sympathetic. Similarly, the women in the book—especially Ellen and Satin—are all strong, capable characters who are as likely to knock Denny out as they are to rescue him.

The sympathy (and empathy) evoked by the characters in The Spirit really provide the heart of the book. Cooke doesn’t fall back on standard tropes that become redundant in many contemporary comics. And if Cooke relied solely on nostalgia and historical significance to make The Spirit successful, it wouldn’t work either. As a non-superhero book, The Spirit probably doesn’t appeal to the same readers that pick up Green Lantern: Rebirth or All-Flash #1 to see the return of their favorite hero. And people who remember reading The Spirit in newspapers are most likely few and far between (and, to be honest, unlikely to walk into a comics shop to pick up the latest issue of the current book). Rather, there is a soul to The Spirit that’s difficult to find in mainstream comics today. Cooke has always made character development and ground-level perspective the focus of his stories: This was the case in his treatment of Catwoman and even the heroes of New Frontier—the human is more significant than the superhuman in all of these books. Honestly, this is the only way a Spirit story about a love affair between a man and a vulture (Carrion and Julia from issue #5) could work. The situations are often ridiculous, but something about the stories rings true nonetheless. This is partially because Cooke includes enough of the current “real world” to give his stories relevance and weight. His representation of the news media in issue #1 and his examination of commercial culture in issue #5 are clever and savvy, and his treatment of the Octagon as a terrorist cell throughout the series ties the book to conflicts and concerns pulled from today’s headlines.

One of The Spirit’s greatest strengths is that it’s not easily classifiable. The bullet point posted on the cover of every issue touts the “Action * Mystery * Adventure” found within. But it’s not strictly an action book. True to Eisner’s pronounced intentions, it’s not a superhero book. It’s also not strictly a comedy, pulp/noir, mystery, or adventure book. The Spirit is conventional only in the sense that Cooke blends familiar conventions from several distinct genres in a way that makes the familiar seem new and refreshing. In some ways, this book is the logical next step in Cooke’s rewriting of traditional comics that began in his 2004 series New Frontier (in which the most compelling characters were the Losers and John Henry, despite sharing the book with Superman, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern and the like). Given the nature of its source material, though, The Spirit is by necessity more complex. The potential disadvantage of such an approach is that a reader who picks up an issue expecting a straightforward action or superhero story might be disappointed and unlikely to pick up another issue. The advantage, though, is that readers looking for something outside the norm – or readers new to comics in general – might discover that mainstream comics can (and should) offer something different. The books testifies to the wide spectrum of comics available on the market today and highlights the talent of some of the creators currently working in the medium.

Will Eisner passed away in January 2005, two years short of the first issue of The Spirit. It’s lamentable that he isn’t still here to see what has become of his creation. I have to believe that he’d be proud of what Cooke – a clear artistic heir – has done not just with the characters of his best-known strip, but also with the narrative techniques Eisner helped invent. Like Eisner’s before him, Cooke’s dialogue is as sharp as his layouts and pencils. The book is not dumbed-down and Cooke doesn’t stop to explain every oblique reference or vocabulary choice. Even Eisner’s signature splash page technique, in which the title of the comic strip was integrated into the page/panel design, is used by Cooke and enhanced by the new computer-generated visual effects available to today’s creators. It’s just unfortunate that Cooke’s run is going to end in three issues. Without knowing who is taking over the creative chores on The Spirit after Cooke’s departure, it’s difficult to say that the quality of work will fall off significantly. But it’s hard to imagine that the next creative team will be able to offer a book as charming, witty, and as consistently rewarding as the one DC is publishing now.