The Spirit #1

The Spirit #1
DC Comics
Mark Schultz & Dennis O’Neil
(a) Moritat & Bill Sienkiewicz
FC 40 pgs w/ ads $3.99 US / Higher in Canada

After Frank Miller wrecked the character with his crappy movie, DC has decided to try and relaunch Will Eisner’s Spirit back into his own ongoing series again.

This version of the character is part of Brian Azzarello’s First Wave comic series. The setting is once again more modern but there’s more of a gritty crime noir feel to the comic. The Spirit is still just a vigilante working outside of the law but the Spirit’s love interest Ellen Dolan is more of a do-gooder here while her father, police Commissioner Dolan is more of a corrupt cop on the take.

This issue has the Spirit trying to take down the Octopus and an international crime syndicate. The syndicate have sent an assassin to deal with the Spirit. This isn’t a bad first issue. I like the network of informants that are at the Spirit’s disposal and Moritat’s art is amazing and surprisingly well suited for the Spirit. There’s a black and white back-up story by Dennis O’Neil and Bill Sienkiewicz that was short and effective. It’s not Will Eisner’s Spirit but it’s a thousand times better than Frank Miller’s Spirit. (Shane Hnetka)

First Wave #1

First Wave #1
DC Comics
Brian Azzarello
(a) Rags Morales
FC 32 pgs w/ ads $3.99 US / Higher in Canada

After completing one hundred issues of his creator owned 100 Bullets, the first new series writer Brian Azzarello has decided to work on is this project called First Wave. Azarello has taken licensed legendary pulp novel character Doc Savage and mixed him in a world with a gun toting Batman (who is standing in for The Shadow), Will Eisner’s The Spirit, Rima the Jungle Girl, The Black Hawks, and Black Canary.

The time seems to be a few years after WWII and Doc Savage’s father has just died. Doc missed the funeral while away on business and has just recently returned. Meanwhile, a corrupt Chief Dolan tips off The Spirit about something going down at the docks. This Spirit is different than Eisner’s and the recent comic and movie reincarnations. He’s still closer to Eisner’s version than he has been of late. The main plot seems to be about some evil scientist doing some sort of experiments on a jungle island. The mystery is intriguing and it will even more interesting to see how everybody fits into the story.

Rags Morales’ art is perfect for this story and it has nice clean look to it. It’s good to see Doc Savage back in comics form and it’s also good to see The Spirit return, especially after his crappy movie bombed. This series looks promising and I can’t wait to see what the Doc Savage and new The Spirit series are going to be like, which are spinning out of this mini-series. (Shane Hnetka)