The Stop Button

The strip opens with Spirit dropping into Ebony’s cab. Literally, from a tree. Spirit then pulls a gun on Ebony, demanding a ride to town, while the passengers—Homer Creap and Ellen Dolan—sit terrified.

Ellen’s in town to visit her dad, the regular cast member Commissioner Dolan, and to introduce him to her fiancé, Homer.

Homer Creap.

They’re both nerds in glasses and Homer’s got buck teeth. Eisner’s not being subtle for the cheap seats. Is it worse than Ebony? No. Even with discovering the Easter egg of unconscious Ellen’s side booby at some point, no, still not worse than Ebony in his handful of panels.

Ellen’s also going to help returning villain Dr. Cobra escape because she’s got book smarts not street smarts. She’s a psychology major and Dolan lets her tour the ward. Cobra knows a couple marks when he sees them and convinces them to help him get out. He then takes them hostage, which sets Spirit on his trail.

We get Spirit’s tombstone calling cards again. While the cops do big action sequences in small, beautiful panels, Spirit goes undercover on the street and passes them out. The cards say he’s going to kill Dr. Cobra at midnight.

Action cuts to Dr. Cobra’s at midnight, Spirit shows up to kick ass. At that point the strip becomes a glorious chase sequence through the city, with Cobra and Spirit pausing occasionally for a beautifully rendered action beat.

After that creative high, the strip needs to bring things back down to Earth for the finale, which has Spirit taking off Ellen’s “ugly” glasses, letting her hair down, and revealing her to be a hot chick. He and Homer then fight over who gets to kiss her first (Spirit as reward for saving her, Homer with the buck teeth because she’s finally on that social capital level).

Might not have been the best time to be a lady. Just saying. Because, remember, this one’s in the newspaper so the target readership includes the ladies.

If you can subtract the 1940, it’s sublime. And—shudder—the 1940… could be worse.