The Stop Button

There’s a lack of consistency to Mr. Midnight. After a gorgeous splash page, featuring the dramatically posed new villain, with the intro text recapping the Spirit’s origin segueing naturally into the exposition’s start, the art seems to go from Eisner’s drafting table to someone else’s in the studio.

Many other someones, in fact. Midnight barely maintains style between panels, much less pages. The lines go from busy and erratic to clean to busy. There are some ingenious panels throughout, like when Spirit is facing off against Midnight and they’re both just little stick figures in the distance.

Even at its worst, the art only ever seems way too rushed, never bad enough to slow the pace of the story.

The story involves Mr. Midnight taunting the Spirit with a perfect crime. Midnight’s going to murder someone in front of Spirit and Commissioner Dolan and they’re going to let him go. I could also mention here Mr. Midnight is Smurf blue, which is barely a plot point and seems like something just done for the visuals… or another of the seeming miscommunications between writers and artists—pin in that one.

Eisner ratchets the suspense during this sequence, having Dolan, Spirit, and Midnight having to wait around for Midnight’s victim to arrive. So there are two full story beats before Spirit even has anything to do on his own. And even when does something, it’s not a lot. He just follows Mr. Midnight home, and, thanks to his autoplane, gets there before Midnight.

Some villain monologuing and sinister chess playing ensue; it’ll eventually get around to fisticuffs and high action.

Eisner (and Spirit) save the mystery resolution for the last few panels after the action has been resolved. It’s an engaging ride, even if Midnight’s not a good villain (he’s just Smurf blue), and Spirit and Dolan kind of let him kill that guy in the first scene. They sure didn’t try to stop him.

And that sequence—with Midnight taunting everyone before (ostensibly) committing a murder—is where the strip gets confused on details. The script says there should’ve been a visual tell, but there’s no visual tell when you go back.

It’s an odd, uneven, entertaining outing. And that gorgeous splash page is gorgeous.