Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks)
Joe Kubert (colors)
Sam Rosen (letters)
While The Death Dolls do play a part, the most impressive element of this strip is the proto-Nazi killer robot. “Proto” because Eisner wasn’t willing to be too explicit in 1940. But there will be a robot shaped like a German soldier (the helmet is the giveaway) who tries to destroy New York.
But that raid is in the last couple pages….
The strip begins with the Spirit tracking evil munitions engineer Yagor to a small New England coast town. The overly verbose—but finding its charm—introductory exposition has the Spirit arriving by boat, giving the town an isolated vibe. The isolation is just to provide the moody setup. And possibly just some Spirit showing off with his motorboat pursuit.
He’s tracked Yagor from the city, the obvious culprit in the murder of another weapons engineer. Yagor stole his plans to sell to a German guy. Again, the strip’s not explicit—the guy just happens to be named Emil Kampf, but he could be representing any global superpower with a name like Emil Kampf in 1940.
Instead of just shooting the Spirit on the spot, Yagor lets Spirit douse him with some exposition about the murder case in the city, which involves Spirit catching wind of the deal with Kampf. So Spirit’s going to hang around and watch the deal, thereby witnessing Yagor selling secrets to a foreign power, which is just good business when you think about it.
Except Kampf thinks the robot Nazi is a bad product (he shoots it a couple times, causing oil leaks), and storms out. Then Yagor unleashes the death doll, which tracks Kampf back to his hotel in New York City—walking across New England, which totally means Spirit could’ve driven—and detonates when it reaches Kampf.
Spirit tries to stop Yagor, but the robot is still functional and it kicks his ass. As Yagor and the robot leave to start their reign of destruction on the world for refusing to buy his stolen arms (why was a U.S. company making robot Nazis… oh, never mind, Spirit takes place in a reality close to ours), he leaves a death doll to take care of Spirit.
Obviously, the Spirit will foil the doll, escape, and save the day. However, when the robot hits the city, it’s fighting an army of cops, forecasting a fifties sci-fi monster gone amuck. Spirit concentrates on Yagor, and negotiating a temporary truce with Dolan.
It’s another great strip, with a few pages of sublime lines, and a fun finish after some phenomenal action; the studio just can’t unlearn the reliance on dotting for inking fast enough.
