The Stop Button

Daisy Kay’s kidnapping involves a lot more action than the setup will imply. The strip opens with Homer Creep (renamed from the previous, presumably French spelling, Creap) bursting into the Spirit’s crypt lair with a pistol at the ready. Spirit handily disarms Homer and invites him into the lower portion of the lair—the living quarters and laboratories.

Homer even asks about the renovations.

Since we last saw Homer in the second Spirit strip, his fiancée has left him. The fiancée is Commissioner Dylan’s daughter, Ellen, who the Spirit gussied up at the end of that strip in a profound act of misogyny. He and Homer discussing it here explicitly objectifies the character again, and Ellen has clearly internalized it. She’s no longer interested in criminal psychology, she’s going to be a chorus girl.

The Spirit has a plan, however. He’s going to kidnap Ellen and then Homer will come and save her. She’ll think Homer’s a hero, Spirit’s a sap, and everything will be jake.

Except Ellen is working for a gangster. But that gangster—who’s producing her show on Broadway—doesn’t know about it until opening night, when one of his flunkies recognizes her. She’s there under a pseudonym—Daisy Kay. There’s a quick scene to establish Dolan’s worry that she’ll ruin his reputation as police commissioner, which is precisely the gangster’s plan. Reveal her true identity, humiliate the commissioner, get the mayor to fire him for having a low-class kid.

So the gangsters don’t like it when Spirit swings down onto the stage and grabs Ellen, running off with her over his shoulder. They give chase, which results in a fantastic series of action sequences. First there’s an autoplane bit, then there’s a Spirit fighting guys in a car bit, then there’s Ellen and Spirit under siege in a remote cabin with gangsters circling them firing on the cabin bit. It’s all glorious, it’s all beautifully visualized, even if the interludes are just Spirit being a mega-jerk to Ellen for Homer to capitalize on eventually.

Will Homer save the day and get the girl? Or are things more complicated in love and war?

More importantly, what happened with the last big action panel—despite all the two-fisted fisticuffs, Eisner and the studio can’t render the slightest dodge?

Maybe they just didn’t have the space. Doesn’t matter; it’s an excellent strip. Minus the active and passive misogyny, of course.