The Stop Button

It’s another political intrigue strip, with a European writer arriving in the U.S. after escaping growing fascism in his country. He’s immediately confronted by secret police from his country, who taunt him with the news they’ve captured his daughter and will execute her unless she returns. So he plans to return immediately, but not quick enough the Spirit doesn’t confront him and offer a plan. What if the Spirit poses as the writer, goes in his place, and gets the daughter out?

Being an American, the Spirit doesn’t give the writer any choice in the situation, and they start prepping Spirit for the mission.

Once in the (fictional) European country, the disguised Spirit has a brief meeting with the daughter—long enough to discover the country’s dictator isn’t going to free her in exchange as promised—and then goes about breaking out of his cell. There are a couple escape-related gags, with Eisner and studio hurrying things along so they can get to the action.

In addition to escaping the guards in the palace, Spirit’s going to have to do some swashbuckling, some flying, and some reassuring (the daughter has never heard of the Spirit, being a European gal and all). There’s also the “world domination plans,” which Spirit and the daughter decide to grab before they leave, leading to a few more panels.

The strip moves briskly, never slowing down too much for an action sequence, though clearly reveling in the swashbuckler sequence. It’s a good sequence. They’ve also got the Spirit in disguise for a good few pages of the strip, leading to the disconcerting moment when they do some beefcake of Spirit punching his way around the castle. It’s fun stuff, if a little slight. This one’s how you do the overt jingoism (save the obnoxious American superiority business, obviously).

The last page is mostly post-resolution, with Ebony getting his own quick adventure. However, it does draw attention to the strip not knowing what to do with supporting cast when the Spirit’s ostensibly on a six week mission and whatnot.

Minor gripe for an otherwise solid strip. And it’s not like the finale isn’t amusing, it’s just… nonsensical, too.