The Stop Button

Croaky‘s tale is Spirit at its most didactic: crime does not pay. It’s also the strip stretching to center other characters, in this case Croaky and his best gal, Poison Mag. The Perfect Crime title is a tad misleading; Croaky’s crime is robbing some guy of a hundred thousand dollars and killing the poor sap. More appropriate would be Perfect Getaway, but that one spoils a bit.

Because the crime is not perfect–the dying man tells Croaky the Spirit will avenge his death, cursing Croaky thanks to the dying words curse. Mag’s well-aware of the dying words curse, too, so it must be true.

The Spirit, however, will never be aware of the curse. It’s not even clear he ever knows he’s chasing Croaky Andrews for the murder. He’s chasing the bad guy, which leads to a solid autoplane action sequence (Ebony pilots, Spirit waterskis), but it’s nothing personal. Except for how bad Spirit feels about Croaky escaping.

So now let’s spoil a bit about Croaky’s Getaway, which involves a five-year plan: Croaky has purchased a Caribbean island and outfitted it with automatic machine guns, an elaborate security system with booby traps—the whole bit–and built a submarine capable of escaping a flying car.

It’s incredibly impressive, so it’s strange Croaky’s kind of a dope. It’s also weird he was waiting until this particular crime to cut out. Perhaps there’s something in the absent first act, which Eisner and studio wisely avoid.

Instead, we’re straight into the action, then the chase and escape. There are great visuals of Croaky and Mag getting out of Central City, but their adventures in a green hell are much more striking. While still keeping the Spirit involved (mostly immaterially), Crime‘s all about Croaky and Mag suffering for their sins — the strip’s relentless and vicious in its punishment. Crime doesn’t pay, after all, even if the Spirit’s losing sleep over things not his fault.

It’s a moody, tough strip. The Spirit’s bouts of self-depreciation over his failings–to an unusually silent Commissioner Dolan–succeed in softening some of the despair, but at a significant cost. Perfect Crime introduces this previously unknown practice of the Central City citizenry—siccing the Spirit on their killers. A “vengeful” Spirit just seems out of character, but so does the whiny one they went with.

Crime‘s a really good strip. Heavy-handedness included. Additionally, the strip’s a very graphically violent and visually disturbing tragedy. It’s practically a horror comic. And the characters earn their keep and the portent of the narrative–Croaky for his accomplished planning, and Mag for her personal tragedies.

Of course, no answer to the greatest question–what does Croaky need with a hundred grand in cash when living in self-sustaining luxury exile?

They are a superstitious, cowardly lot, I suppose… but, only the Spirit knows.