A week has passed since last strip, and the Spirit still hasn’t let Commissioner Dolan know he’s alive. Ebony points out he’s being unkind to a friend, and Spirit’s surprised to realize he’s got affection for Dolan. Now, despite Dolan constantly trying to pull one over on Spirit, Dolan’s always concerned for him. They’ve been pals since the first strip; the strip’s used to open with a preamble mentioning Dolan being his only friend; not to mention they spent Christmas together. Spirit not thinking they’re friends is profoundly weird.

And Ebony can’t convince Spirit otherwise, either. Spirit is happy to let Dolan think he’s dead the rest of the strip.

In addition to mourning, Dolan’s got a concerned citizen with money very upset the cops aren’t doing anything about the fake yogi fleecing his wife. Spirit doesn’t get a pass for the racial and religious caricatures, because although the yogi is indeed a fake and completely ignorant, Spirit’s going to do accent work. So it’s cringe but less offensive than if anyone weren’t knowingly conning. Ish.

And the “Eastern” visuals are additionally complicated by the gorgeous damn art in the fight scene. Eisner and studio do a big Buddha statue fight panel. Breathtaking page.

Most of the strip’s great looking. Eisner intersperses the yogi mystery with Dolan and some other cops getting it in their heads—independently of one another—they should wear all blue, don some distinctive masks, plop on a fedora, and fight crime as the new Spirit. None of them are very good at it, though some of them are worse than others. The bumbling leads to a nice constraint—visually and narratively–then to the Spirit and the fake yogi’s showdown.

While the fight is the central visual spectacle, the last couple pages are quite good, too, particularly as an example of Eisner and studio’s accomplished flexing. Spirit’s got an idea for keeping himself dead; great panels, but also a very nice visual callback to early Spirit attempts at stagecraft.

With the humor threaded throughout, the strip moves at a fine pace. The cops get their setups—though one of them is Dolan’s assistant, Finnegan, who’s multiple times tried to arrest the Spirit, and his decision to carry on the good work is bewildering. It’s hilarious because Eisner’s only ever used Finnegan as comic relief; the implication he’s a secret Spirit fan is profound.

The other cop, O’Rourke, may also be a returning character. He gets some very funny material, but is only interested in the Spirit II gig because he can’t get any respect at work. So he’s doing it as an ego thing, Dolan’s doing it as sincere homage, and Finnegan’s doing it for his own reasons.

It’s an outstanding strip. The bumbling pseudo-Spirits contrast the relative calm and very moody temple, giving the strip a lot of energy.

Davy Jones’ Locker is a straightforward strip, but only because Eisner doesn’t allow it to get bogged down. There’s plenty of potential for it to drift, and Eisner doesn’t want any of it; any tangents would affect the verisimilitude.

The strip opens with a group of sandhogs (underground urban construction workers) deciding they’re sick of the politicians and builders taking credit for their work, so they decide to become underwater robbers. The Davy Jones of the title is their leader, who presumably came up with the idea to steal a section of the underwater tunnel they’d been working on, and use it to destroy and loot merchant vessels.

The story takes place over eight weeks (as usual, presumably the Spirit has other cases during those weeks, but they’re unacknowledged). Jones and his crew convert their tunnel section into a base, loaded with mines. Whenever a large ship full of gold goes over them, they send up a mine, sink the ship, and collect the gold at their leisure.

Those activities raise numerous unanswered questions Eisner avoids asking. He also avoids explaining how the Spirit, inserting himself into the investigation and taking advantage of Dolan’s reluctance to be benched when the FBI arrives, somehow commands a team of Central City’s finest. Who are armed with rifles capable of firing underwater.

There’s lots of underwater battling, but nearly all of it happens off-page. The first skirmish between the cops and the bad guys quickly goes topside, where Ebony and Dolan worry about the Spirit. These sections are good, but nothing compared to when Spirit encounters Jones himself and the two face off. There’s a lot of mood to the art, and there’s a lot of mood to the interaction. Spirit’s at a disadvantage, so’s Jones, and they’ve got to resolve their hostilities (one way or another) before the police’s depth charges find them.

The finale’s got a surprising amount of heart, with Eisner leaning into it to a fine result. Even though the undersea battle only gets cursory attention from the creators, it’s all the characters have been thinking about.

Very little jealous Dolan here, and even less foreign intrigue. There’s just a single mention musing about foreign powers being behind the sinking of the ships. And we get to see the west side of Central City (at least the river) and the plains beyond. Nice landscape work throughout, too.

Locker’s finely executed.

The strip takes place in Mexico, where the Spirit foils an attempt by some treasonous Mexican army folks to side with foreign powers to overthrow the government. The foreign powers are presumably German, but Eisner’s still not being specific.

But Spirit doesn’t show up until page three, with the strip opening instead on a young man named Pedro arriving in town to tell everyone about enemy aircraft. No one believes him, so he keeps trying; the sequence gives Eisner and studio the chance to do some slice-of-life panels for the village. Lots of good little panels establish the setting before the action turns to the villains.

Using their silent bombs, the bad guys take out a different village, which is explained in the expository text, but, visually, it seems like it’s the opening village. These silent bombs do all the damage and exploding of regular bombs, only with no sound whatsoever. All of a sudden, Spirit’s flying car becomes a lot less far-fetched.

The Spirit arrives and tries to take on the baddies himself, only to get captured and dropped out of a flying plane. Luckily, he’s got those gymnastics skills and is able to save himself; he then comes across Pedro and enlists him in the effort.

There’s a somewhat complex setup involving Pedro using the silent bombs against their makers while Spirit goes in for the direct approach. The last few pages have some wonderful art, whether Spirit’s fisticuffs or the bad guys walking around the ensuing wreckage.

The strip feels a little forced with its politics, and, despite the villains being indistinct, spends a lot of time with them. Spirit’s never really the protagonist (it’s either Pedro or the bad guys running scenes); he’s presumably in Mexico on assignment from the U.S. government. It’s never clarified. Missed opportunity for a very humorous scene of Spirit gassing up the autoplane for his approximately two-thousand-mile trip.

Eisner’s characterization of Mexico has the accent and portrays all of the villagers as so layabout they literally do nothing but layabout, while also putting Mexico as comparable to the United States as both countries threw off the imperial yoke. A 1941 version of ahistorical good vibes.

The art, action, and timing make up for the rockier bits.