Author: Andrew Wickliffe
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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…
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Eisner wastes no time getting this strip started—the first panel has Commissioner Dolan asking daughter Ellen what ever happened with her former beau, Homer Creep (né Creap). She hasn’t seen him since he was last in the strip, getting some loving attention from a nurse after Ellen threw him over for the Spirit; she never…
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Writer Paul Levitz makes a twelfth-level intelligence move with this issue; it’s not a great script—Wildcat’s “docks” accent is forever obnoxious—and the stakes are haywire, but the reveal is about the only way All-Star could move forward. Psycho-Pirate has been micro-dosing the Justice Society with negativity for ages. How long? Long enough to cover all…
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The strip’s a simple outing—Spirit helps young copper Dan Gorman, who runs afoul of the hoods on his new beat. There’s a great action sequence with the Spirit and Dan knocking heads; lots of great movement. Otherwise, the most interesting thing about Silk District is how little the Spirit’s in it. He’s around a bit…
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Alien: Earth (2025) s01e04 “Observation” D: Ugla Hauksdóttir. S: Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, Adarsh Gourav, Timothy Olyphant. Strong comeback kicks off the science, espionage, manipulation, deceit, and danger arcs, all entwined and engaging. It also reveals it doesn’t matter if Lawther can’t deliver: Chandler, Olyphant, and Davis are giving…
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For this issue of “your favorite Golden Age superheroes hate working with each other and helping people in general,” the bickering is once again the main plot. The story opens with Power Girl trying to convince Wildcat and Star-Spangled Kid to investigate a giant hole in the Earth where the supervillains were suspiciously hanging out.…
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Eisner and studio start the new year one big change for the strip—The Spirit now takes place in “Central City,” and has always done so. Then there’s also the approach to the war in Europe; Eisner’s still not using the proper nouns, but this strip’s all about the influx of European refugees fleeing from the…
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Paul Levitz (script) Joe Staton (pencils) Bob Layton (inks) Elizabeth Safian (colors) Joe Orlando (editor) If I take back the things I said about Wally Wood being mid last issue, can he come back retroactively and save me from Joe Staton and Bob Layton? We can keep Paul Levitz finding his sexism towards Power Girl…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) The Spirit gets his first mission as a special government agent: identifying enemy powers’ fuel depots on the Mexican coastline. The military doesn’t want to let the Mexican government know about it because then they’d want to investigate and they don’t want to…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) For Christmas, the strip does a story without the Spirit. He shows up in the bookends; at the beginning—with some lovely art—Spirit and Ebony discuss Christmas plans. Ebony had been expecting Spirit to go after some known crooks, but instead, Spirit’s going to…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) This strip’s an incredibly (and intentionally) didactic tale. A young prisoner is about to be paroled and plans on joining the Slim Pickens gang. But just before his parole, wouldn’t you know it, he’s got a new cellmate… Slim Pickens. Pickens regrets his…
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Alien: Earth (2025) s01e01 “Neverland” D: Noah Hawley. S: Sydney Chandler, Alex Lawther, Essie Davis, Samuel Blenkin, Babou Ceesay, Adarsh Gourav, Timothy Olyphant. The ALIEN franchise gets a Disney-fied horror, action, sci-fi Prestige Format television show, set just before the first movie. Creator, teleplay writer, and showrunner and (this episode’s) director Hawley’s take is homage-heavy,…
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The Adventures of Hercules (1985) D: Luigi Cozzi. S: Lou Ferrigno, Milly Carlucci, Sonia Viviani, William Berger, Carla Ferrigno, Claudio Cassinelli, Maria Rosaria Omaggio. Weird but not in a good way sequel has Ferrigno trying to find Zeus’s missing thunderbolts. Despite truly bewildering set pieces and narrative decisions, it’s just too cheap, too poorly made,…
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Paul Levitz, Paul Kupperberg (script) Wally Wood (pencils, inks, plot) Al Sirois (inks) Elizabeth Safian (colors) Ben Oda (letters) Joe Orlando (editor) I spoke too soon. Paul Levitz is back to solely dialogue this issue, with artist Wally Wood contributing to the plot. Presumably, then, it was Wood’s idea to do this issue of The…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) For a relatively simple strip—the Spirit and Ebony go to investigate a supposedly haunted house—there’s a lot of exposition involved. We get a history of the haunted house—owned by a guy who has disappeared, the bank is about to foreclose, and it’ll go…
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Paul Levitz (dialogue, co-plot) Wally Wood (pencils, inks, co-plot) Al Sirois (inks) Elizabeth Safian (colors) Ben Oda (letters) Joe Orlando (editor) Wally Wood takes over the full art duties and eighty-sixes Power Girl’s cleavage window, making All-Star immediately feel a little more grown-up. Helping set it back—writer Paul Levitz now makes special time to gripe…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) The splash page has Spirit with Ellen over his knee, giving her a spanking for some reason. That reason? Only the Spirit knows. Anyway. The strip itself has Ellen luring the Spirit up to her college so she can make him take her…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) It’s an all-action strip, opening with a thug on the run from the Spirit, desperately clamoring to be let into the hideout. Moments later, the Spirit breaks through the door. The thugs have kidnapped Ebony in order to lure the Spirit away from…
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Cary Bates, Jim Shooter (script) Mike Grell, Michael Netzer (pencils) Bob Wiacek, Bob Layton (inks) Jack C. Harris (assistant editor) Murray Boltinoff (editor) Mike Grell gets an inker for his pencils on the feature, but Bob Wiacek doesn’t bring anything to improve on them. In fact, the figures might be worse. Some of the close-ups,…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) 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…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) The Black Queen’s back again, this time fully in her supervillain period, wearing a skimpy outfit and a cape. Far cry from when she was a “notorious female mouthpiece.” But also a far cry from her scheming in the shadows to take over…
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Paul Levitz (assistant editor, script) Keith Giffen (layouts) Wally Wood (pencils, inks) Al Sirois (inks) Carl Gafford (colors) Ben Oda (letters) Joe Orlando (editor) Paul Levitz takes over the full writing gig, no longer only dialoguing from a plot, and… well, at least there’s not all the misogyny. Otherwise, there’s not much improvement. It’s definitely…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) The splash page is Ellen Dolan with a black eye, reading The Manly Art of Self Defense. Given Ellen’s last appearance in the strip, it’s a sensational and not unconcerning opener. But it’ll all work out, with Self Defense possibly the best Spirit…
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Gerry Conway (editor, plot) Paul Levitz (assistant editor, script) Keith Giffen (layouts) Wally Wood (pencils, inks) Al Sirois (inks) Carl Gafford (colors) Ben Oda (letters) Jack C. Harris (assistant editor) If the scripter weren’t Paul Levitz, I’d almost wonder if he were making fun of (plotter and editor) Gerry Conway’s take on All-Star to this…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) It’s a good thing Spirit cleared his name since he needs Dolan’s official recommendation this strip. FDR has just signed the Selective Training and Service Act—a peacetime draft—and, being a good jingoist, the Spirit wants to sign up. He’s got some conditions, however.…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) It’s another slighter strip, with the Spirit rescuing a damsel in distress from her ex (the titular Ogre Goran), a psychopath who’s just escaped prison. The opening is the prison break and it’s relatively solid business. The line work is wanting this strip,…
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Jim Shooter (script) Mike Grell (artist) Jack C. Harris (assistant editor) Murray Boltinoff (editor) Ken Klaczak (suggestion) Without getting effusive, this issue might be one of artist Mike Grell and writer Jim Shooter’s best Superboy collaborations. There’s only so much wrong with it; they both keep the comic packed and moving, and none of the…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) The splash page for this strip is a newspaper article about the Daily Press declaring its mission to uncover the Spirit’s identity. The article gives a rundown of (some of) the strip so far, including the Spirit being wanted for murder. That murder…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) The Spirit tries—very gently—a “whodunit,” with the reader getting as much information as Spirit or the cops; more, actually. The whodunit aspect seems half-baked, similar to the rest of the strip. While The Mastermind avoids any of Spirit’s problematic pitfalls, it’s also barely…
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Gerry Conway (editor, script) Keith Giffen (layouts) Wally Wood (pencils, inks) Al Sirois (inks) Carl Gafford (colors) Ben Oda (letters) Paul Levitz (assistant editor) Writer Gerry Conway likes deus ex machinas so much, he flies one in on a spaceship for this issue. The issue’s got multiple comes and goings, like there was only so…
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