Category: Comics
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) Satin is an incredible strip. It’s a mostly action strip, with three master thieves planning a team-up heist in Central City. They’re all displaced from Europe: Cedric’s British, Anton’s French, and Satin’s… Satin. They’ve also got an American sidekick monikered “Asphalt,” who doesn’t…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) Spirit and Ebony are on the job for the G-men, trying to crack a spy ring planning on destroying munitions factories with “robot planes.” The robot planes, as the Spirit will later explain, are really aerial torpedoes. The villains launch them from Europe…
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Paul Levitz (script) Joe Staton (pencils) Bob Layton (inks) Jerry Serpe (colors) Ben Oda (letters) Joe Orlando (editor) Last issue, writer Paul Levitz found a Hallmark moment amid the chaotic infighting of quinquagenarian white male superheroes and their surrogate daughter (Power Girl), whom they all berate or dismiss. Sole exception: Dr. Fate; respect. Though maybe…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) Argos is a singular Spirit strip. Not because of its formal artistic qualities, which are strong in places, particularly in the establishing shots, and altogether perfectly fine. Rather, its content and connotations. The strip’s about a regular Joe who encounters a space alien…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) Argos is a singular Spirit strip. Not because of its formal artistic qualities, which are strong in places, particularly in the establishing shots, and altogether perfectly fine. Rather, its content and connotations. The strip’s about a regular Joe who encounters a space alien…
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Paul Levitz (script) Joe Staton (pencils) Bob Layton (inks) Elizabeth Safian (colors) Ben Oda (letters) Joe Orlando (editor) This issue’s writer Paul Levitz’s magnum opus on the book so far. It’s an action-packed issue—most of the pages are just Justice Society members fighting, whether amongst themselves in the Batcave (holy set-piece, Batman!) or against the…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) WLXK is a beautifully plotted strip, with lots happening in a very short amount of time. A rather unlikely amount of time, actually, but considering part of the plot has kids listening to the Spirit kick ass on the radio and cheering along……
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Bob Rozakis (script) Don Heck (pencils) Joe Giella (inks) Jerry Serpe (colors) Milt Snapinn (letters) E. Nelson Bridwell (associate editor) Julius Schwartz (editor) Writer Bob Rozakis—and I mean this statement as a compliment—has a wonderfully juvenile vibe for Teen Titans. Their dialogue is very groovy, maybe a little too groovy for 1977 (though they are…
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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…
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Paul Levitz (script) James Sherman (1), Michael Netzer (2) (pencils) Jack Abel (inks) Elizabeth Safian (colors) Ben Oda (letters) Joe Orlando (editor) The Legion of Super-Heroes had cover title billing with Superboy for over thirty issues before this issue. It’s one officially titled Superboy and the Legion of Super-Heroes in the indicia. Even more—literally—they’re going…
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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) 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…
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This special is the result of a letter to All-Star Comics about the origin of the Justice Society. Someone wrote in wondering about the canon, and, after diligently doing some research, DC staffers discovered the 1940 comics didn’t come with an origin issue for the Justice Society. The team was already together in their first…
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks) Joe Kubert (colors) Sam Rosen (letters) The entire strip seems to be just a way to do a panel of Spirit with a Tommy gun taking out the mob. It’s a striking visual, and the strip itself is solid, but Gang Warfare is more like Gang Meddling. The strip…
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