Balkan Ball is an Ebony strip, which means there’s lots of racist caricature to negotiate, amplified by Ebony getting a sidekick, Pierpont, who is also visualized in racist caricature. Scarlett appears, too. So it’s three… well, it’s actually more, but only for what ought to be a delightful sight gag. As usual, Ebony’s strengths as a character work against the weaponizing visualization. Last big Ebony adventure: it was about him being a good detective on his own, even though others thought he wouldn’t be, so there was a very obvious disconnect. Balkan’s a little less disconnected as Ebony is more comfortable in his crimefighting abilities.

After the splash page, which sets it up as an Ebony (and Pierpont) strip, we get Spirit ditching Ebony to go to a fancy ball and keep an eye on the jewels. It’s for the war effort. So Spirit gives Ebony the car for the night (no, sir, the other car). Spirit then goes to pick up Ellen Dolan to take to the fancy ball, but the reader learns she’s already made a date with a prince. Ellen says there are all sorts of royalty around with the war on. Commissioner Dolan’s not particularly thrilled she’s dating a prince (suggesting loose moral behavior amongst Europe’s royalty). When Spirit gets there, Ellen tells him off and sends him out before breaking into tears at him finally picking her.

Not great Ellen writing.

Spirit then runs into the prince on the street—well, bumps—and is pretty sure he’s a professional thief, not an exiled royal. But Spirit lets it go and heads to the ball.

Meanwhile, Ebony goes to pick up Scarlett to take her to the movies, but she saddles him with her cousin, Pierpont, who’s a stereotypical troublemaking kid. Scarlett then runs out, and Ebony’s stuck. Worse, Pierpont is holding him a little hostage, threatening to badmouth Ebony to Scarlett. Instead of the movies, they go to bingo, where it turns out Pierpont’s a wunderkind at selecting the right bingo card.

Except they then get held up by some thugs, who they take out in short order—Ebony’s a crimefighter with a flying car, don’t forget—and those thugs are part of a plan to take out the Balkan Ball, bringing the threads together.

The narrative is thorough and precise. Eisner and studio hit all the points to build the story along, once again frustrating in what should be a cool strip for a little Black kid to be reading in summer 1941 instead of some traumatizing shit. Ebony and Pierpont are instrumental in foiling the heist, which will also get Ellen and Spirit into some close quarters; angry ones, too.

And the finish is well-executed. Good art on the Spirit’s relatively quick resolve with Ellen; probably the horniest Eisner and studio have gotten about this pairing. Spirit’s had some other hot encounters, but I don’t think any with Ellen. It’s brief, though. And there are some not-ideal power dynamics.

Then Ebony gets a good finish, too. Except they draw it racist, so there’s a shitty element to it.

Technically, stellar narrative pacing and plotting. Some of the other stuff… ick.

The Tale of the Dictator’s Reform is not Spirit’s biggest creative swing to date, but the strip is definitely the wildest. Hitler coming to the United States on a fact-finding mission—only to have a change of heart thanks to Spirit’s intervention—will forever be singular. Eisner and studio know the strip won’t age well, with the ending acknowledging certain inevitables, but it’s also a strip from summer 1941. It’s five months before Pearl Harbor, it’s years before learning the extent of the Holocaust; it’s incredibly naive, but earnestly so.

The splash page is a lengthy expository paragraph (with humorous little illustrations) explaining Hitler—who is unnamed because, remember, at this point, the United States still had diplomatic relations with Germany—wants to see what’s going on in the United States and help people see they should be on his side. Again, it’s earnestly done, so it’s not like Eisner knew the Nazis got a bunch of their ideas from the United States, its politicians, and its citizenry. Instead, Hitler’s going to find out no one here likes him, fascism, or any of the hate he’s selling.

Good thing Hitler went to Central City instead of Tulsa, Oklahoma.

The strip takes its subject from a council of patriotic hoboes to a couple little kids getting the better of him. Dolan’s going to hear about the visit from the kids’ father and will sound an alarm. By that time, Hitler’s found his way to Wildwood Cemetery, where Spirit hosts him for some light exposition and lighter debating. It doesn’t take much for Hitler to see the error of his ways, just some good, plain talk from the Spirit.

The final page of the strip has Eisner resetting the stage, but there’s also some follow-up to the police’s search. Sight gags with Hitler were probably a lot funnier in summer 1941 than later, but they’re still a flex at that point. As a comic strip, The Spirit has always been produced in a world with Nazi Germany; it just took a while to acknowledge it in the story content, with Spirit only relatively recently getting into the spy game. And they’re still cagey about proper nouns—the “Dictator” comes from the country of Europe in the strip… Eisner and studio had their reasons, but those reasons might be too constraining for their ambitions here.

Technically, there’s not a lot going on with the strip’s execution. Some good composition choices, the kids in the park are funny, but the strip fails in its didactic efforts. It’s thin.

Though, right on for them running with it. Eisner and studio probably didn’t know the extent of Nazi sympathy in the United States at the time, but they knew some of it, and they delivered a definite condemnation.

Weird strip.

Dusk and Twilight is, no pun, a dark strip. The splash page introduces us to Dusk, who may look like he’s in a carnival act, but he’s actually a murderer with hands of steel and a gentle disposition. We learn these two details on the second page, when he goes to a famous brain surgeon’s house, asks the little daughter to show him into the dad’s office, strangles the dad, pats the daughter on the head, and strolls away slowly enough to make sure he gets to hear the daughter find the body.

It’s creepy. It’s the youngest kid ever in danger in The Spirit; it’s the strip’s first psychopathic-killer protagonist of this nature; and it’s not even the biggest swing in the strip. Once Dusk is done delighting in the screams of a little girl, he goes on a jaunt through a nearby cemetery. It just happens to be Wildwood Cemetery, where Spirit and Ebony are returning home after their latest adventure. Ebony’s a little nonplussed about it, prompting Spirit to ask why he’s not more excited about catching killers.

Ebony looks directly at the reader and asks how he’s supposed to be so invested in human life when Europeans are being murdered by the thousands, and no one in the United States seems to give a shit. After a “right on” from Spirit, Dusk happens across the duo and starts thinking about killing at least one of them. Spirit spots something off about this particular guest star, and they take a walk, leaving Ebony to wait.

Dusk will take Spirit to his underground lair and introduce him to his wife, Twilight, who Dusk has kidnapped and either kept primal or made primal. Twilight’s always trying to kill Dusk with throwing knives, but she’s got terrible depth perception. She’ll later prove perfectly good slashing with her knives, but only when Spirit’s trying not to hit another female guest star in the strip.

At this point, Dusk becomes less scary and a tad more cartoonish. Spirit has had savage wild women before; it’s had mad scientists who make mutant henchmen to fight Spirit. Even after an interlude at the Central City police department, so Dolan can get on the case, and the briefing talks about the little girl finding the dad’s body, Dusk seems a little more for a smile than a scare. Not a laugh, he’s too dangerous to be funny, but he’s got personality. Especially once he discovers Spirit isn’t the kindred… spirit (sorry), he had hoped.

The art is sometimes a little more Expressionist in the establishing shots than usual, lots of curling visuals, including Dusk’s wiry frame. But the art’s also rather hurried. Lots goes on with varying levels of detail; figure detail, character detail, yes; background detail, detailed scenery, no. Again, it’s hurried. And a lot of the strip’s visual pacing relies on sight gags, which makes it feel more like a traditional comic strip at times–panel, panel, punchline, and so on.

It’s a solid Spirit. Outside the opening macabre (and Ebony’s plea), it’s not particularly distinct (well, Spirit does get really upset about having to fight another lady, as I said), just a perfectly fine strip.

Five Passengers opens on a moody airstrip with an unlikely cast. A local schoolteacher’s favorite assignment is to bring the youngsters to watch the flight to Washington D.C. Each student gets to pick one of the passengers they’re watching board and write a fictional biography of the person. Given the strip will eventually involve foreign agents and other ill-intentioned folk, it’s strange no one ever thinks the schoolteacher’s off. The pilots even comment on the teacher and his class; it’s a regular field trip.

The school field trip is just a bookending device, however, and the action quickly gets underway with the incredible events aboard the airplane once it is in flight. There’s a mobster turned FBI informant on the plane, and the only way the mob can get him is to take him out on the plane, then for the hitman to parachute. A concerned older passenger observes, dressed entirely in blue, but can’t possibly be Spirit in disguise because he’s not just wearing glasses, he’s also got an old man white hair tuft beard.

It’s the Spirit, of course, who’s there on an unrelated case. Also, on board on an unrelated case is that foreign agent, who aids the mob hitman in his escape before turning to his own, now easily attainable, business. So everyone’s got their own agenda, there’s the potential for numerous double-crosses, and as long as the knocked out flight attendant doesn’t roll out of the plane, every Passenger will have either died or killed another passenger.

Then there’s a surprise after all that intrigue—which already will have involved parachutes, multiple disguise reveals, and a possible logic error in the narration text—but it’s not enough for Eisner; there’s got to be a comeback reveal. Then the bookend finish. Then something appropriately pro-British, because there’s a war on and everything.

Even the reveal at the end is basically just a cameo guest appearance, with some entirely functional dialogue to pass the time. Eisner and studio turn everything up to eleven with this strip—the opening has the class on the field trip to appeal to same-age readers, followed by almost immediate intrigue, violent mob action, and airplane peril. It’s a showcase of extremes, except there’s minimal Spirit fisticuffs. It’s not a Spirit action showcase, it’s a soft pilot for Spy Spirit’s Mystery of the Week. And it’s interesting to see Eisner and studio flex with narrative promises over visual ones. The strip’s a very accessible Spirit, especially in a newspaper full of war news.

The art’s entirely solid, with some moody panels but no real standouts. The timing is excellent, with Passengers using comedic comic strip timing in an intrigue setting and such. The strip’s successful; it just lacks any particular oomph, which is a choice given the guest star’s identity.

And, now, Killer McNobby takes the crown for most formal flexing Spirit strip. They do the narration entirely in rhyme, with accompanying illustration. It’s almost like Eisner and studio realized if they didn’t do something different with it, Killer would be maybe the fifth “Spirit vs. Titular (asterisk) Criminal” strip. Maybe tenth. It’s kind of a default by now, enough so they’ve been deconstructing the tropes recently.

Killer is a bad dude who starts small and gets bolder and more successful. His modus operandi is killing his victims so there aren’t any witnesses to his robberies. There’s a simplicity to the man, and Central City knows to fear him. But Spirit’s not scared, so they get into a fist fight from afternoon to the next morning in a lot in the slums. Gangsters either do or do not show up, the underworld definitely comes out, but the rhyme—there’s eventually a chorus, it’s a song, it’s an urban folk fight song for Spirit; it’s a big ol’ swing. But before I get too distracted by how well-executed Killer gets, I’ll note the incongruities in the lyrics.

The lyrics are impressive in terms of humor and rhyming; in terms of relaying the narrative as it plays out in the accompanying illustrations… they get a C. It happens a lot during the fight sequence, which is unfortunate because it’s a glorious fight sequence after the build-up. Once it’s clear we’re headed into fisticuffs, the rhymes either do or don’t make sense with the illustrations; they quickly become confusing. More confusing is the lyrics not making sense between the rhymes; they lose internal consistency for a while and just roll with it, presumably because they knew once you saw the fight page, you were reading as fast as you could to get to that one. Killer must have looked great on the newspaper page.

There’s not much story. Spirit just goes after dude when enough is enough. They get into the fight, they both have highs and lows, and then there’s the finish. And Eisner and studio change up the lyric structure again to get to a rhyme, saying whatever they have to say to get there. It’s ambitious, it’s successful, it’s just not particularly tenacious. They do an awesome, delightful strip. When re-reading the lyrics to try to understand how the underworld can all be in attendance without any gangsters, the art starts to feel distracting. And the way Eisner works the art to ignore traditional comic strip narrative—it’s far more expressive, both for humor and exposition. It just doesn’t always fit with the lyrics, except typographically, of course. There’s a not zero chance much of the song was written to fit the spaces between the visuals. Killer’s a gorgeously illustrated strip; they worked hard on this one, and they deliver.

Spirit’s been making lots of big swings lately, both in narrative and style; Killer McNobby’s the champ.

For now, anyhow.

Spirit’s been overdue for a nice, wholesome story, so when Thomas Hawkins starts the strip getting out of prison and the guard says, “Once a killer, always a killer,” it’s concerning.

The strip turns around immediately, however, as Spirit drops in to see Dolan and Dolan’s thrilled to tell him about how Hawkins is on his way up and Dolan’s going to remind him the cops have their eye on him.

Spirit, for his part, tells Dolan he’s the bad guy in this situation and is making it worse. And then proceeds to let Dolan hear more of it after Dolan threatens Tommy: crime is a social disease, and criminalizing and ostracizing ex-cons is obviously, objectively perpetuating the cycle. The strip cuts to Tommy at this point, presumably to save the reader from Dolan’s thoughts on Herbert Hoover, again.

And Eisner and studio deliver a one-page visualization of the cycle at work. Tommy comes across an old pal who offers him a job on a robbery; Tommy says, no, he’s gone straight. Except after a series of panels summarizing his attempts at going and, more importantly, staying straight, Tommy ends up at his old friend’s door, having lost a job, found love, lost love, lost another job, over and over.

The page’s didactic—Eisner’s audience for it is obviously the Commissioner Dolan type–but moves well and quickly makes Tommy into a sympathetic protagonist. So when Spirit intervenes and tries to keep Tommy from making a big mistake, it’s hard not to be on Tommy’s side, even as he loses that protagonist positioning.

The strip’s set up as a tragedy. Tommy’s cursed, whether through lack of opportunity or just past association, and only dumb luck and having the world’s only science hero in your corner is the only way to get out of that tragedy. Except even with the Spirit involved, he can’t beat the dumb luck if it’s bad. It’s incredibly frustrating and incredibly tense, and Eisner and studio rather nicely link narrative and visuals around Tommy. Because these frustrations aren’t the reader’s, at least not first. They’re Tommy’s.

The result is Spirit getting away with a wholesome redemption story mostly through summary and exposition. Some of the story events move incredibly fast; others take weeks to percolate. The pacing accelerates and decelerates as needed in quite strong work. Tommy never holds the protagonist slot for long, but he always connects–wonderful intensity to this strip. There’s a passion to it.

Plus, it’s a nice outing for Spirit and Dolan. Regardless of the sociological disagreement (though, let’s be real, one of them is right, the other is not), their character arc is nice. It’s been a while since they’ve had a mutually beneficial outing.

Oh, last thing… Dolan’s first remark to Spirit is the eternal Superman question: Are the glasses enough? Spirit’s leaning into the visual similarities between Clark Kent and Spirit in disguise, which is a fun surprise.

After the strip’s big creative adventures last week, Marta is a seemingly more conventional Spirit versus criminal-of-the-week strip. The slight deviations from the norm, such as the Spirit doing Sherlock Holmes-style deduction, actually make the strip feel traditional in its self-contained scope.

The action opens with Marta at the museum, leaving for the night. She’s been practicing her own painting by copying a master (a Renaissance Primitive, which either refers to a primitivist Renaissance painting, meaning it invokes the experience of a “primitive” setting, or it’s a reference to Flemish Primitives, and that usage refers to its artist being a creator of a new painting style.

The content of the painting isn’t important, though Eisner enjoys the phrase “Renaissance Primitive” itself, using it whenever the opportunity presents (just never with a definition). Perhaps as potentially disinterested as the strip’s reader in art history lessons, so too is Ebony the next day when he and Spirit visit the museum. Spirit has to save Ebony from having his head stuck between a marble statue lady’s arm and breasts; it’s (somewhat) discreetly done, but they do strongly imply Ebony’s intent. Not a bored, leaning mistake, either… instead, it gives “don’t grope the statues, young man” energy.

Anyway.

Spirit immediately realizes the painting has been stolen and replaced with a fake. Since it might be the museum curator doing a con, Spirit’s going to steal the fake and get to the bottom of it. Marta’s first half is a series of carefully executed, very quick, practically methodical, multi-step actions. Spirit sends Ebony for another painting to replace it, while doing a quick costume change and a smoke-bomb distraction. He’s also going to have a backup plan in case he gets stopped.

But it’s not just Spirit with the planning. After Spirit checks in with Dolan (who’s competitive but not negligently so this time around), the strip shifts over to the villain. The reader learns why the painting was stolen and that the thief has a detailed, intricate plan—involving the Spirit—to get revenge on another suspect. It’s not just deliberate in the exposition or plotting, either. There are visual cues. It’s delicate, fine work.

Spirit does unravel it rather brusquely on the last page, but the strip’s out of pages, and there’s quite a bit more to do after the solution.

Along the way, there’s a just okay action sequence. The art isn’t Eisner and studio flexing this week. There’s a lot to fit in, and they concentrate on getting the information into the panel–in addition to the visuals, there’s also a lot of dialogue since there’s a ground situation of vengeance to lay out, and the one fisticuffs bit is inert. Then the second-to-last page, which has visual clues for the reader for the reveals along with lots of exposition, feels like a different artist in the studio took over. At least on the layouts.

But the last page wraps it all together nicely, and Marta connects for the finish.

And, of course, it’s nice to see Spirit and Commissioner Dolan getting along so well.