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.

Dull Week is Spirit’s biggest formal swing to date. Ebony, Spirit, and Ellen are all (individually) on the prowl for adventure, and their stories all get tied together, plotting-wise, but also in rhyming, whimsical narration. It’s constantly delightful and Eisner and studio do well in how they dole out the narration (alongside the stylized rhymes, there’s the normal strip narration). They get the reader hooked on the rhymes, then only use them for great effect in the second half.

The strip opens with Ebony complaining he and Spirit haven’t had any adventures since last Sunday (the most meta the strip’s gotten on the weekly nature of their experiences). Spirit directly references last week’s strip as an example of extreme adventure and tells Ebony to relax. That reference to last week’s adventure is also a first, outside two-parters—direct continuity, shared passage of time with the reader, rhymes; it’s not Dull.

So Ebony heads out looking for adventure right after observing the Spirit’s relaxation is leading to weight gain. Spirit looks in the mirror and decides he is getting pudgy, and so goes out to case citizens about their business on a lazy Sunday. Simultaneously, Ellen is arguing with her father about her failing private detective business (she only had that first case, none since), and she goes too out looking for adventure.

Our heroes will find intrigue, romance, and quite a bit of action in their pursuit.

Ebony kicks it off, checking out a shady joint and spotting a trench coat with a Roscoe in the pocket. Ebony empties the bullets of their powder before the gun’s owner catches him, and then gets the bar owner to hold Ebony hostage until the job is done. What job? Be patient.

Spirit—in light disguise (he looks like Clark Kent multiple times)—decides to follow the first person who passes him on the street. It just happens to be the trench coat owner, who quickly spots the tail and starts blasting. But not with the Roscoe. The Roscoe is Chekhov’s gun in Dull; it’s wild how well they tie it all together, looping in and out to maximize the payoff.

(I’m referring to it as a Roscoe for simplicity’s sake; the strip itself isn’t concerned with make or, more importantly, chain of custody.)

The bad guy takes off, and Spirit gives chase, but not fast enough to save Ellen. See, she’d also decided to tail the first person who walked past her, and it also happened to be bad guy in trench coat. Unfortunately, he’s thrilled to bump into her because he’s always wanted to take a lady detective hostage.

The finale has the heroes tying everything together, including introducing an eligible bachelor to create a love triangle for Spirit and Ellen. The finale’s almost entirely done for laughs (versus thrills), and it’s quite good. The resulting bickering between Spirit and Ellen, however, is just for laughs and is better. The strip—even if one ignored the rhyming narration pieces—has a bit further narrative distance from the cast than usual. It’s also more inclined towards summary panels, which, it turns out (unsurprisingly) Eisner and studio successfully execute with seeming ease.

It’s a beautifully illustrated strip, too, with small panels and extreme long shots to pack in the material. It must’ve looked fantastic full-size.

Dull Week is nothing but.

In terms of narrative flexing, King Kohl doesn’t try much. Kohl’s big idea is to use his gang’s criminal might to rob the Central City arsenal and use those weapons to take over the underworld. Kohl’s just out of a year in stir, where he’d been reading of a certain—finally named in the strip—whiny cishet Austrian white man’s perceived struggles. Now, Kohl figures, it’s time to enact a similar plan in the United States.

“But, Boss,” says one of the gang, “what about the Spirit?”

But, King Kohl is no Republic movie serial villain—he’s had the Spirit captured the whole time! Except he hasn’t because the Spirit escaped at some point during Kohl’s villain monologue, even having enough time to tie up his now unconscious guards.

Spirit heads straight to Commissioner Dolan, who’s heading home at midnight, weary from the day. Dolan thinks the Spirit is pulling his leg. Once again, Eisner and studio have no idea what to do with this relationship. It’s been paternal, it’s been sincere, occasionally even tender, but Kohl’s going to have Dolan doing a bait and switch. Spirit thinks he’s not getting any help, so he goes it alone. Dolan then calls in the report, but he wants to be the hero, so he takes only two police units. The petty adversarial stuff could be funny—especially since Spirit and Ellen Dolan are definitely smooching in front of her dad on occasion—but the professional incompetence stuff is a flop.

Instead of intercepting Kohl’s outfit in time, Dolan gets there after they’ve had time to set up. The setup includes baby tanks and armed aircraft. What Kohl needs from the Arsenal is unclear, given the tanks, of course. While they never fire, only crash and crush, the airplane is using its guns. It is spring 1941, after all; you can just buy tanks and military aircraft from your local armaments company. They’ve been making tons of the stuff.

Luckily, the heist, and Spirit and Ebony’s foiling of the getaway are such a visual delight, the strip doesn’t need the narrative to be sensical. Or maybe it’s just seeing the autoplane in action, doing seemingly aeronautically impossible stunts, Ebony non-lethally taking out the crooks, willful transcends to gleeful in terms of disbelief suspension. It’s kind of strange—Spirit and Ebony as action heroes—and the militarization of the Cagney-esque gangster, along with the dangers of fascism undercurrent… It’s a very spring 1941 strip.

And then the ending has Spirit and Ebony leaving baddies hanging from the streetlights, a la Wayne, Grayson, Parker, et al. Well, earlier than Parker but at least contemporaneous with Wayne and Grayson.

Now, I kept forgetting to mention—Dolan and Spirit seemingly don’t remember The Black Queen’s Army when someone tried to take over New York City (when the strip was set there) with a similarly militarized, organized crime force. One wonders if Eisner and studio remembered.

So, again, not the most innovative or original of Spirit, but really darn good.

After her most recent experience in the workforce as a boxing manager, Ellen Dolan has moved on to running her own Detective Agency, presumably under the assumption if her father and the Spirit can do it, she’s got to be able to do it. And, other than a somewhat significant mistake, Ellen’s perfectly capable of playing private eye. She’s a great shot, too; since Spirit doesn’t carry a gun, when the need arises and Ellen’s got villains in her sights, her aim is true.

She is Dead Duck Dolan’s granddaughter, after all.

The splash page announces Ellen’s new vocation, but then the story heads to Wildwood to check in on Spirit and Ebony. Spirit’s reads about a failed military test and—seemingly accidentally—makes a profound observation about the nature of failed scientific experiments in fictional media. If something goes wrong, something must be wrong, because there’s no way the scientist would ever get to this stage without having thoroughly tested. Initially, Spirit’s enthusiasm for his reasoning seems like it’s going to be some jingoism (which is still there), but there’s more to it.

Especially since the military test in question involves Professor Ravel and his formula for a new explosive. Foreign agents would be very interested in getting their hands on that formula, which is why Ravel goes to find himself a gumshoe to protect him. He just happens to select Ellen Dolan Detective Agency.

Spirit’s already on the case; he and Ellen quickly happen upon each other at the professor’s laboratory, Spirit puts his chemistry know-how to good use, Ellen puts her pistol-whipping to good use. It’s a build-up, as the showdown takes place at another location, one where foreign agents have the drop on the good guys.

Spirit gets to do some fisticuffs, Ellen gets to do some sharpshooting, and the strip manages to find its way to two punchlines. There’s the punchline to the mystery plot line, then—on the last page—a punchline to Ellen running her own detective agency. Eisner and studio find a cute ending, but they could’ve turned that last page into a whole strip of its own.

Lots of great art, with Ravel providing some comic relief while also keeping the plot perturbing. The fisticuffs sequences are particularly outstanding; after most of the strip hurries through the action, the fist fight slows it all down and finds Spirit’s visual rhythm. It’s perfectly paced.

And the bantering between Ellen and Spirit is nice. It’d play better if they were talking substantively, but there needs to be confusion and obstinacy to distract from the twists.

Ellen Dolan Detective is an excellent strip. It’s got a nice mix of plot twists, some fun character turns, visually engaging locations, and spectacular art. It’s also some of the strip’s best “wartime” strips to date. There’s the “War in Europe” subtext, which manages to be pronounced without taking up any additional space. Fantastic balance.

However—and lastly—the strip also the Spirit superhuman strength at one point. After going lights out from various pistol whips in the first half, Spirit takes big bruiser punches without flinching.

There’s not not a chance it’s supposed to be how Ellen sees him when he’s saving the day, which actually does work really well in the direct narrative and visual context… but is probably a reach.

Either way, great strip.

The Spirit has had a wider narrative scope as of late, but never before have Eisner and studio attempted anything like S.S. Raven. It’s a phenomenally weird strip, all about a killer Navy boat, with an ornery, lovable sea captain narrating the tale from a dock. The story focuses on the ship’s murderous nature, with the captain—Ferguson—laying on the purple prose, always leaving just enough room to think about the ship’s body count without the assigned agency.

From that point of view, the Raven’s been in some extraordinarily unlucky circumstances–being captained by a series of failures couldn’t have helped. From Ferguson’s narrative stance, however, they weren’t so much failures but the Raven’s annual victim. All of the ship’s captains, whether in the ship’s U.S. Navy days, its subsequent time in an unnamed South American country’s navy, and—well, no spoilers—but all of the captains do die within a year of taking command. Very unlucky circumstances. But a murderous, petty, vengeful boat?

Then, around the fifth page, Ferguson reminds the readers they’re reading The Spirit. Spirit is chasing the bad guys onto their getaway boat, which just happens to be the Raven, now in the ownership of a master criminal. Until this point, the strip’s been either Ferguson telling scary stories from the dock or the Raven’s murderous impulses and impacts summarized in long shots. Now, we get intense fisticuffs onboard, an autoplane sequence for (an otherwise off-page) Ebony, some derring-do from Spirit, and a final punchline. The fisticuffs sequence is excellent, leading into Spirit’s realization of the ship’s malevolent nature (according to Ferguson, anyway; it could just be Spirit pays attention), which resolves with moody suspense, before going into high-flying action, which also has a bit of a tone shift finish. It’s a constantly moving, constantly evolving action strip. It’s glorious.

And that glorious visual pace and the ever-building momentum enable the strip’s particular narrative device to succeed. If S.S. Raven were Ferguson—jovially and affably–telling the story without the visuals being dynamite, the strip simply wouldn’t work. What then stands out is the assuredness of Eisner and studio’s work here. It’s a relatively big swing for the strip, but there’s never a moment where it isn’t connecting. If it were a backdoor pilot for a “haunted ships of the Navy” strip, I can’t imagine that strip not getting the green light. It’s great big boat action, then it’s great Spirit action, and so on.

In addition to being outstanding, Raven’s also in that still small group of strips where Spirit doesn’t show until page five. The strip’s getting a lot more comfortable with the broader narrative scope, but it still hasn’t let Spirit go entirely. And, if this strip’s any indication, Eisner’s going to make sure the Spirit gets a strong set piece, but the strip’s on an established trajectory, now. The Spirit might not always have to be about the Spirit.