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The Spirit (June 23, 1940) “Voodoo in Manhattan”
Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks)
Joe Kubert (colors)
Sam Rosen (letters)
The strip opens with Ebony and a lodge brother in Wildwood Cemetery looking for the Spirit. They find him, appearing out of smoke, and request his assistance–their lodge building seems to be haunted, can Spirit investigate? After some whinging, the Spirit agrees. The scene reveals some of the Spirit’s setup at his underground crypt lair. Just stairs and a chemical lab, but it’s something.
The Spirit misses the lodge meeting and arrives afterwards so he can investigate without anyone around. The lodge meeting—a secret society supporting Black orphans, which makes no sense—isn’t great—lots of racist caricatures.
The Spirit showing up to investigate works much better, even with the panels leading up to it. He spirits (no pun) Ebony away from a lodge brother, which leads to a “running away” gag. Eisner and studio open with scary cemetery stuff, move into “comedy” with lodge meeting, and then into an action strip.
It doesn’t take much investigating for the Spirit to uncover the culprits. Spirit’s got to punch his way out of a couple tough situations, finding the Harlem mansion full of secret rooms and underground water tanks.
The water tank’s especially important because we get the Spirit out of his shirt for the last few pages of the strip, showcasing the beefcake (which, it turns out, is a very cold way to go around).
The exposition is a little purpler than last time; it’s mostly for mood and works. The action is pretty contained, some fisticuffs, breaking through walls and floors in the mansion, plus the water tank sequence.
The resolution with the villain leaves some questions unanswered. Spirit has his theory of the case, and nothing exactly contradicts him, but because it’s so rushed, motive questions go unanswered.
Given the constraints of setting and scope, the strip does an excellent job showing how The Spirit can do big things in a small story.
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Superboy (1949) #209
Jim Shooter 1, Cary Bates 2 (script)
Mike Grell (artist)
Ben Oda 1, Joe Letterese 2 (letters)
Murray Boltinoff (editor)
The first story, from Jim Shooter and Mike Grell, opens with Princess Projectra’s shuttle crashing as she attempts to land at Legion headquarters. Timber Wolf is there to save the day, complaining about “women drivers” the whole time. Karate Kid shows up in time for the Princess to stumble out of the shuttle and fall unconscious. They’re sweethearts, so he’s very concerned.
Turns out Projectra has a rare “pain plague,” which causes terrible pain for a number of hours then passes. It’s technically not fatal, except the pain kills you, so who cares if the disease doesn’t. The Legion comes up with a solution—each Legionnaire will take an hour of the pain so it doesn’t kill anyone, and Projectra will be spared.
They immediately find out the pain intensifies as the illness develops (so hour two’s pain is worse than hour one’s). They also discover the Legionnaire who takes the pain will lose control of their powers (and mind), attacking everyone around them. So it’s all very dangerous. Good thing Superboy is flying across the galaxy at warp speed to get there for the final hour.
Even if it weren’t poorly written and poorly illustrated, the story’s also poorly plotted. A deus ex machina resolves everything, with every page bringing some immediately resolved problem to keep the story going. Shooter’s sexism might be the move of a dick writer, but the rest of the story is just the moves of a bad one.
Cary Bates handles writing chores for the backup (with Grell returning and arguably much worse). Some tween has won a contest to spend the day with the Legion, complete with his own flight ring. Pay attention to the flight ring thing; it’ll be “important.”
First up on the tour is getting the mail, except this time someone has sent the Legion a “witch wolf,” the most dangerous animal in the solar system (our solar system?) because it emits poison radiation and mind controls people’s powers to backfire on them.
One by one, the Legion goes into the room with the witch wolf, and, one by one, it reverses their powers and knocks them out. Will the guest star tween somehow figure out what’s going on, something the professional superheroes just can’t intuit on their own? Most definitely.
And will he be rewarded at the end with the promise of sexual contact from the female Legionaries, their male colleagues cheering the lad on? Also, most definitely.
The comic starts and ends icky from the sexism. In between is bad writing from two different writers and tepid (and worse) art.
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The Spirit (June 16, 1940) “The Black Queen”
Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks)
Joe Kubert (colors)
Zoltan Szenics (letters)
The first panel sets up everything in the strip (save formal cast additions)—mobster Grogan on trial for murder, defended by “The Black Queen,” his lawyer, and a side item about the school district running out of money for lunches.
Grogan gets off (with implications of a fixed jury), and Spirit drops by to ask him for a donation to the school lunches. Now, Spirit has just interrupted Grogan and Black Queen talking business… she’s more than his lawyer, it’s her mob and he’s her proxy. Spirit either just missed that disclosure upon sneaking in, or he was too distracted, or he didn’t think it warranted comment.
He will go out of his way to get a look at Black Queen in her undergarments because the strip’s got a lot of implied misogyny. Can’t trust dame lawyers.
Also, let’s get this one done, too—Ebony gets his full name and hired on as Spirit’s sidekick. His assignment goes from being a cabbie to holding a gun on the coroner, the district attorney, Grogan, and Black Queen. For a criminologist, Spirit has a profoundly confusing understanding of the criminal justice system. Perhaps they’re in a universe without double jeopardy, in which case Spirit’s plan isn’t to torture and extort Grogan, or they are in a universe with double jeopardy and it is Spirit’s plan to torture and extort him.
It’s strange either way, and the action all seems toned down. Lots of longer scenes to get out dialogue, normal length chase scenes. There’s still some lovely composition, but it plays like the opening newspaper headings exposition device is the strip’s most significant success and, upon making the hit, Eisner and studio coasted a bit.
The last panel has Spirit and Ebony heading to the Wildwood Cemetery—where Denny Colt was buried in the first strip and Spirit’s been hiding out since (doesn’t he miss plumbing?)—and the moment’s from Ebony’s perspective. They have a little banter and… well, the Spirit’s a weird dude.
Maybe on purpose, maybe not. Even as the dialogue and exposition improve this strip—Eisner (or whoever) realized the art doesn’t need a lot of words slowing it down—the Spirit gets a little more distant. Eisner hasn’t decided how to position the reader with the Spirit yet. This strip tries some things, but doesn’t have room to evaluate them.
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The Spirit (June 9, 1940) “The Return of Dr. Cobra”
Will Eisner (editor, script, pencils, inks)
Joe Kubert (colors)
Zoltan Szenics (letters)
The strip opens with Spirit dropping into Ebony’s cab. Literally, from a tree. Spirit then pulls a gun on Ebony, demanding a ride to town, while the passengers—Homer Creap and Ellen Dolan—sit terrified.
Ellen’s in town to visit her dad, the regular cast member Commissioner Dolan, and to introduce him to her fiancé, Homer.
Homer Creap.
They’re both nerds in glasses and Homer’s got buck teeth. Eisner’s not being subtle for the cheap seats. Is it worse than Ebony? No. Even with discovering the Easter egg of unconscious Ellen’s side booby at some point, no, still not worse than Ebony in his handful of panels.
Ellen’s also going to help returning villain Dr. Cobra escape because she’s got book smarts not street smarts. She’s a psychology major and Dolan lets her tour the ward. Cobra knows a couple marks when he sees them and convinces them to help him get out. He then takes them hostage, which sets Spirit on his trail.
We get Spirit’s tombstone calling cards again. While the cops do big action sequences in small, beautiful panels, Spirit goes undercover on the street and passes them out. The cards say he’s going to kill Dr. Cobra at midnight.
Action cuts to Dr. Cobra’s at midnight, Spirit shows up to kick ass. At that point the strip becomes a glorious chase sequence through the city, with Cobra and Spirit pausing occasionally for a beautifully rendered action beat.
After that creative high, the strip needs to bring things back down to Earth for the finale, which has Spirit taking off Ellen’s “ugly” glasses, letting her hair down, and revealing her to be a hot chick. He and Homer then fight over who gets to kiss her first (Spirit as reward for saving her, Homer with the buck teeth because she’s finally on that social capital level).
Might not have been the best time to be a lady. Just saying. Because, remember, this one’s in the newspaper so the target readership includes the ladies.
If you can subtract the 1940, it’s sublime. And—shudder—the 1940… could be worse.
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Superboy (1949) #204
Cary Bates (script)
Mike Grell (artist)
Ben Oda (letters)
Murray Boltinoff (editor)
What a strange comic book. Cary Bates and Mike Grell contribute both parts, feature and backup, though “feature” is a bit of a stretch.
The lead story is a retcon. In the farther-flung future than the Legion of Superheroes, future Earthlings are obsessed with watching the past through time travel television or something. Except then the kid’s time TV is broken and is changing history instead of just observing it. The device has somehow changed Superboy’s trials for Legion membership, and now he’s not a member anymore, and the fate of reality is at stake.
Oddly, however, the story doesn’t show how Superboy failed the trials. Neither is the future kid’s resolution—Anti-Lad is his only moniker, the one he takes when he travels back in time to join the Legion to get history back on track. Bates also doesn’t do anything with the future repercussions of Superboy not joining the Legion. It’s easier to identify all the things Bates doesn’t do with the story than the things he does.
So the comic promises the secret story of Anti-Lad, the Legionnaire no one remembers (because he wiped their memories). It delivers some time travel banter, lots of talking about Superboy but no real Superboy in his own book, Anti-Lad besting the Legionnaires during his membership trial, and Brainiac-5 deducing something’s off about the new prospect.
Not much of a story. Grell’s art also leaves a lot to be desired.
The backup, however, is incredible. Incredibly creepy and bad but still incredible.
It’s all about Brainiac-5 being really tired, and, wouldn’t you know it, he’s really tired because he’s made himself a fully functioning Supergirl android. He misses his 20th-century gal, you see, so he makes a new version of her.
Except he doesn’t know he’s made the android version, so there’s a bunch of bait and switch to get to the big reveal. It’s utter nonsense in terms of plotting—it’s hard to tell if Bates is trying to be inventive and not clearing the bar or if the comic thinks so little of its readership—and then Grell’s art… doesn’t help. There are even panels where Grell’s art goes from hot to cold as they’re read, drawing attention to the deficiencies.
The first story’s pointless and bad, and the second story’s pointless, bad, and icky.
Though I did just realize Bates doesn’t address whether Brainiac-5 admits to his teammates he’s using Legion resources for his sex toys.
