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The Spirit (December 8, 1940) “The Haunted House”
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 to a gangster who wants to use it as a gambling den (and general purpose hideout), but the Spirit wants the state old folks’ home to get it.
About halfway through the strip, we’ll get some more exposition about the house, explaining what happened to it before the foreclosure rumblings. A few pages later, we’ll get even more. For all that exposition, however, there are still several unanswered questions in the strip… including why the gangster wanted the house (other than its remote location) and why he never took a look at it.
The “haunting” elements seem to be permanent installations, so any estate agent and prospective buyer would see them.
But, no, it’s just Spirit and Ebony bantering on the way there, then Ebony getting scared by everything and Spirit realizing there’s something else going on. Even as there end up being multiple fisticuffs opponents, and a handful of gags related to haunting the house, the strip finishes feeling more than a little slight. The stakes at the beginning—Spirit wanting to keep the house from the gangster—change in the middle, then change before the end, then are different once again in the last few panels. It’s like Eisner and studio had the idea for a setting, but not really what would go on in it.
Especially considering they reuse actual (and somewhat nonsensical) set pieces.
It’s still a perfectly okay strip, with Ebony around for the banter and some slapstick. The haunted house stuff proves fake reasonably quickly, so not a lot of Spirit in “supernatural” situations, but some nice, shadowy panels for sure. Even if the art’s never quite as tight as it could be.
Again, Spirit has raised the bar so much technically, even slighter strips are fine outings.
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All-Star Comics (1976) #64
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 about Power Girl being too into women’s lib and not gracious enough to the men around her.
Otherwise, the majority of All-Star’s ongoing problems get a respite. There’s still the whining—Hourman whines about how no one needs him, Green Lantern whines about how no one cares about his money troubles—but there’s also time travel to Camelot and a big reveal at the end.
In the present, Star-Spangled Kid has turned his cosmic rod into a belt, which doesn’t really feature in the story at all. Other than Kid pissing off Power Girl because he does something nice but she can’t appreciate how men are, actually, just trying to help her. Levitz takes the time to point out her personality defects after these moments, which is cruddy but now expected.
Superman—who last issue promised he was retiring (again) from the JSA—rejoins this issue (he’s back at headquarters for some reason too, even before rejoining). It works out because Wood clearly enjoys doing Golden Age Superman in “modern” comics. Quotations for modern because they really lean into the Camelot time travel for a bit, complete with slight costume changes.
They’re back in the past because Flash and Green Lantern show up at JSA headquarters with Shining Knight, who they discovered in Egypt while looking for Dr. Fate’s cure (Dr. Fate’s recuperating off-page). Presumably, original series writer (and editor) Gerry Conway had a different development in store for the Egyptian sojourn, but Levitz uses it to send the team into the past; the Romans are attacking Camelot, which is ahistorical (Camelot being historical could just be an Earth-Two thing, right?).
After that whining from Hourman and Green Lantern, the team heads back, fighting some knights before ending up at the castle for their briefing with Merlin and Arthur. Despite being a seemingly essential guest star, Shining Knight disappears around this point. He’s definitely not there once the heroes realize something else is going on.
Specifically, Power Girl notices something else is going on, bringing it to her cousin Superman’s attention. Now, if Golden Age Superman is the crème de la creme, why doesn’t he notice it? Because he’s too busy crying havoc. One wonders if editor Joe Orlando was ever once concerned with internal consistency. Again, probably not.
The Wood art is nice, even when he’s brushing over plot holes (or creating them himself).
All-Star’s not exactly good, now, but it’s majorly improved.
Also doesn’t hurt Wildcat is nowhere to be found.
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The Spirit (December 1, 1940) “Girls’ Dorm”
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 to prom. She’s told all her friends she can do it and just needs a cadaver from the medical school to make it work. One panicked call to Daddy (Commissioner Dolan) and Spirit and Ebony are winging their way in the autoplane.
We’ll also get some nice, gentle teasing about Ellen from Ebony, who knows the Spirit likes her attentions and troubles more than he’s letting on. It’s another of those incongruities with Ebony; he’s the Spirit’s only confidant (Dolan knows his origin and home address, but little else), a faithful, determined sidekick, and yet visualized as racist caricature.
Ebony will have a particularly good strip, since he’s the one who discovers the actual murder. It just so happens one of the college professors will end up dead as Spirit’s investigating Ellen’s fake murder. She does try to get him to ignore the corpse and take her to the prom, but Spirit’s all business.
The strip is a mix of gentle, pointed, funny, and dangerous, which seems like a perfect Spirit combo. Except then the art’s a bit of a mess. There’s some outstanding composition, both for the slapstick action (chase and fisticuffs) and the expository long shot panels, but the detail is some of the worst in ages. It’s thin, fine lines, then dotty inks on everyone’s face. It feels like a new Spirit but with the earliest style trappings.
Almost all of the strip plays for laughs; even when you think it’s going to be a danger moment, it resolves as a comedy one. So, despite the uneven art and the (more gentle than usual) sexism, the strip’s another perfectly solid entry. If only Ellen could come along as a character a little more. Or, at least, not lose her gains between strips.
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The Spirit (November 24, 1940) “The Kidnapping of Ebony”
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 his hideout, so they can then torture the location information from Ebony and go plant a couple bodies there. The police will find them and the Spirit will be a wanted man.
Now, as ever, none of the thugs think about just shooting Spirit dead when they have him standing idle, listening to their schemes. Instead, Ebony’s able to get Spirit a pistol—in what, visually, seems to be a racist caricature gag but we’ll not dwell—and so Spirit can start kicking butt.
Despite being restrained for some of it, Ebony plays a big role in that butt-kicking. It’s a good “dynamic duo” strip for Ebony and Spirit. The thugs’ plan is entirely based on their partnership and friendship, and even though Ebony’s not two-fisted like Spirit, he’s got some moves when it comes to putting down the gangsters. And he never squeals, even though they’re torturing him.
Juxtaposed with this extended action sequence is the gang’s seemingly legit boss trying to convince Commissioner Dolan and the mayor to investigate the Spirit’s hideout for bodies. The boss just doesn’t know where the hideout’s located… yet.
The scenes at Dolan’s office—at least after the first one, which sets up the strip—are breaks from the relentless action. And even though it is just action, Eisner and studio turn it up as far as panel composition and choreography. At one point, Ebony is swinging on a hanging light and we get some great POV shots of the floor. Even that opening chase sequence has a lot of angle work. It’s a great looking strip.
Spirit’s such a delight. Minus the occasional Ebony visual cringes.
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Superboy (1949) #222
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, from certain angles, are better than usual for Grell. Not so the rest.
Cary Bates contributes the script, which has Tyroc rampaging around Metropolis, angry the Legion doesn’t want to move its headquarters to his island. Even without the later clarifying details, it’s an incredibly thin setup. We get the science police complaining to the Legion, the Legion revealing Tyroc’s having a tantrum, and then the Legion going after him. They catch up to him at a park, where they capture him.
Not the end of the story by a long shot because then the Legionnaires show up at the jail with another suspect and a whole story about how Tyroc has been framed. If only it weren’t a way for Bates to kill two pages before wiping the stakes and loosing Tyroc back onto the unsuspecting populace. What could be causing the Legion’s latest member to break so badly? Just hang on for two more narrative feints, and Bates will explain everything!
The remainder of the story is then Bates backfilling on the reasoning for a bunch of other details throughout. The whole thing’s set up to have the reader, the public, and some of the Legionnaires convinced Tyroc isn’t Legion material (seriously, he was the first Black guy on the team, and they gave him this story). It’s unremarkably bad, except in the historical sense. And to see how an inker can somehow make Grell’s figures worse. Superboy goes from having a bulky torso and skinny legs to a skinny torso with skinny legs.
Jim Shooter, Mike Nasser, and Bob Layton contribute the backup. Superboy, Timber Wolf, and Lightning Lass are going to a faraway planet for some celebration. The president of Earth couldn’t be bothered to attend. On the way, they watch their favorite superhero movies starring Questar, who will also be at the ceremony.
I assume Shooter didn’t know he’d be following up a feature with a multiple narrative switchbacks, so when he does two of his own… well, it rounds out the issue overall, I guess.
The art’s not as good as the feature, which isn’t a particularly high bar, but either Nasser or Layton doesn’t understand how fingers look. There are other things they don’t understand, but not knowing how fingers look….
It’s a particularly bad finish for Superboy, too. He comes off like a callous prick.
The feature’s tedious and unrewarding. The backup’s more of the same.
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