The Spirit: First Wave #1

Writers - Mark Schultz, Dennis O’Neil

Artists - Moritat, Bill Sienkiewicz

I certainly didn’t need any more non-Eisner Spirit comics, but as long as DC puts them in the hands of talented creators, I’ll take a look. In this case, we have Mark Schultz, whose work I used to love on his Xenozoic Tales, though I can’t really recall anything after that, and we have Moritat, of Elephantmen. That’s a good start.

This is the first issue of the First Wave line of pulpy heroes, spinning out of the Brian Azzarello-written miniseries that has only released one issue so far. Odd scheduling. Here we have Central City as a corrupt hellhole where archfiend The Octopus rules with…eight figurative iron tentacles, I guess. Police Chief Dolan is scared to act, losing the respect of his crusading daughter Ellen. The only man willing to stand up against the criminals is The Spirit. He’s kind of an insouciant Batman, driven but droll, shaking down crooks for tips, or gathering info in disguise, striking blows against The Octopus’ operations without seeming to have any real overall plan. The bad guys do, though, sending for European assassin Angel Smerti, a deadly femme fatale. 

All this is pretty well in line with Eisner’s Spirit strip, aside from the corruption and general lack of humor. Moritat doesn’t have a great handle on Spirit’s face, but otherwise finds a good balance between modern and ’40s fashions, buildings and cars, and colorist Gabriel Bautista adds some great touches, like a convincing morning haze over the city. The fight sequence where the six panels spelled S-P-I-R-I-T was also done well, though no doubt done before. I also really liked how Moritat clearly drew everything. The city is from scratch, and every building’s contours clearly display the blessed imperfection of human hands instead of photoreferencing. He does a lot of nice work here, although the last page splash of Angel Smerti looks awkward, a group of body parts that don’t quite fit together. A respectable updating, not tremendously fun but enjoyable. There’s also a black-and-white backup story by O’Neil/Sienkiewicz involving two criminal brothers who’ve been estranged for years when one sold the other out. It’s a modest effort for O’Neil but not bad. Sienkiewicz makes a welcome return to interior pencils/inks but for every great panel there’s one that’s just plain confusing, killing the momentum. I like the b&w backup idea from past Batman books used here, though. 

Guardians of the Galaxy #25

Writers - Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning

Artist - Brad Walker

I like to pick up a semi-random comic now and then. Somewhere I’d heard this series was pretty good and filed that away, not exactly believing it. So this this issue proudly proclaims itself as the lead-in to The Thanos Imperative, so I figured it’d be a good jump-on point. And I suppose it is, as Abnett/Lanning throw a lot of exposition in there even in addition to the recap page. The exposition comes from a handful of similar-sounding characters, while there’s also a sarcastic, cowardly/pragmatic guy on the team for comic relief, and a huge, strong, dumb guy named Groot for fighting and a little more comic relief. I liked him best because his head looks like an uprooted tree and he didn’t talk as much as everyone else. 

I was wondering why there were so many characters, and as the story went on I learned that a couple other teammates had already died in previous issues, so now I get this series: cosmic Suicide Squad, although the team is made up not of supervillains but every ’70s space-faring character Marvel has to offer, from the forgettable (the entire original Guardians), Star-Lord, Rocket Raccoon (yes), Gamora, to always irritating Moondragon and Mantis, plus semi-charming Drax the Destroyer and the aforementioned treeface guy, Groot. I coulda sworn I saw Killraven in the crowd, too.

All those characters makes for some slow going—the issue was mainly just a prolonged fight (everyone taking turns) with a naked, grunty Thanos alternating with all the timestream exposition bullshit. Walker’s got a clean style but isn’t asked to do much here but stage the long and tedious fight. I didn’t think it was bad but can’t come up with much to recommend it.

The Brave & The Bold #33

Writer - J. Michael Straczynski

Artist - Cliff Chiang

Now this is a series I hadn’t heard good things about since JMS started writing it. I can’t speak for his prior issues, but this one’s pretty good, for the most part a very lightweight girls night out kind of story with Zatanna and Wonder Woman trying to show Batgirl a good time. Obviously it’s a past story, as this Batgirl is Barbara Gordon. I won’t spoil it, although it ends up more serious than it starts. It reads quite a bit like something Paul Dini would write, although I think he’d stay away from, well, again, I’d better not spoil it. Chiang’s work is always worth checking out, and he provides very clean, well-proportioned takes on the heroines. All this and a case of mistaken lesbianism. What’s not to like?

—Christopher Allen