Once the Borg Collective--oops, DC Comics--got their hands on the reprints rights for The Spirit, you knew it was only a matter of time until they began running original Spirit stories.
Well, that turned out surprisingly OK. Darwyn Cooke's run received pretty good notices, was generally enjoyable, and all in all did just about as well as anyone could hope to do producing book length stories in the 21st century based on an 1940s 8-page weekly newspaper comic.
After Cooke moved on, other writers and artists took over, mostly to "meh" results. Nothing as disastrous as the Frank Miller movie, mind you. Just no particularly inspiring stuff. (I myself dropped it several months ago).
So now the series shudders and gasps it's way to the final issue in August...well, just read the solicit for yourselves:
THE SPIRIT #32
Written by Mike Ploog
Art by Mike Ploog & Dan Green
Cover by Gene Ha
“The Celtic Stone” concludes! The U.S. Army, the mystical Cormac and the beautiful Adios are all fighting to control the powerful Celtic Stone, and only one can walk away with it! Eisner colleague Mike Ploog wraps up his dizzying 2-parter – and the current volume of THE SPIRIT – with a bang...
but stay tuned for a radical reinvention that will leave you breathless!
FINAL ISSUE • On sale August 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Well, goodbye, Spir--hey, wait a minute!! Let's look at that final sentence again:
...but stay tuned for a radical reinvention that will leave you breathless!
Oh. My. God.
This is gonna get pretty ugly, isn't it?
"Radical reinvention?" Holy schnikes, that's can't be any good, can it?!?
Is The Spirit going to enter the DC Universe proper? Perhaps a back-up series in someone else's mag?
You know, given the timing...Jesus, if Geoff Johns ressurects Denny Colt in Blackest Night, why I'm gonna...
Still, I wouldn't have minded (and it would have made for an infinitely better story) if The Spirit had won the Battle For The Cowl...
I know there's no team, no content, no direction announced yet. But coy references to "radical reinventions" scare the hell outta me...Stay tuned...
UPDATE: As Anonymous posted below, our "radical reinvention" is going to involve a number of pulp properties teaming up. From this week's DC Nation (emphasis added):
Well, that turned out surprisingly OK. Darwyn Cooke's run received pretty good notices, was generally enjoyable, and all in all did just about as well as anyone could hope to do producing book length stories in the 21st century based on an 1940s 8-page weekly newspaper comic.
After Cooke moved on, other writers and artists took over, mostly to "meh" results. Nothing as disastrous as the Frank Miller movie, mind you. Just no particularly inspiring stuff. (I myself dropped it several months ago).
So now the series shudders and gasps it's way to the final issue in August...well, just read the solicit for yourselves:
THE SPIRIT #32
Written by Mike Ploog
Art by Mike Ploog & Dan Green
Cover by Gene Ha
“The Celtic Stone” concludes! The U.S. Army, the mystical Cormac and the beautiful Adios are all fighting to control the powerful Celtic Stone, and only one can walk away with it! Eisner colleague Mike Ploog wraps up his dizzying 2-parter – and the current volume of THE SPIRIT – with a bang...
but stay tuned for a radical reinvention that will leave you breathless!
FINAL ISSUE • On sale August 5 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US
Well, goodbye, Spir--hey, wait a minute!! Let's look at that final sentence again:
...but stay tuned for a radical reinvention that will leave you breathless!
Oh. My. God.
This is gonna get pretty ugly, isn't it?
"Radical reinvention?" Holy schnikes, that's can't be any good, can it?!?
Is The Spirit going to enter the DC Universe proper? Perhaps a back-up series in someone else's mag?
You know, given the timing...Jesus, if Geoff Johns ressurects Denny Colt in Blackest Night, why I'm gonna...Still, I wouldn't have minded (and it would have made for an infinitely better story) if The Spirit had won the Battle For The Cowl...
I know there's no team, no content, no direction announced yet. But coy references to "radical reinventions" scare the hell outta me...Stay tuned...
UPDATE: As Anonymous posted below, our "radical reinvention" is going to involve a number of pulp properties teaming up. From this week's DC Nation (emphasis added):
Not only do I see Doc Savage and the Avenger standing side by side, but I see dark nights in in Doc's future and his closest friends taking flight with some ebony birds. And I see the Avenger in new cities facing new mystery men--if, of course, the spirit is willing.So there we have it. Hardly what I'd call radical reinvention...at least based on what we know so far. But it could be fun. Is Dark Knights a Batman reference, though? Or The Shadow?
5 comments:
Some recent artwork from DC's blog showed Doc Savage, Blackhawk and the Spirit skulking around a dark city landscape. Maybe a plan to run several 40s-50s era properties into their own universe?
Depending on who is in it and who the creators are, this could be great or a horrible disaster.
I just knew the Spirit was gonna tank when Cooke left the book. :-( Oh, well. It was fun while it lasted.
Anon--Hmmm. I don't know if that would constitute "a radical reinvention that will leave us breatheless." But then again, that's a marketing dept term, no doubt...
Maybe instead of "The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen", DC is planning a team of 1930's-40's characters called "The Gang of Swell Fellas".
Or something like that. Or not.
As for bringing him into the DCU proper, DC already has "Midnight", who was an old Quality Comics knock-off of the Spirit DC had inherited when they bought their stable of characters (Midnight briefly appeared in an old issue of The All-Star Squadron).
Today's DC Nation pretty conclusively confirms Anonymous' thought (comment #1). Blog entry has been updated to include this info.
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