The Spirit #9 – Review

By: David Hine (writer), Moritat (artist), Gabriel Bautista (colorist), Paul Dini (co-feature writer), Mike Ploog (co-feature artist)

The Story: The feud between the Ottoman and Bauhaus families ratchets up when the Spirit discovers a connection between Ophelia Ottoman’s murders, her dead husband, and a long-lost treasure.  But since this is Central City, that connection isn’t as clear-cut as you might think.

The Review: When DC included the Spirit in its First Wave revival of pulp heroes, it seemed like a good fit, but also kind of sudden.  The Spirit had recently been re-introduced under Darwyn Cooke’s pen and enjoyed success on the first leg of his series, but lost steam after Cooke (and his powerhouse retro-penciling) departed.  The Spirit was on the brink of losing his place in Central City to the Flash, who was about to be resurrected in the pages of Final Crisis, before he got transferred from his DCU-prime ongoing to another in the First Wave universe.

The Spirit now lives in a world kept perpetually in a kind of post-Prohibition era, and he thrives here more than he did in a land where metahumans walk the land and the Internet reigns supreme.  His skills as a detective and punch-up vigilante get better display when he’s forced to get down and dirty to do his work.  While the Spirit lacks the Bat Man’s viciousness and Doc Savage’s intellect, he keeps enough tricks up his sleeve to face down any sticky situation.  His scheme to give a pair of lovers a chance at freedom while ensuring they pay for their crimes is both inspired and twisted.  The final scenes leave you smirking at the Spirit’s triumph, but anticipating the blow-up that’s sure to come somewhere down the line.

This is the kind of thing Hine does a particularly good job at: portraying the Spirit as Central City’s last, best hope, but pulling back to show the enormity of what the Spirit has to face.  Even as the A-story is running full-speed, there are signs laced throughout hinting at just how deep crime goes in this world.  Even though each story arc may last only a couple issues and is fairly self-contained, a sense of a much bigger, almost omniscient foe looms at certain beats of the issue.  Each case acts as a puzzle piece, but one that fits at unpredictable corners of the bigger picture.  It’ll be very exciting when the Spirit figures out exactly what he’s really up against.