by Calum on Sat Jan 10, 2009 8:26 am
I am thinking of dropping the Spirit comic book. For some time i have been trying to stop buying new comics, due to lack of space, and also because my main interest has been DC comics (and Spirit and Archie/MLJ/Red Circle) and DC have really gone too far with their constant revisionism and multipart crossover crisis events. There's no entertainment anymore, it's all just self referential claptrap, and rewriting of the same old stories again, to explain why wonder woman had a different costume, or how the Atom got his atomic punch and all that.
So in that light, the only DC comics i have been buying new are the two JSA titles and the Spirit (and the odd Grant Morrison thing, like All-Star Superman). Now, i recently read up to issue 21 of the Spirit, and i am thinking of dropping the title.
I thought issues 1 to 12 were almost as good as Eisner, they were up to the excellent standard of the short lived KS Spirit New Adventures comic. Then we got Sergio Aragones. I have *always* liked his work. Since a child i loved his stuff in Mad, and i think Groo is one of the best comedy comics ever, as good as Ambush Bug or Giffen's Justice League, BUT is he right for the Spirit? Since he started i can't help but be put in mind of the times when Eisner handed off responsibility to others for the Spirit. Not the war years stuff but the fifties stuff, where it was good stuff, but lacked the Eisner sparkle.
Aragones is writing very good plots, that's the thing that makes me hesitate, but his characterisation leaves something to be desired, it's pretty good, but not great. Ebony's character is spot on, and Dolan's pretty good (although would Dolan use a phrase such as "That is so not like her"?) but the Spirit is confounding. He brushes off the attractive, intelligent and available Ellen Dolan but seems to turn into a testosterone stick as soon as any other woman comes into his vicinity, and for no good reason! One thing i respected a lot in Eisner's work was there was a reason for everything you see! I feel like this new DC Spirit (and it is a different Spirit, this is a DC universe Spirit for sure, a 21st century Spirit, not a bad thing, i am happy with that, but do it right!) is simply a mimic of the original Spirit, with no real motivation for that.
That brings me to another issue. Where does the Spirit go in DC continuity? He met Batman, though that was before the most recent crisis reboot, so maybe that never happened now, and after 52, i now read that the "Quality" characters have their own "Earth", ie the Freedom Fighters. Does this include Plastic Man and the Spirit? it should, i take it Plastic Man is no longer in the JLA? (yes, i dropped the JLA when they went back to issue 1, a big decision), what about the Spirit? as far as i know he hasn't had any team ups other than Batman so far. DC continuity gives me a headache. It's as leaky as a seive.
So. Should i drop the Spirit? How many of you are reading the DC Spirit? How long did you get before you dropped it? What are your thoughts? Sad to say, the Spirit movie might be the final nail in the coffin for the Spirit series for me, it remains to be seen how one will affect the other.
Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Spirit knows!
