The Spirit Returns...

Before I even began collecting comic books with interest, I was a fan of cartoons and great suer hero stories. I was given a book, by a friend of my grandfather, which on the outside looked like an old faded red cover tome. Probably on a dry and boring topic. Than I cracked open the spine and discovered Jules Feiffer's The Great Comic Book Heroes. Within it's pages was a gathering of the original stories of Batman, Superman, The Green Lantern (Alan Scott), and many more from the Golden Age of comics... including one such classic that wasn't readily known to Mainstream Media as many of the other, The Spirit.

The Spirit told the tale of a mysterious man in a blue suit with a fedora and a spirit gum mask hiding his identity. The story was unique and I read it many times. DC Comics as decided to resurrect The Spirit in a new monthly series.

This week I picked up Issue #1 because I wanted to see how the story would be rewritten and to think back to that time with my red book. This edition which stays true to Will Eisner's rendition, is written by Darwyn Cooke and illustrated by Cooke and J. Bone. Their style rings true to the classic and has touches of animation style seen in The Batman, Legion of Super Heroes, and the Dini's Batman and Superman series. It's really nice to see a simple clean style that still can tell a great story.

I look forward to seeing how the story progresses. Will they be able to maintain the style and still keep the story relevant to today's readers instead of the audience of the original.

I hope that it does well and look forward to hearing the retelling of The Spirit's background.