Review: Will Eisner's The Spirit Returns by Matt Wagner, Dan Schkade, and Brennan Wagner

Will Eisner is rightly held in high esteem for his pioneering work in the comics field from his early days as co-founder of the Eisner & Iger shop, the creation and first publication of The Spirit in 1940, and his work creating graphic novels in later years. In his afterword to the collected edition of Dynamite Entertainment's Will Eisner's The Spirit Returns, Paul Levitz says, "Stepping up to the drawing board of Will Eisner takes, well, chutzpah." Evidently, Matt Wagner agrees. He admits in his foreword that he turned down the invitation to write The Spirit -- twice!

I first encountered The Spirit through The Spirit Jam that was published in Kitchen Sink's The Spirit #30 during my senior year of high school. To this day The Spirit Jam is one of my favorite Spirit stories simply because it is a fun story created by some of the era's top writers and artists, including Will Eisner himself who contributed a framing sequence. Beginning in the late 1990s -- and with varying degrees of success (in my opinion) -- Will Eisner allowed other creators to play in his Spirit sandbox. The creative team of Matt Wagner, Dan Schkade, and Brennan Wagner aimed high and succeed in making The Spirit Returns a fitting tribute to celebrate the character's 75th anniversary in addition to it being a fun and exciting read.

The secret of the M. Wagner/Schkade/B. Wagner team's success is that they didn't set out to re-create The Spirit for the 2010s, nor did they painstakingly adhere to the 7- and 8-page story format Eisner used for The Spirit Sections in the 1940s. At the same time there are glimpses in both story and art that show a fondness for both Eisner and The Spirit.

The whole gang is back, including Commissioner Dolan, his daughter Ellen, Ebony White, Sammy Strunk, Lt. Klink. Several of The Spirit's more popular villains and femmes fatale have cameos, but writer Matt Wagner creates new nemeses for The Spirit in the form on Mikado Vaas and Sachet Spice.

Eisner crafted his Spirit stories in such a way that The Spirit could -- and often did -- play a supporting role, allowing others to take the lead. My favorite character in the original Spirit stories is Ebony White. While I understand the reasoning for Eisner removing Ebony from the strip in the 1940s (he did return), I always marveled at Ebony's brilliance in playing the innocent, the sage, the Greek chorus, or any other role in which Eisner placed him.

In The Spirit Returns, Wagner pairs Ebony with Sammy Strunk, who became The Spirit's assistant after Ebony was written out of the strip. At the beginning of the story, The Spirit has been missing for two years. Ebony and Sammy have joined forces as private investigators, and it is their digging into the mystery of The Spirit's disappearance that intersects with the hero's return to Central City.

Dan Schkade's art is reminiscent of Eisner's 1940s-era work without aping it line for line. His Ellen Dolan, specifically, has touches of the elegance that Eisner and others gave her in the 1940s and the looser style used in later years. Brennan Wagner's color choices, using a sepia tone-inspired palette that come off as bold and muted simultaneously, help in conveying the mood for the story. Though I am a purist when it comes to The Spirit, preferring to keep the coloring as originally used, I could be tempted to buy a "remastered" collection of Spirit stories if they were recolored by Brennan Wagner.

Dynamite has yet to announce a second story arc starring The Spirit, though the indicia indicates this is Volume 1. I would certainly welcome more, especially if written, drawn, and colored by the M. Wagner/Schkade/B. Wagner team. Maybe a Strunk and White, Private Investigators series (with The Spirit keeping an out eye for them, of course)?

The collected edition features a foreword by Matt Wagner, an afterword by Paul Levitz, sketches, designs, and thumbnails by Dan Schkade, and all the covers created for the series. Highly recommended.

Rating: 5 Stars

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Review: The Rose Garden Arena Incident Book 1: Mosh Pit by Michael Hiebert

My original review as posted on NetGalley and Goodreads: Though the action starts at a concert, author Michael Hiebert quickly takes readers back eight days before "The Rose Garden Arena Incident" and begins building the backstory. I'm not crazy about the serial aspect of the story as much as I could be at this point. Mosh Pit ended with a cliffhanger designed to whet the appetite for the next book -- as it should -- but at the same time it was weird that the cliffhanger ended with a newly introduced character and not one of the characters readers follow through the book. Still, I'm ready for Book 2. Recommended.

Additional thoughts: Looking back at my original review, I believe I may have been more negative -- even though I gave the book four stars -- than I intended. Author Michael Hiebert begins an ambitious project, and readers will find themselves hooked and want to follow along with his characters as the story develops and unfolds in the days leading up to the Dakota Shane concert.

Rating: 4 Stars

I received a copy from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.