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The Spirit

Gabriel Macht, Samuel L. Jackson, Eva Mendes, Paz Vega

The early comic book industry might be one of the most fascinating untold stories in American history. Controlled by the mob, it was a tough, dog eat dog, world where very few of the artists and creators, mostly children of immigrants who had been shut out of more mainstream artistic pursuits, had happy endings. While the characters they created made millions for the companies they worked for, the storytellers, like Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster who created Superman, got the shaft. Most worked for slave wages and if the companies thought they were being too difficult, their names were taken off the books, their character turned over to someone else, and then they were shown the door. Even though millions of kids were reading their yarns, the lucky ones were able to get out of the business, maybe get a job on Madison Ave. Too many sat behind drawing boards for twelve to eighteen hours a day trying to turn out as many pages as they could, as they were being paid for the volume of their output, until their vision began to fail or their once graceful hands became knotted and twisted with age. Still, most left bitter and angry. Here and there, were the feel good stories, like psychologist, inventor of the lie detector, and major league freak ,William Moulton Marston, who in the name of education enjoyed watching young coeds at sorority parties in just their underwear (or nude) tie each other up and wrestle, who gave the world the Amazon in the star-spangled panties, Wonder Woman. (It is nice to see our universities have not changed that much over the years. Why no one has done a biopic on Marston is beyond me.) Others like Stan Lieber (Stan Lee) and Bob Kane, the creator of Batman, became minor celebrities and corporate toadies by selling out fellow creators and artists. One of the few feel good stories coming out of the early days of comics is Will Eisner.

While his character, The Spirit, has been almost forgotten until recently, Will Eisner is one of the good guy creators in the comic industry who found his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Like most other artists in the early industry, he grew up the child of Jewish immigrants who worked in the garment district of New York. His passion in life was reading the adventures found in the pages of pulp magazines and novels. His high school newspaper illustrations showed a talent that few young people possess. At nineteen, after a conversation with friend Bob Kane, he learned of a new comic book called Wow, What A Magazine! which was looking for contributors. Editor, Jerry Iger, bought one of his adventures called “Captain Scott Dalton.” While the comic book lasted only four issues, the partnership between Iger and Eisner paid off for both. With Will as the creative force and Jerry as the salesman, they began to sell their tales to a market hungry for content and growing by leaps and bounds every day. At a $1.50 a page, both got very rich off of their partnership. In the midst of the depression, in 1939 alone, the duo took home $25,000, a king’s random in those days. Their big break came later that year when they learned that newspapers wanted to get in on the comics craze. Negotiating with a major syndicate, Iger came away not only with an incredible deal, but also retained the rights to the character Eisner would create. Every Sunday, newspaper’s five million readers thrilled to the seven page adventures of a modern urban crime fighter named The Spirit. The strip lasted thirteen years with other artists filling in for him while he served his country during World War II.

The Spirit was a noir hero right out of the pages of Dashiell Hammett with a superhero twist to him. Outfitted like other famous pulp crime fighters, complete with a trench coat, gloves, and a fedora pulled down tightly on his head. The only part of his garb separating him from the Sam Spades and Phillip Marlowes of the pulp universe was a small domino mask glued to his face. Living in a universe populated by smoking hot women, The Spirit battled the likes of The Octopus (played by Samuel L. Jackson in the film), a criminal mastermind whose face was never seen except for his distinctive gloves in the comic (imagine an evil Charlie from “Charlie’s Angels”), Hazel P. Macbeth, a witch, Dr Cobra, a mad scientist, and P’Gell, a French fatale and black widow.

But who is The Spirit? He was Denny Colt, a young detective from New York City (later changed to Central City) who was killed in the first three pages of his comic. Eisner later reconned the origin story by revealing that Denny had not really died but put in suspended animation by his nemesis Dr. Cobra. Waking up in the Wildwood Cemetery, Denny decides to make this garden of stone his new home and base from which he would wage his one-man war on crime. Aided by Police Commissioner Dolan and befriended by his African-American comic sidekick Ebony White (Eisner would later admit that in hindsight he was horrified by much of the racial humor of the early strip, a cultural standard of the time, and in time Ebony went from being a taxi cab driver to eventually became the mayor of the city.) As the strip progressed, The Spirit took battles against bad guys across the globe.

While many elements of the strip seem goofy by today’s standards, at the time, The Spirit showed a sophistication and style found nowhere else in the paneled and sketched world of the funnies. One of Eisner’s biggest fans is Frank Miller, the creative genius behind Daredevil and The Batman. The younger creator befriended the elderly Eisner. (There is even a book based on their conversations regarding comics.) A giant in the Comics field, Miller became a major force in popular culture with the amazing success of 300 and Sin City, two films based on his comics. With the modern incarnation of the Batman movie franchise admitting Miller’s influence, the formerly unknown writer is now a creative force in Hollywood and one of the first things he wanted to do is pay homage to his departed friend and bring this long forgotten character back before the public.

In Eisner style, Frank Miller made sure that the public was going to get a hottie buffet in this tale, bringing together more babes than a Playboy pajama party. Scarlett Johansson, Eva Mendes, Sarah Paulson, Jamie King Stana Katic, Meeghan Holaway and Paz Vega all turn up. Much like he has done with everything he touches, Miller has darkened this Spirit yarn slightly more than the original comic. With a bevy of beautiful sweeties to serve as eye candy and romance, after a telling of his origin story, The Spirit is on the trail of The Octopus, as his archenemy longs to destroy Central City in order to gain immortality.

The best way to figure out if this movie is for you is if you enjoyed the hyper-realism of 300 and Sin City. If you were entertained by those films, purchase a ticket. The year 2008 will go down as the best year in the history of cinema when it comes to superhero movies and, while goofy in places, it is nice to see the year end with one of the heroes of the early comic book world getting his character before the American public again. Catch The Spirit of the season or at least get me Paz Vega’s phone number.

Verdict: Nice