A look at exactly what happened. Like, 100%.
Creative Staff:
Story: Matt Wagner
Art: Dan Schkade
Colors: Brennan Wagner
What They Say:
Ebony and Sammy’s trail to discover what has become of their heroic friend leads them next to the infamous P’Gell. The sultry femme fatale claims that she certainly does know The Spirit’s fate and is willing to share it with them…but only for a price! Tales are told, some true and some false as a wintry smuggling scheme explodes into danger. Does the truth behind The Spirit’s disappearance at last stand to be revealed?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The more that I read of The Spirit the more I delight in it. While I had a hard time connecting with previous material for it – and was the rare bird that enjoyed the movie – this incarnation of it is hitting all sorts of sweet spots, which I should expect from Wagner. It’s been made even richer by Dan Schkade’s artwork, which as I’ve explored more of has me wanting to see him really do well. His style is very suited to what we get in this series though and combined with Brennan Wagner’s colors, well, this is a whole lot of magic in one great little series.
With the Spirit’s return last time around in dramatic form, this installment has to deal with the fallout from it. And what fallout there is when you get down to it. Ellen’s practically beside herself and believing it a dream that she’s waking from. That’s made worse though by the fact that it all really happened and all he did was leave her a letter explaining things because he can’t quite face her yet about it. The letter apparently explains what happened and where he’s been all these years and that’s played up alongside the Spirit cleaning up back at his place and explaining it to Dolan. The fun part is that everything is explained off-panel, so we don’t really see it from either him or the letter. It’s all told from another source. A source that has likely zero truth to it.
Yet it manages to be highly compelling. This is told from the point of view of madame P’Gell, who Ebony and Sammy have tracked down and offered a big suitcase of money for real leads. P’Gell tells quite the tale, realistically so, of events in late 1946 along the Denmark border where she was involved in some unsavory gun running with her soon to be former sixth husband. P’Gell is sultry in the present period as she explains thing while running her girls school, but she also manages to be seductive and sultry while wrapped in furs in the winter wasteland, dealing with soviets and more. It’s a wonderful tale that’s told and mixing in the pieces with Ellen, her father and the Spirit himself gives it a huge ring of truth. But the twists about it all are just wonderful to soak up.
In Summary:
While I expect the truth about what happened to surface in full at some point, the execution of this book is just so ridiculously spot on that it’s crazy. After three issues without the title character I was wary about his return to the book, but the team really hits it out of the park here. I’m still not sure exactly how it’ll go with him in it, having adjusted to it without him, but it’s setting up some interesting material to come. I really loved this issue just for what they gave us with P’Gell and her tale combined with all the other elements. The wordplay is great, the overall structure of the book wonderful and Schkade’s artwork just dazzles me in so many ways. Each page feels like it should be framed.
Grade: B+
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Dynamite Entertainment
Release Date: October 21st, 2015
MSRP: $3.99