The Best of the Spirit by Will Eisner

The best of the Spirit" chronicles the character created by Will Eisner. Denny Colt is a young criminologist drawn into the search for a criminal named Dr. Cobra. Denny tracks Cobra down, but is splashed with a strange chemical and falls into a coma-like state of suspended animation. Those who find his body think he is dead. There is a funeral and he is buried. However, he wakes up in his coffin and breaks out of it.

When he realizes that everyone thinks he is dead, he decides to become a vigilante and fight the crimes and criminals that the cops can't touch. He dons a harlequin mask and fights under the name of the Spirit. The Comissioner doesn't like the idea, but gives him tacit approval and missions from time to time.

After the initial story, the rest of the book is filled with various stories from the first nine years of the comic's run. It quickly becomes clear that, like other two-fisted heroes from the 40's and 50's, Denny's big weakness is women. He finds it hard to fight them, even when they are criminals and have done something bad. In return, he usually manages to charm them and turn them to his side, even former crime bosses such as Silk, one of his recurring foes/allies.

This is a fairly sizable book for a graphic novel. Most of the stories are short, approximately 5 to 9 pages. There is also a foreword by Neil Gaiman, about the ground-breaing nature of Will Eisner's creation.

Not that it's all to like. True to the 40's and 50's, all of the non-Europeans in the comic are caricatures, including a Stepin Fetchit-style black cabbie who is right out of the minstrel shows in appearance, and is drawn in a much more cartoonish style than the rest of the characters. This is extremely jarring for modern readers to see, and even if you understand intellectually that this was merely the style back then and not Will Eisner's personal animus towards non-white, non-European characters, it's still somewhat disquieting to view in the modern age. However, I will point out that the Spirit's young friend/sidekick, who is white and blonde, is also drawn in this fashion, so it's not totally limited to non-white characters.

Other than this particular problem, most of the stories stand the test of time well. The other thing that stands out as jarring, if only slightly, is Denny's attitude towards women, though this is less disturbing than only seeming old-fashioned. If you can get over the old-fashioned, insulting portrayals of blacks, you will probably enjoy this collection a lot. I know I did.