Will Eisner's The Spirit, Volume 2 By Darwin Cooke, J. Bone and Dave Stewart

This is the second graphic novel from the redone and revamped Spirit series created by Will Eisner. Denny Colt has no superpowers as such, except for typical two-fisted action and the will to take down the criminals who menace his home in Central City. On his side he has the Chief of Police, Comissioner Dolan, who knows his secret, Ellen Dolan, the woman he loves and who also loves him, and his driver, Ebony White, a teenager too young to have a license who nonetheless drives a cab and acts as the Spirit's chauffer.

Each of the stories introduces characters from the Spirit's catalogue of former foes or creates new ones, like Starlets Eboni or Kristil Fullerite, Sand Saref, CIA Agent Silken Floss, reporter Ginger Coffee, The Octopus, and Alvaro Mortez, the man who died along with Denny Cole, now returned to life by his mother as a zombie with her voodoo powers, as well as an army of zombies.

But along with the more serious stories, there are also the lighthearted ones, like the one where Denny is chasing a crook who robbed a bank, and along the way, he manages to solve the problems of all the residents in the building, along with those of the Super. Denny may lose the crook, but he gets his reward in a date with a young blonde resident of the apartment house!

Or the story in which someone is killing off all the media pundits, both left and right-wing. But who is the real culprit, and what is the reason for the deaths? With thinly-veiled parodies of the modern talk show hosts, pundits and talking heads, no matter which side of the political divide you're on, you'll find something to chuckle over.

I liked this version of the Spirit a bit more than the original, since Ebony White is no longer a caricatured African, but a real-looking boy, and the females that Denny once saved are now equally as strong and powerful as he is, and just as capable of getting themselves out of trouble as he is.

That being said, some of the characters, like Comissioner Dolan, look just the same as they did in the original Spirit tales, and now, with the other characters being less caricatured and more realistic, the character designs stand out in a bad way, looking strange and almost out of place compared to the newer-looking characters. The stories are much the same, but with the new characters, the characters more based on the original designs stand out more and look like they aren't part of the same story.

Nevertheless, if you enjoyed the original stories of the Spirit, you'll find lots to enjoy here, with all of the same two-fisted action, the beautiful dames, and the ugly and cruel criminals that the Spirit must defeat.