Writers: Glen David Gold, Dennis O'Neil, Gail SimoneArtists: Eduardo Risso, Ty Templeton, Phil Hester & Ande Parks
Cover: Darwyn Cooke & Jay Bone
Publisher: DC
Published: February 2008
So of my holiday reviews I've come across a bunch of A Christmas Carol inspired stories, so it only seemed natural to review The Spirit. For all you comic newbies, the Spirit is Will Eisner's signature crime fighter who basically is thought to be dead, wears a suit and a mask, and lives in a cemetery hideout. Cooke took on the awesome responsibility of resurrecting the Spirit, and he didn't disappoint.
The holiday special is composed of 3 tales. The first one by Gold and Risso is about a jewel heist that goes wrong when the Spirit gets involve. The jewels end up flung next to a rare tiger, and a special femme fatale is called in to retrieve the jewels, but the only thing is will she give back the jewels or take them for herself, and what does she consider to be the real jewel? The second tale by O'Neil and 
Templeton has the Spirit being a nice guy and helping out a old lady get her dead uncles treasure, only to have his act of kindness be rewarded with snobbery. Finally the last tale is wordless and involves the Spirit being roughed up and tossed into a frozen river. Don't worry folks though, he ends up all right.
I was a late comer to the Spirit, but I find I really dig the character. He's a nice guy caught up in a world of crime and women. I'm excited for the movie coming out on Christmas, but I'm not excited that it was called "Will Eisner's The Spirit" because this movie is going to be far from what I imagine Will Eisner would envision of his character. That being said, it isn't necassirily a bad thing that Miller is going to trample his Millerisms all over Eisner's work, but like my buddy said, its that the general public is going to see a Miller movie and start to confuse Miller's vision with Eisner's vision of what the Spirit was all about. Oh, and I am a bit disappointed that Miller is not going to stick to the original concept that the villain, The Octopus, is forever a unseen character. Oh well, I just hope it'll have an awesome opening where the title, "The Spirit" is spelled out in the background, like so:
Merry Christmas from the Not-The-Brightest-Bulb-On-The-Tree
You'll shoot your eye out kid.
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