Having previously enjoyed parts of Darwyn Cooke’s run on The Spirit, and especially the Batman/The Spirit crossover that served as prologue to the Cooke series, I was excited to hear that The Spirit was rebooting the numbering, as it seemed like the perfect time to get back on the book. Some fresh creators, and hopefully a freshening up of a book that had become severely stale.

Unfortunately, the problem with The Spirit #1 is that it picks up where the last book left off. If you liked the previous ongoing, you will probably be pleased, but why start over the numbering? Nothing new and exciting is happening to Denny Colt to make a relaunch make sense (a la the upcoming Green Arrow #1) and the story telling is hardly taking itself in a new direction. It is in every way a standard, paint by numbers Spirit book. If anything, its just worse than that. There’s mobsters, and pictures of The Spirit looking cool. The plot goes nowhere, and it never feels like the writer really has a grasp of Denny as a character. The dialog seems out of place, kind of in the same way Chris Claremont’s modern stuff still feels like its decades old, except it doesn’t even have that Claremont charm. The only redeeming quality is pretty good art, but that doesn’t make up for it.

I rarely get on a new book without staying through to the end of the opening arc, but there is very little chance I will pick up The Spirit #2. It’s still a lackluster book, even with a fancy new set of numbers. Can’t recommend this to anyone other than a fanatic.