The Spirit - Introducing Silk Satin

[seriousfic.insanejournal.com]

This is from one of those massive hardcover archives, which are hundreds of pages, so hopefully it's okay.

Think of Silk Satin as an early version of Catwoman. She and the Spirit have the same kind of quasi-love affair, hampered by the fact that they're not on the same side of law and order. Although Satin later reformed and became an intelligence agent in WW2, Spirit was firmly (well, not firmly) with Ellen Dolan by then, so things never worked out. And in Darwyn Cooke's reboot, she's just an intelligence agent. That, coupled with Ellen Dolan being The Girl of the title, makes her a much flatter character than Eisner's version, IMHO. But hey, don't take my word for it, have some scans.

We open with a Prim and Proper British Gentleman Crook, a French Crook With An OUTrageous Accent, and an American Gangster (with the usual low-class phonetics) talking about how they've come to America to rob high-society, being more cat burglars than the mobsters that are usually featured. The only thing they have to worry about is the Spirit, although the fourth member of their quartet doesn't seem too concerned.



I love the feather in her fedora. Not everyone could pull that off.

So they infiltrate a high-society party to steal stuff.



Who says breasts aren't a superpower? But naturally, the Spirit is in attendance and notes something is amiss.





Now there's a move you won't see Batman busting out on Selina anytime soon. The Spirit returns the medal to its rightful owner, with the obligatory "melt it down and donate the gold to the war effort", but then gets captured because, hey, birds gonna fly, Spirits gotta get captured.







Ebony tells a forlorn Spirit that no body was recovered, even spelling out that Silk Satin could be still alive, but it's Ebony White, so we'll leave that part out.

Comments

[queen_marshed.insanejournal.com]

First page: woof did this room just get hotter or what?

Damn I love Eiser's female characters, they're hot, but they can kick your ass in oh so many ways...

[besamim.insanejournal.com]

Motto. Speaking of Spirit villainesses, "I am P'gel...and this is not a story for little boys!" is one of my favourite splash pages in any comic.

[statham1986.insanejournal.com]

It did annoy me what Cooke did with Satin. Everyone else seemed to get a fair representation and updating, but to me, he just concentrated on one particular aspect of her, which made the issues she featured in kind of boring, to me.

Eisner's version, on the other hand, had a quite impresive character arc over the course of the stories.

[jesidres.insanejournal.com]

I agree- I was also pissed off he killed off Hilde, Satin's kid, because she was a great facet to her mother's character (and a fun character on her own).

[tilly_stratford.insanejournal.com]

Oh how I love Satin. Even if Eisner stopped making Spirit stories decades before I was born, I remain an avid Spirit/Satin shipper.

And I've always loved how he turns Satin from her evil ways because he's just *that* good a kisser.

Wow, didn't see that ending coming.

[(Anonymous)]

I do love The Spirit, based on what I've seen on S_D. Thanks for this :)

Is there a particular anthology you'd recommend to get stories like this and the one where he's tied to a radiator?

[mullon.insanejournal.com]

I was disappointed with a lot of Cooke's retcons. I especially didn't like him making The Spirit and Ellen more serious.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Never looked so my eyes weren't soiled. Not that I have anything against Cooke. But I wouldn't want to see someone do the further adventures of Jude the Obscure either.

Though come to think of it, Alan Moore just might do that...

I'm mostly familiar with Eisner's post-war Spirit, because of Kitchen's reprints in the 80s. This is interesting--much thinner figures for one thing. And I can see a definite similarity at this point to Lou Fine, if I'm not mistaken.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, beats the hell out of what Frank Miller did to it. xD

[vignettelante.insanejournal.com]

His expression in the "Never! And don't you dare!" panel makes me chuckle. He just seems so pleased with himself...

Also, that first page: que badass.

[leikomgwtfbbq.insanejournal.com]

It's incredibly rare that I absolutely love every character in any given series, but the original Eisner Spirit is one of them. I love Silk, I love Ellen, I love Ellen's dad, I love the Spirit himself, I even love Ebony.

Reading great stuff like this makes me want to stomp on Frank Miller's foot even more. Stupid movie. >:( Rawr.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

"Spirit gets smooched" scenes are my favorite. They're always like the world has gone silent and is staring.

[thehefner.insanejournal.com]

Utter excellence, badassery, and teh sex. Those first panels... wow and yowza.

Man, it's such a shame that pretty much every SPIRIT post here seems to devolve into wank over Ebony. Sigh.

[psychop_rex.insanejournal.com]

You know, if you've got to establish in a short period of time that a character should be taken seriously, that first page is a very good way to do it. One moment, the crooks seem all sinister and crook-like, plotting to kill the Spirit and all that, then - in walks Satin! And within a few panels, we've clearly learned who's REALLY wearing the pants here. Look at panels four and five there - look at the expressions. It takes a real badass dame to freak out hardened criminals like that - they're going 'Holy CRAP, look what she's doing! EEEEGGHH, that must hurt!' Just the beads of sweat on Asphalt's forehead tell us all we need to know. And then, without further ado, she calmly tosses away the bullet she's just DUG OUT OF HER OWN ARM WITH A RAZOR, and starts talking about her plans without so much as a pause. Every time I read that little sequence, I go 'the heck with Wolverine - he may be 'the best he is at what he does', but I'd take him on fifty times before I'd mess with Silk Satin.'

[rustedone.insanejournal.com]

There is something fundamentally sexy about a woman willing to dig bullets out of herself. Damn. Doesn't hurt that she spends most of the fight scene beating the *hell* out of Spirit. It strikes me a bit silly that such a woman would go soft after one kiss from a guy like Spirit, but then again this was the 40s.

Also, Spirit's solution for getting stolen goods out of cleavage? Genius.