The Spirit # 8
DC COMICS
WRITER: Darwyn Cooke
ARTISTS: Darwyn Cooke, J. Bone
COVER: Darwyn Cooke

A musical prodigy encounters the remains of a strange, blue meteorite that turns the kid and his fellow bandmates into stars. But this attracts the attention of a shadey club-owner-- which in turn, attracts the attention ofthe Spirit. Now, if that plot synopsis sounds more like an episode of "Smallville" rather than an issue of Eisner's classic mystery-man-- well, it is something different at least. The focus of the story is the youthful musician called "Almost Blue" and how he briefly finds love and fulfillment, only to lose it all. Of course, he is also part of the problem. The kid's situation is pathetic but the creative team fails to make him sympathetic. His behaviour varies from the irritatingly-emo to the frighteningly psychotic. We don't feel for him, despite the best efforts of the narrator to make us share his sorrows. Another big problem is the traditional difficulty that comics has in conveying the power and effect of music. We read about how the lead character's playing entrances an audience, we see them on paper, falling under his spell, but we can't ever hear his music, which handicaps the story immediately. Add to this, a very complex story with all sorts of strange lighting and we get a comic that is hard to understand-- or to care about. Certainly, this is a very original tale that takes a lot of risks but in this case, most of the risks don't pay off. On the brighter side, the Spirit handles himself pretty well in this story for once, unlike past issues where he gets knocked around. Two out of five stars.