The Rocketeer The Spirit

I really can't believe I spent actual money on this. I'm a fan of the Spirit and the Rocketeer is a fine fellow too, so it had to be awesome, right?

Well, no, this is just really bad fanfiction, mashing together two characters without any semblance of their actual personality or a coherent or plausible story. From the very first line, the groan-worthy writing beats on your eyes, in contrast to the quite decent art that really captures the old 4-color style. The first issue-and-a-half becomes nothing more than Archie's Betty-and-Veronica transposed into Betty-and-Ellen (utterly failing the Bechdel test), but fortunately something is salvaged in a decent aerial action sequence rounding out the second issue.

Then the art style abruptly changes in the last two issues to an ugly, entirely inappropriate modern cartoon style that doesn't even remotely match the feel of whatever homage there is. Thanks to all the wasted panels in the first half, this half is crammed with megalomania, teleportation, kidnapping, mind-control, and beating up hordes of Nazis! Oh, and a little bit more Archie-ness, because readers can't get enough of that!

One of the funny things is the characterization; every single male character seemed to have exactly the same personality, a brash lovestruck man (eg, Rocketeer), while the two female characters were interchangeable flirts. Not the slightest bit of individuality in the writing. It's almost as if Waid missed the entire point of the Spirit in his rush to ship the two -- his harsh light on New York, his promiscuity, his dorkiness, and the sheer power of the art direction. But he's constantly got torn clothes and lots of other Spirit references, I guess it's OK!

While there certainly were times when both The Spirit and The Rocketeer had their stinkers, this arc would easily rank up with the worst of them. Skip it, not worth the time.