In 1965, Bonanza Books published The Great Comic Book Heroes, an incredible and influential essay by Jules Feiffer, filled out with reprints of plenty of old comics stories. In it, Feiffer dealt with the early history of the comic book, the big-name heroes he grew up with, what they meant to him, what they meant to America and what they just plain meant. Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, The Human Torch, Namor, Plastic Man, Captains America and Marvel, Sheena The Jungle Queen and The Spirit all received some attention from Feiffer. (Fantagraphics has since reprinted Feiffer’s book, which I’d highly recommend to anyone who hasn’t read it yet).

Given the…less than enthusiastic reception Frank Miller’s film version of The Spirit has received, I revisited the portion where Feiffer discussed that particular masked man. He describes some of the Spirit’s weaknesses as a character, despite the overall strength of the strip. Here’s the money quote:

The Spirit could even suffer defeat in the end: be outfoxed by a woman foe—stand there, his tongue making a dent in his cheek—charming in his boyish, Dennis O’Keeffeway—a comment on the ultimate ineffectuality of even super-heroes. But, of course, once a hero turns that vulnerable he loses interest to both author and readers. The Spirit, through the years, became a figurehead, the chairman of the board, presiding over eight pages of other people’s stories. An inessential do-gooder, doing a walk-on on page eight, to tie up loose strings. A masked Mary Worth.

Which begs the question: When is Mary Worth going to get a big-screen film adaptation? Pretty much every other comics property has been snapped up by a major studio, so surely someone’s got the rights to Mary Worth by now.

And that begs another question: Will Frank Miller get to write and direct the Mary Worth movie. Can you imagine Frank Miller’s Mary Worth? That would be glorious.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 1st, 2009 at 4:45 pm and is filed under News & Views. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.