Review – Rocketeer / The Spirit: Pulp Friction TP (IDW Publishing)

Publisher: IDW Publishing
Writer: Mark Waid
Artist: Paul Smith, Loston Wallace, J Bone
Release Date: 23rd April 2014

This is the first IDW “The Spirit” title I have picked up, before I was only really familiar with from his time in DC’s First Wave universe and of course the not-that-great Frank Miller movie. However on the other hand I am familiar with Waid’s work on The Rocketeer, in the past finding The Cargo of Doom to be a fairly enjoyable miniseries. So it isn’t that much of a surprise that Pulp Friction is equally as entertaining.

Both the world of The Spirit and The Rocketeer seem to marry up together nicely in this crossover. With the cast of characters from both the heroes playing nicely off of each other for example Betty getting flirty with The Spirit, it just seems to gel together well. Though I feel it shows a little that Waid is more comfortable with The Rocketeer as now and again I had a feeling more this was a Rocketeer book guest starring The Spirit, But not too often. For the large part the story throughout remains exciting with the standard stop the ratzis kind of story you would expect either to deal with. What’s more within the context of the story both the whole thing is self contained enough so you wont need to be an expert in The Spirit or The Rocketeer to be immersed in it.

The artwork provided by the three artists Smith, Wallace and Bone remains to a pretty high standard throughout the run. Personally I liked Bone’s artwork a bit more and think it ends the series on a high note.

Overall a fun book throughout, with enjoyable characters that would appeal to most.

Rating: 4/5.

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The writer of this piece was:
Gary Kane aka (GK)
Article: Flashin’ Back!
GK tweets from @Kanoclassic