Denny Colt

Denny Colt was a detective who, after being exposed to a criminal's suspended-animation chemical, was presumed dead and buried. Awakening in Wildwood Cemetery, he adopted the masked identity of the Spirit to fight crime outside the law.

Few characters in comics history carry the weight and wonder that Denny Colt does — a Golden Age original who debuted in 1940 under the masterful hand of Will Eisner, one of the medium's true visionaries. Over an extraordinary span stretching across roughly 85 years of publication, Denny Colt has proven himself one of the most enduring figures the art form has ever produced, accumulating 633 catalog appearances and nine key collector issues that speak to a legacy few can match. He moves through his adventures in the company of Commissioner Dolan, Ellen Dolan, Brenda Banks, and others, a rich ensemble that gives his world a lived-in, noir-tinged vitality. If you love comics at their most artistically ambitious — the place where the medium first dared to call itself literature — Denny Colt is absolutely essential.