The Spirit #5

The Spirit #5 from Quality Comics' Summer 1946 issue presents a wonderfully confident cover by Lou Fine and Don Komisarow: the masked, blue-suited Spirit stands beneath a streetlamp, coolly holding up a newspaper whose headline reads "WANTED — THE SPIRIT DEAD OR ALIVE," while his small, bear-costumed companion Ebony reacts with wide-eyed alarm at his feet. There's a wry charm to the scene — the Spirit looks entirely untroubled by the bounty on his head — that perfectly captures the character's cool, noir-tinged personality. Inside, Manly Wade Wellman's story "The Mystery of the Death Angel" promises the kind of shadowy intrigue that made this series a standout of 1940s comics.