Will Eisner's The Spirit Archives (2000)

Will Eisner's Sunday sections, June 2, 1940 to October 5, 1952, in DC's 26-volume Spirit Archives Criminologist Denny Colt is presumed killed in the first three pages, sets up base under his own tombstone in Wildwood Cemetery and fights crime in Central City with a blue domino mask, gloves, his wits and his fists. No superpowers, just short weekly stories that swing wildly in genre and tone. This is where pulp met real cinematic craft: Eisner's inventive title splash pages and his staging still get copied. DC's Archives reprint the whole run in color. His sidekick Ebony White is a blackface caricature, and Eisner later admitted to consciously stereotyping him.