Deadman is a ghost, formerly a circus trapeze artist named Boston Brand who performed under the name Deadman. When Brand is murdered during a trapeze performance by a mysterious assailant known only as the Hook, his spirit is given the power to possess any living being by a Hindu goddess named Rama Kushna, in order to search for his murderer and obtain justice. It is established in Green Arrow Vol 4, #4, that Deadman believes Rama is the supreme being of the universe.
Check him out here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadman

More worrisome to me is the “floaty” feeling of the character in the environment. There are some really nasty float issues going on here, and while those scenes may not be finished yet, why release them if they’re not perfect? I don’t get that desire these days, sending stuff out into the world that isn’t finished. I think it does more harm than good.

I’m not sure why any of the above posters are “purists”, least of all crybabies. Just like the rest of your post, they have quite reasonable, well-expressed opinions - a rare thing on film news websites. It’s pretty clear that most of those people are into this and know what they’re talking about, but knowledge doesn’t equal inflexible purism.

No need to start hitting people with the “comics fanboy” stick here :) Sadly, I think the Watchmen movie discussions are going to be the place for that..

I am surprised Miller has stuck so rigidly to this art style for The Spirit; especially as I have no doubt that he is a big fan of the character, and must have considered other ways of adapting it, stylistically, that would invite less easy comparison with Sin City.

Hopefully the writing and pacing will be what make this stand out, and the visuals will make sense as part of the whole. But right now they’re all we’ve got to go on, and they shout “Frank Miller” more than they do “The Spirit”. Perhaps when the first full trailer hits, we’ll have a better idea of how this fits together.

Sure, this trailer’s got plenty of Sin City flavor, but really, what’s wrong with that?

It looks to me like Miller’s taking the… er… spirit of the Spirit and making a graphically interesting flick. Jury’s still out on the story, obviously, but at least he’s not casting Shia LeBouf in the role of Chas, or putting Tom Sawyer in a group of fictional characters from ENGLISH literature. Or, Christ, releasing Spiderman fucking 3.

Let’s wait and see. Personally, I LIKE the differences between this trailer and Sin City (less tactile, even more cartoony). Like the man says, Eisner did cutting edge comics for his time, so Miller’s going for cutting edge movie magic. Dick Tracy style isn’t cutting edge.

I suppose you could say this Sin City style isn’t too cutting edge either at this point, but it’ll still be one of the very few movies out there with this style.