Spirit-Girl #4 Review: A Handmade Superhero Finale Throws Down

Spirit-Girl #4 steps into the ring already knowing what time it is. No warm-up, no stretching, no twenty pages of everybody staring dramatically into the distance. This is the payoff chapter, the big scrap closing out the first story arc, and Ulysses gets Spirit-Girl, Ranger Dave, and the power-drunk Stormhand back into each other’s orbit almost immediately. For a handmade comic written, drawn, lettered, printed, stapled, and trimmed by one creator, there is something extra satisfying about watching the series reach a finale that feels louder, tighter, and way more confident than where this whole ride began. You can feel the creator leveling up right there on the page.

The plot keeps things clean and focused, which is exactly what this kind of finale needs. Stormhand wants more power, Spirit-Girl wants this dude gone from the valley, and Ranger Dave is stuck trying to survive while figuring out what responsibility even looks like when monsters, magic, and supernatural chaos start rewriting the rules. No need to toss five new mysteries into the blender or introduce twelve random characters just because it is the last issue of the arc. Ulysses knows the assignment. This chapter is about resolution, consequences, momentum, and letting the fight breathe. Most of the page count goes toward escalation, reversals, and characters paying the price for decisions they already made, so the whole thing moves with purpose instead of feeling like a finale trying way too hard to flex.

Spirit-Girl hits hardest when Ulysses lets that stubborn streak do the driving. She is powerful, yeah, but she never feels like some untouchable god floating above the danger. She gets trapped, gets rocked, gets pissed, and has to improvise when the plan goes left. That makes the action feel earned instead of pre-packaged. Ranger Dave gets real work too. He is not just “the regular dude” standing around while the magic people handle business. His knowledge of the valley matters, and that push between what is legal, what is necessary, and what happens when somebody crosses that line gives the ending more weight than some cheesy hero pose ever could.

The biggest glow-up here is the visual confidence. Ulysses still keeps that raw, handmade indie flavor, but the action reads way cleaner now. Spirit-Girl’s red costume pops crazy hard against the snow, gray skies, and Stormhand’s pale look, so your eye always knows where to land even when the page gets busy. Speed lines, oversized impact effects, and shifting panel shapes keep the energy moving, especially when the fight starts going vertical and the environment itself decides to join the smoke.

Ulysses also starts playing with the page more instead of keeping everything trapped in a safe little grid. Tall narrow panels stretch out the march, wide shots open up the valley and power lines, and later pages use repeated images and circular motion to sell impact and disorientation. Does every swing connect perfectly? Nah. But I would rather see a creator take chances than color inside the same tired box. You can feel Ulysses learning by doing, pushing the page harder each time, and that kind of growth gives the book real personality.

The color work puts in work too. The palette stays muted enough to keep that cold mountain vibe intact, then lets the reds, icy blues, and warmer hits jump out when they need to. It gives the book its own atmosphere without smothering the linework. The sound effects are getting sharper too, feeling more baked into the art instead of slapped on afterward. When something hits, you feel it. Just as important, Ulysses knows when to let the page shut up and let the image do the talking.

Lettering is still the spot with the most room to level up. Balloon spacing and text size can bounce around from panel to panel, and some of the dialogue would land harder with a tighter edit. Stormhand gets a little too chatty sometimes, explaining his motives and philosophy when the scene already did the heavy lifting. That slows down a fight that otherwise moves with solid energy. A cleaner lettering pass and a little trimming would tighten the whole package fast without killing the handmade charm that gives Spirit-Girl its flavor.

The finale works because Ulysses gives the fallout some room to breathe. Nobody walks away from a battle this big, cracks a joke, and hits the reset button like nothing happened. The issue sits with the damage, the responsibility, and what it means for a small valley to realize monsters are real and the outside world is no longer staying outside. That sense of consequence gives the series somewhere to go next, so issue four feels like the end of a chapter, not the end of the road.

Spirit-Girl #4 is still visibly the work of a developing cartoonist, but the development is part of the fun. The layouts are bolder, the action is easier to follow, the world feels more deliberate and the characters are beginning to carry consequences from one issue into the next. Ulysses has built this thing page by page, by hand, and you can see the confidence catching up with the ambition. It is rough around the edges, absolutely, but it also has heart, momentum and its own voice. In indie comics, mi gente, those three things can take you a long damn way.

Crusaders Score:
3/5

Story, Script, Art & Lettering: Ulysses
Fonts: Blambot
Publisher: Comics Odyssey / Self-Published
Cover Price: $5.99
Content Warning: Violence

Purchase Spirit-Girl #4 from Comics Odyssey | Follow Comics Odyssey on Substack