In rural East Armfit, Oregon, police officer Denny Colt rushes to the aid of his friend and mentor William Sevrin who has been attacked and had his manuscript, The Roxton Connection: Art Crime of the Century, burned by an unknown assailant and upon arrival is told by a fatally wounded Sevrin that the only one who knew about his manuscript besides Denny was Simon Teasdale.

After the service breaks, Denny tells Eubie of his plan to use his presumed death to confront criminals when they least expect it and dons a domino mask to emphasize his point.

As Ellen prepares to leave she notices all the lights in the museum go dark and rushes back to investigate, rescuing The Spirit and enlisting the help of a sympathetic cabbie.

The following day, The Spirit disguises himself as an elderly scholar and meets with P'Gell and Teasdale and lets slip that he has a copy of Sevrin's Manuscript.

The Spirit returns to Wildwood Cemetery and sends Eubie to deliver a note to the commissioner at the museum party while he deals with Bruno and two of P'Gell's henchmen.

The fight is interrupted with the arrival of P'Gell who reveals herself as the mastermind shoots The Spirit with a tranquilizer gun and takes him to the museum basement to have him interrogated over the manuscripts location.

[3][4] For Friedkin's incarnation of the project Burt Reynolds and Flip Wilson were in negotiations to play the characters of Denny Colt/The Spirit and Ebony White respectively.

[6] Bird had become a fan of The Spirit due to its cinematic style as well as Eisner's more cartoonish character designs in comparison to other superhero works, and with the help of what few CalArts alums he could entice, Bird and his crew established an ad hoc studio called Visions Animation + Filmworks and produced a pitch trailer in their off hours from Disney for the purpose of showcasing it to potential producers.

[6] Bird sent letters and copies of the trailer to several high profile figures to pitch the project including Steven Spielberg, George Lucas, and Francis Ford Coppola, but ultimately it was producer Gary Kurtz who decided to back the project as he was a comic book fan and was impressed by the pitch Bird's team had produced.

[3][2] The creative team used Kitchen Sink Press reprints of The Spirit for visual and thematic references with de Souza incorporating Eisner's writing style into his own and Schultz staging the lighting and framing in a manner similar to the comics.

[2] The creative team tried to rescue the pilot by holding a screening at the 1986 San Diego Comic-Con as well as circulating a "Save the Spirit" petition whose signatories included Paul Dini, Peter David, and Len Wein.

"[10] Will Eisner expressed dissatisfaction with the end result of The Spirit calling it "Awful" and "Cardboard" and saying the experience watching it "made my toes curl".

[3] Paul Aratow spoke of The Spirit with frustration having spent a decade trying to get the film made and complimented Steven E. de Souza's script, Michael Schultz' direction, and the film's production and costume design as high points while lamenting the fact ABC forced them to use Sam J. Jones as the lead and that had a different actor played The Spirit it would've resulted in a much stronger end result.