It's the number one commandment of comic book to movie adaptations: This above all, to thy source material be true. But what happens when you have a character whose face is literally never seen? If you're Frank Miller, whose interpretation of Will Eisner's “The Spirit" is racing towards theaters this winter, you cast Samuel L. Jackson.

And then you let him run hog wild with his costume choices.

“Well, the costume designer and I decided we would just try some different kind of things to see how Frank felt," Jackson said of his costume choices for his character, The Octopus, The Spirits arch-enemy. “[In the comics he's] just a pair of gloves. [So we made a decision] that the Octopus has a theme of dressing the way he feels everyday, or having a theme to his day to day life and making some sense with it. It's just an opportunity to be larger than life."

That's an understatement. The footage which ran at Comic-Con showed Jackson in at least four ridiculous outfits, each more outlandish than the last.

“There's an Asian sort of theme so we went with the samurai outfit. A whole torture scene so Frank decided, let's go Third Reich. It's not often you see a brother with a Nazi uniform on so it kind of worked out," Jackson said. “There's a really George Clintish pimped out outfit that we use with the big hat and the long coat and the whole thing. And then there's the ermine, gold kind of paisley coat at the end, the rich fur and the gloves and the gun scene. There's some cool stuff.

"Hopefully," he added, smiling. “The audience takes that ride with us."