Originally Posted by
HellsRider
Got around to reading Spawn 350 and its DNA is very similar to issue 100 in that its a culmination of a lot of story build up for the final fight in a wrestling sense and in this case a triple threat match. I thought it was fine as you have the long-standing feud coming to an end between Cog and Clown, Cog and Al having a final fight, and the reveal of Hell's new ruler dishing out her revenge on Cog since her death just before issue 300 while having major implications for the reset. It reads fast and I should have seen the new ruler coming after thinking about it some more and I'm curious what that reign will be like.
I think my biggest issue with this whole Throne of Hell event is the pacing/length. This is a 24-issue story - 20 from the main book and 4 from King Spawn - that could have been more if Gunslinger was also involved as solicitations noted and that is far too much for a story like this. As mentioned by Destro, this is Spawn and the attempts to have a Game of Thrones style story with different allegiances and such felt like padding than anything else. I looked back at the Urizen story that led to issue 100 and that was like 6-7 issues which was great. Sure you had the build up since the very first arc that Al would face Malebolgia at some point, but when the trigger was pulled to do that it was simple and epic that didn't waste much time. If that story was told today, it'd be like 18 issues or something of the Urizen battle then Al and Angela going through each circle of Hell to reach Malebolgia then a multi-issue fight and so on. With 4 books out this really didn't need to be so long especially when you consider that the main book does nothing with the Greenworld having half the dead zones when the next issue is all of them are open for good because of Spawn's and Haunt's trip to Heaven and a dumb attempt to tie the Batman/Spawn crossover to this when we know nothing was going to come of that. I get that was to reveal Nyx's return and expand on Greenworld and their fight in all of this, but I feel like that could have been handled better.
You could right after Al and Cog fight for the first time had Al goes straight to Heaven with Haunt to find the weapon (which in the end proves to do nothing) while Cog finds his way to Omega Island and into Hell then Al comes back realizing the dead zones are all open when Clown meets him and says Cog is in Hell already, lets team up. Al denies him, gets all of the allies and go to Hell, with now everyone there we get the mid battle twist that Cygor is with Greenworld revealing Nyx is back to the shock of everyone and backing Cataclysm and then the road to the triple threat match happens and we end up in the same spot just with less padding and more purpose. Handled like a DC/Marvel event that clearly involves all the books and each has its purpose, the story can be told more concisely as this 2 years of story is just bloated and if they do something like this again I hope its planned out better as having a good editor would help too, but I wonder how much of Todd is in this entire event.
As for the new landscape, like Blanks said, its familiar territory just expanded to have everyone be without powers so we'll see what comes of it as I really am sick of hearing about dead zones at this point. As for the New U of books to come for the rest of the year, its a lot but as expected most are going to be mini series as I suspect a number of these books like Misery and Spawn Kills Every Spawn have been done for some time and are now just coming out. I'm on the same bandwagon as everyone else on Rat City as I think that can be something fresh and new for the franchise, a curious choice to do a bi-monthly book with No Home Here that will have an extended page count, and I'm glad that She Spawn will be having her own book. Curious what Bloodletter and Spawn 77 are and I believe this is the first time we hear that Knights vs Samurai is a part of the Spawn Universe right? I remember last year when the project was picked up by Todd but didn't know it'd be part of this whole thing.