Whats really funny, and kind of sad, is that Hine's run is probably the best part of the entire 300 issue Spawn series. Funny how Todd had nothing to do with it.
Mcfarland's writing on these recent issues has been really really bad. I like the characters and the world - but something needs to be done about the atrocious dialogue and unsatisfying story arcs.
Currently Reading:
Milligan's Shade the Changing Man, Vertigo Hellblazer trades, Love and Rockets TPBs, Stray Bullets TPBs, Ellis' The Wildstorm
Issue 170 - A Tale of Three Brothers Part One: Hellhouse - The issue opens with Ab and Zab at a hotel in Illinois messing with people when Ab finds an advertisement for Hellhouse which promises "realistic enactments of the evil perversions of a morally bankrupt society." We cut to Nyx waking up and she and Spawn reconnect. Elsewhere, Ab and Zab arrive at the Hellhouse and find a reverend there. Ab and Zab suggest they can help him make the place more effective and paint all over the place. The reverend's assistant then goes to test out a door when she is confronted with someone from her past who really turns out to be a demon. Spawn appears and before he can do anything to Ab and Zab, a door suddenly opens and a pregnant Wanda is there telling him not to hit her again.
An okay issue if certain things could have been shortened like Nyx and Spawn reconnecting in favor of advancing the story more. This arc and the majority of the time between post-Armageddon and before the introduction of Jim Downing is used to dive into Al's family history, an area that the series hadn't covered up to this point. We find out he had 2 brothers, but the grander purpose of revealing more of Al's family history is to show that Mammon had been manipulating not only Al's family, but also Wanda's family for a long time to get to the point that they would conceive a child together. Remember when Al was the reason he and Wanda couldn't have a child together? Turns out they in fact did have one and Mammon stole the child, Morana being the name, for his grand scheme. In retrospect, I found it disappointing that we finally dive into Al's family history and its just another Mammon manipulation thread so the writing felt like before Hine came on board when it could have been used to establish Al's brothers for more stories down the line though we know what would come next. A missed opportunity imo.
I have decided to list Spawn's video game appearances.
Todd McFarlane's Spawn: The Video Game (1995) (SNES)
Spawn: The Eternal (1997) (PlayStation)
Spawn: The Ultimate (1997)
Spawn (1999) (Game Boy Color)
Spawn: In the Demon's Hand (1999, 2000; Dreamcast, Arcade)
Spawn: Armageddon (2003; Xbox, PlayStation 2, and Nintendo GameCube)
Soulcalibur II (2003; Xbox)
Soulcalibur II HD Online (2013): (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3)
Mortal Kombat 11 (2019; PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows)
So which Spawn video game did you like?
The Dreamcast Spawn game is legendary. So many playable characters - wild seeing all the different demons - and having someone like Twitch stand toe to toe and snipe the hell out of them all. Lots of different versions of Spawn too. Made by Capcom as well!
Currently Reading:
Milligan's Shade the Changing Man, Vertigo Hellblazer trades, Love and Rockets TPBs, Stray Bullets TPBs, Ellis' The Wildstorm
Issue 189 - Endgame Part Five - The issue opens with Jim turning into Spawn and leaving Sara's apartment making a mess of the bathroom. We cut to Connecticut where a warrior from Hell is confronted by Clown who goes on an entire issue dialog about how they should work together to take down Heaven and Hell so they rule everything and not wait for the next orders from the Elders. The warrior turns down the offer and Clown assures him that its not a negotiation and leaves having murdered most of his dogs. While this is going on Jim, as Spawn, crashes into a fight with two gangs and proceeds to kill them all. Jim returns to Sara's apartment as she is thankful for his return and the issue ends with Sam & Twitch surveying the scene of dead bodies and feeling a sense of deja vu.
A poor issue in what would be an overall poor introduction to Jim Downing with the Endgame arc. The majority of the issue is concerned with Clown's plan which is long in the tooth to explain and since the Elders were never established, and still isn't, it's hard to care for anything Clown says. The fact that we would have more issues in the Downing era of Clown talking just makes things boring given nothing interesting is said. At the same time, the fact that it happens this early as the issue is more concerned about than exploring Jim more and Jim is only used in this issue to kill no name guys lends to the fact of not caring about him. Using similar imagery to how Al began and Sam & Twitch in the end of the issue, ends up being cheap at the end of the day.
As for the video games, I actually owned the SNES game and that was actually pretty good I thought. Facing several of the rogues gallery along with new additions wrapped in a story that felt like it came from the comic was cool and the cut scenes had a great comic book look to them and wish they incorporated the Mad One into the comic as he was pretty interesting.
Somehow Spawn #300 got best selling comic of the month, industry wide. I remember McFarlane was saying he was really aiming for it.
Last edited by Destro777; 10-18-2019 at 10:38 PM.
Currently Reading:
Milligan's Shade the Changing Man, Vertigo Hellblazer trades, Love and Rockets TPBs, Stray Bullets TPBs, Ellis' The Wildstorm
Well that is good to hear. Despite how folks can feel about the issue, it does show interest in the franchise is still good. Hopefully McFarlane can capitalize on this interest especially with the comic milestone, Spawn in MK11 next year, and the success of R-rated comic movies that hopefully McFarlane can ride the wave for the Spawn movie. Striking now while everything is hot is key.
Issue 197 - The issue opens with Sara sleeping and the Redeemer about to kill her when he sees the rosary and realizes that Sara is one of heaven's followers and backs down leaving a crucifix on her bed table. We cut to Jim getting coffee when he bumps into Marc and a war veteran friend of Marc's father who, after the Vietnam War, lost the use of his legs. He wishes Jim well, but Jim doesn't appreciate the surprise visit from Marc having already told him he wasn't willing to talk. Later Jim and Sara are together when Marc appears with the war veteran having been cured and able to walk again and this was all so Marc can get the story on Jim and saying his miracle powers would have have come out eventually and that he would want to run interference on Jim's behalf. Jim and Sara leave and Clown appears and continues to talk about Jim's powers and looking for Jim's past. They go to the roof when Redeemer appears snatching Jim. As he transforms into Spawn and Clown catches him, they end up having a discussion for why Redeemer appeared. Turns out he is looking for his wife, the angel that appeared in the Endgame arc, and Clown antagonizes him. Redeemer blasts Spawn away and Clown transforms into the Violator and begin to fight. During the fight, Violator catches on to the fact that the Redeemer's real purpose for appearing is to steal Spawn for Heaven's side. Violator summons the vampire horde and together easily defeat Redeemer. Spawn gets back up to the roof and Clown and Spawn look to be trusting one another to end the issue.
This is the first issue after the 12 issue Endgame arc which was used to introduce several elements that would be a part of Jim's entire tenure - the miracle worker side which lead to the celebrity bits of the story, hints at Jim's past being Director Kramer and being his own patient, his heaven connection, and the introduction of the Hell vampires and Bludd which we'll get to know more of among other story bits. With this issue, its pretty messy like the Endgame arc. First off, Redeemer can't tell when someone is a Heaven follower? Thought that was weird. In addition, Redeemer as a whole during Jim's time is weird. So we surmise that this is still Redeemer 3 aka Eddie despite the fact that Spawn (Al) clipped his wings off the last time they encountered each other which the Endgame arc suggests that when that happens Heaven warriors lose who they were and become one of the many homeless people and nothing can be done to change that. So for some reason, Heaven made him a Redeemer again (like why after a loss?), he marries the angel from the Endgame arc, gets beaten by Clown and the vampires and turns to Clown's side of things until Redeemer has a conversation with the Albino Trio, revealed later in Jim's tenure but don't expect much on that front, and he just suddenly returns to Heaven's side. Just weird Eddie Redeemer's trajectory.
Marc's pushy nature for getting the story really makes me not like him at this particular point. Here is a guy in Jim trying to make sense of his life and now comes this reporter who is basically blackmailing him, using a war veteran to boot, to make his point and forcing Jim to act on the situation sooner than he would like. Which, given the type of story it is - patients miraculously being healed - its notable that during the entire Endgame arc not a single newscaster report section that the series is known to do doesn't talk about that at all which should have been a red flag for Marc that something was up if others could figure out that a single patient went to separate hospitals after the attack. It just feels like we were prioritizing the wrong story line with Marc's bit especially given his aha moment came when he realized that he was cured of a bad cold and figures it was because of Jim which is a ridiculous way for him to figure that out. The battle at the end was okay, but goofy. It starts oddly with Clown saying to Spawn to go limp to catch him, the three talk, Spawn is easily blasted away for the entirety of the fight, then the vampires appear and with Violator beat the Redeemer off screen and Spawn then gets back up to the roof to see the aftermath. Its just weird and feels like we are taking time away from Jim and continuing to establish him to focus on other characters who keep talking about Jim's importance. I feel like they should have wrapped up the Kramer storyline right away and not take 2 years to get to it all the while doing the Marc storyline slowly and maybe involve the Heaven storyline that way too to payoff later. A meh issue honestly.
Also spawn is getting a resurgence in popularity lately I mean the dude now has 40k readers this year now.
Issue 206 - The issue begins where the last issue left off with Jim facing The Old Guard. They continue to put a beating on him, but Jim's able to fight back and retreat into the shadows. He captures one of the Guard and drags him into the shadows and then chains up the remaining two Guards. He goes through one of them as a nod to issue 11 and has a Dark Knight Joker moment with the remaining Guard. Elsewhere, the media are confused on Jim's recent actions of saving a guy that got hit by a vehicle and suddenly vanishing. We catch up with Rowand and Twitch as Rowand is keeping an eye on Sam in the hospital due to a heart attack induced by Violator while Twitch is hoping to find Al and ask for his help in saving Sam. Meanwhile we catch up with Marc and Susan for a bit as Marc's excited about what Jim has done and the opportunities it has opened up for them. As the issue closes, Twitch finds Jim, mistaking him for Al, who threatens Twitch and in Vatican City the Pope receives a call regarding Jim's recent actions.
A decent issue if very wordy when it comes to almost every conversation in this issue - The Old Guard's grandstanding and the conversation between Rowand and Twitch in particular. From issue 201, Syzmon Kudranski came on board for art duties and seemingly a new writer in Will Carlton who would later be revealed to be Todd himself which I'm not sure what the point of that was supposed to be. Anyways, Syzmon's art this early on is pretty good with good use of darkness, lighting, and motion blur though as the issues went on you wonder how dark all of these places have to be due to how dominant black is in his art. As for the content, its the end of the build up with The Old Guard as after this encounter, we don't really see them a whole lot and if we do its pretty brief. The Pope part being introduced while initially interesting, we will soon find out doesn't really lead to anything in Jim's tenure though upcoming solicits for future issues do suggest a return to the Vatican and a particular plot point planted during Jim's run.