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Hellspawn Review
-by
Andrew Goletz
Rating:
7 out of 10
I’m not a fan of Spawn and I
never was. The only issues I enjoyed with the character were early on when
McFarlane gave creators like Dave Sim, Alan Moore and Frank Miller a few
issues to guest write. I was
never particularly impressed with the character, the writing or even the
art. I never could grasp the appeal of McFarlane’s Spider-man
renditions. Sure, I suppose the pictures were pretty to look at, but did
anyone ever stop to consider that it would be physically impossible for
any human to assume those strange positions without missing a few joints?
Brian
Michael Bendis took a couple bit characters from Spawn, Sam and Twitch and
put them into their own series of the same name. The S&T series
focused on the detectives in Spawn’s world. The stories deal as much
with the relationship between the two they do the actual crimes. Spawn
remains a character way, way in the background and it’s one of the
reasons why the title works.
When
Brian announced he would be writing the new Hellspawn series, I knew I’d
try it. With the exception of my unhealthy obsession with Spider-Man, I
buy and read comics because of the writer, not the character or concept. I
know I liked Brian’s writing, so I figured if anyone could make the
character somewhat interesting, it would be him.
I’ll
admit the book seems very far removed from the main Spawn title. It’s
one of the darkest books I’ve read in a long time. It takes place in
current Spawn continuity, but it doesn’t resemble the main book in any
way except for concept, from what I know. With Hellspawn, Brian is taking
the reader to a place that we have not been to before and that is a place
no one would want to be at. This Spawn’s world is filled with vile
people who do reprehensible things. In the first issue alone, we’re
treated to a dissertation by an evil creature called The Clown who waxes
philosophical on the actresses in X rated movies and what brought them to
this particular point in their lives. While The Clown torments the sad
fellow trying to watch his porn in peace, we see him stare at the screen
in wide-eye terror. It’s the same expression I had while reading it.
Artist
Ashley Wood worked with Brian on the initial Udaku storyline in Sam and
Twitch and his haunting, fully painted work fits greatly with the mood of
the story. This isn’t a pretty world we’re dealing with and the
visuals are as disturbing as what’s written on the page. As a pure
psychological horror book, Ashley’s work is amazing, in fact. His
paintings in Hellspawn remind me of similarly frightening visuals in the
old Arkham Asylum graphic novel from years back.
Sounds
like I dig the book, doesn’t it? Well the problem isn’t as simple as
the art or writing. Ashley’s art is perfect for the book and Brian
doesn’t ‘phone in’ his writing, but it doesn’t seem to have the
same punch as his previous efforts. Perhaps he doesn’t care for the
character as much as some of the other projects he’s working on. It
would be unfair for me to presume that he doesn’t. But I know that the
story isn’t getting me eager with anticipation for the next installment.
The whole big guns, big attitude in the character is a non too pleasant
reminder of the 90’s style fiasco of some of the more popular
independent titles of the time.
Brian
gives it a good effort and Ashley’s work makes the comic easy on the
eyes, but there isn’t enough substance behind the work for me to
continually seek this out. I will wait out the current storyline because I
want to see how Brian wraps this up, but even still, there isn’t really
much of a point for me to anticipate much of anything. It’s already been
revealed that Brian will be leaving the book in a few months, and along
with him goes my interest level.
While
not exactly a failure of dramatic proportions, the Spawn-thing still
doesn’t do it for me. I’m quite content with reading a lot of the
better tales written by BMB and I’m sure that there are a lot of readers
out there who share my feelings. Onto bigger and better things, I’d be
willing to bet. And I wish
them luck.
Hellspawn is available monthly from Image Comics. To find out more about Hellspawn, visit www.jinxworld.com. You can find everything here from ordering information to merchandise to upcoming events and pop into the message boards for some of the most interesting conversations with fans and creators alike!
Copyright©2000 Andrew Goletz