Less Is More
Meet Spawn, a hero with no memory. He is a hero with no past, no secret identity, no idea who he really is. That means he has no baggage. This is the perfect jumping on point! The bits and pieces that he does remember are this: love and hate; good and bad. He was betrayed and given a raw deal; now he's damned to walk the earth with a really long cape, lots of chains and pouches around his thigh. He's Frank Miller's The Dark Knight crossbred with The Amazing Spider-Man black symbiote costume with the heart of The Punisher and a dash of Doctor Strange and The Spectre. With chains. He's haunted, and maybe chained down, by what he can't remember from his past. But he will find the answers - he will find the truth! Watch out when he does.
Along with Spawn we're introduced to a pair of New York City cops, Sam and Twitch. They are investigating a strange series of murders.
But enough about that, let's get back to Spawn. He rescues a woman from a gang, but then is struck by a spark of memories. He stumbles away and tries to figure out just who and what he has become.
Sam and Twitch are still trying to figure out the murder mystery.
Somewhere in time a monster laughs.
Creativity is not so much in the story itself; but how it is told. Todd McFarlane is an incredibly talented creator. He's surrounded himself with talented people, notably Wanda Kolomyjec, who guides and steers what McFarlane is doing. An editor is a powerful force that can be good or evil. Here it seems like a force for good. Spawn opens strong, with a scene that is mindful of the Batman: The Animated Series opening. It's a basic story. It's a simple story. McFarlane's strength is in how the story unfolds. He tells it through media outlets as well as flashback glimpses of things to come.
Super-hero comic books have been around for a very long time and they have developed a pretty strict formula. Innovators find a creative way to play around within that formula and turn things on a corner and give it a new twist or angle. That's what McFarlane does here. He takes a clichéd formula and turns it slightly to give it a fresh angle. It's a dark, gothic angle that is steeped in the "grim and gritty" formula that The Dark Knight posed a few years earlier. The supernatural elements separate Spawn from the rest of the comic book rack.
McFarlane's art carries this issue, with the writing a nice touch to keep it focused and directed. The writing doesn't get in the way of the art. The words and pictures work well together.
Spawn 1 gets four stars for a strong debut performance.
