Daily Comic Book Mission #033: Spawn #1

Alright, welcome back to your daily comic book mission from ComicBook.Beer. Bringing it back to the early 1990s today.

Back in the day when the greatest thing that you really had to worry about was which flannel shirt to wear while listening to Soundgarden.

That’s pretty much, that’s what I remember at least. Or maybe whether or not you were listening to Soundgarden or Alice in Chains, their first album, Facelift. I mean, when you go back to the grunge era, I know most people seem to remember Nirvana, and Nirvana was very good. Nevermind was an excellent album, but let’s be honest, Soundgarden handled the rest of that scene their own ass. With the exception of Facelift, that was a very good album. Anyway.

This has nothing to do with any of that. Well, kind of. It’s from 1992.

This is Spawn issue number one from May of 1992. Of course, I think some of you might remember the old Classic Game Room review of the Spawn video game on Sega Dreamcast. There’s only one way to say Spawn. SPAAAWN! I think I blew out the compressor, but it was worth it.

Alright, now excuse me, I’m pouring a cold Iron City beer.

Alright, now that I’ve had beer, I’m ready to review comic book and give you your daily comic book recommendation, your mandatory suggested reading.

The first issue of Spawn. I’ve got a first printing here in my hand. I bought this when I was in high school. I’ve still got it. I’ll be honest. I like Spawn. I’m not sure I’ve ever actually fully understood what the hell is going on in Spawn.

So there’s this really angry-looking guy who’s kind of like Spider-Man but with more chains and a cape. Which, you know, is no surprise because this series was originally created and illustrated by Todd McFarlane, who came to fame by drawing Spider-Man back in the day, and he just brought a really unique style.

It’s like the early 90s were a really neat time for comic books because they were huge. This is before the internet and everybody’s mind was turned to mush by social media and influencers. People actually read comic books made by people who had talent. It’s a foreign word these days, I know.

And Todd McFarlane, whether you like him or not, just knocked over my beer can with Spawn. Spawn topples beer cans. And whether or not you like Todd McFarlane’s style, he is just an incredibly talented illustrator. And I think a lot of fun to read. I like his artwork a lot.

Spawn, for me, is way more style over substance. But it’s just so much fun to look at. And I’ve got the first collection of Spawn issues in hardcover. I went back and tried to read them all and it’s like, okay, I’m really just having way more fun reading this.

So Spawn to me is kind of like The Crow mixed with elements of Spider-Man and Batman. And McFarlane takes it dark. He makes it dark. He doesn’t really mess around.

So in the first issue here, which is very cinematic, it’s a lot like the Todd McFarlane Spider-Man issues. It’s just dark, a lot of blacks.

It opens up almost like Batman where Spawn is standing on top of a church and there’s bolts of lightning behind him. And it feels a lot like The Crow. We don’t really know anything about Spawn in the first issue except what these TV newscasters tell us.

Basically, we’re putting this together on our own. Al Simmons is Spawn and I guess he was in the military or whatever, worked for the government, saved the president’s life. Then we just get all these weird, kind of abstract, artsy flashbacks in Todd McFarlane’s unique, weird page layout way.

Giving the story of a man who we believe was murdered or something along those lines and came back after he’s made a deal with the devil or demon or whatever, and now he’s got superpowers, but he’s tormented from within.

Police are talking, we think Spawn threw somebody out of a window. Then Spawn saves a woman from being raped and kills all of them, and then Spawn breaks down and starts crying and peels off his cape and armor and we see he’s just a horrible monster. Spawn.

But really we don’t learn a whole lot about Spawn beyond that, so this is like a teaser issue, but it’s fun.

And I know that you can get the early Spawn issues in a variety of collections out there, hardcover, softcover. Affordable, not unaffordable, and they’re probably even in the library.

I don’t even think the originals are all that expensive to collect because they made a whole lot of these back in the day. This is back when they would sell millions of issues of comic books, and this is one of the first Image titles.

I guess I don’t know the details, but Todd McFarlane and Jim Lee, a bunch of popular guys from back in the day all left and formed their own company, and Image and Spawn are still going to this day.

So that’s your daily comic book mission. Take it back to the 90s, crank up that Soundgarden, grab a cold beer.

Pass on the Zima though. For those of you who are like, I’m gonna get a Zima and throw a Jolly Rancher in there. No, you’ll be murdered by Spawn for that, and rightfully so.

So thanks for checking out comicbook.beer. I hope that you’ve seen there’s a whole lot of new videos uploaded right now. Actually a lot of the older videos, but there’s some new ones on the way. So it’s nice to find a new home for these videos that I produced over the years, and we’ll see where it goes.

Spawn likes his videos on VHS from the early 90s, but those of us in the know still prefer Laserdisc.

See you next time on your daily comic book mission. Happy reading.