Spawn Volume 4

Todd McFarlane and Rob Liefeld and their merry band of inkers and scribblers moved on from the publishing slaughterhouse of Marvel Comics to form their own brand of magic in Image. Soon, along with Marvel and DC, they became legion. Too many years had passed with artists treated badly, raped of thier work and paid a pittance for their scemes and visions. So says Frank Miller in the foreward to this first glimpse of the Spawn comic phenomenon. Enter Image Comics. Enter Todd McFarlane. Enter Spawn. The Empire is made. Spawn starts off where most comics had not before this time in early '92. Al Simmons, an ex-paramilitary assassin, hired gun, mercenary, etc.... wakes up and finds that he had died and gone to hell and sold his soul to come back to earth to see his wife. Weird. Yeah. Only Al (Spawn) finds out that five years have passed since he died and that his wife Wanda has remaried his best friend and they now have a child together (something Simmons could never do). Ouch. Life sucks. The Devil (Malebolgia) has screwed him bigtime! Enter The Violator, an entity and emissary of Malebolgia's, hiding his truly hideous demonic form behind the guise of a short, fat, disguting clown. Really weird. Spawn works on levels that Marvel and DC couldn't or wouldn't touch at the time. More adult in its themes. More skin. More violence. More vulgarity (without outright profanity). Issues illustrated and discussed in Spawn were darker and more relevant than anything that was going on in the big publishers comic collections. Corruption and greed, murder, rape and despair.... What McFarlane did in the creation of Image and Spawn was giving the artists and writers back their pride and their rights to make a profit on their own creations and move away from the tired characters that Marvel had been toting around for decades. What he did with Spawn was create a anti-hero/vigilante Hellspawn kick-ass comic legend. Sure it got tired as it drug on, but the begining was fresh. Dark. Deep. Dig it.

Out of all the mainstream comics on the market today - superman, spiderman, batman, etc. - Spawn is certainly the best. The main thing contributing to this is the realism of Spawn, that he has a very dark human nature and he shows you that it's okay not to be perfect. The art also compliments the story. Detailed, Gothic, and with a dark style all it's own, each page is vibrantly alive.

Spawn isn't about being the typical super-hero to look up to. He is much more representative of a true person, and therefore much more realistic. We all have a darker side, and society teaches us to hide from it. Only if we pull it out into the light and examine it for what it is can we truely deal with it. That's what Spawn is. If we continue to hide our dark sides from everyone, including ourselves they will build up and take us over eventually. Super-heroes such as Superman make it seem like if you even have an impure thought, let alone commit an act that isn't the right thing to do, then you must be evil. Ppl then compare themselves to these characters. Some ppl feel guilty for not measuring up to these standards. I think that is also one of the major problems of many major religions.

Beautiful coloring, wonderfully detailed artwork - enticing storyline - definitely a "should have".

This book is the beginning of MacFarlane's Spawn dynasty. It is also the beginning of the graphic masterpiece that is Spawn. It slowly takes grasp of you, and wraps you in the plight of Al Simmons, a.k.a. Spawn. This is a great way for new fans to get the early issues (1-5), or even for us comic vets who want to have all five in one convenient package! Also recommended, Spawn books 2-6. Believe me, it will hook you!