Todd McFarlane’s Spawn character is one of the most well known and loved comic book superheroes that isn’t published by Marvel or DC. The character celebrated his 301st issue not too long ago, marking the series as the longest running creator owned comic book series ever published.
Now, McFarlane seems to be interested in doing the same thing with his hallmark character that Marvel has been doing for years and DC has been sort of doing for almost as long: building a shared universe around the main character and his supporting cast. Let’s see how this works out.
Written by Todd McFarlaneCover by: J. Scott Campbell
Illustrated by Jim Cheung, Brett Booth, Stephen Segovia, and Marcio Takara
Inked by Adelso Corona and Todd McFarlane
Colored by Fco Plascencia, Andrew Dalhouse, and Peter Steigerwald
Lettered by Tom Orzechowski and Andworld Design
IT’S HERE: THE OFFICIAL INTRODUCTION TO THE LONG-AWAITED SPAWN’S UNIVERSE!A double-sized issue that begins a storyline so huge that three NEW SPAWN-related monthly titles will spill out from it, including…
A new SPAWN title.
GUNSLINGER SPAWN monthly.
And a new TEAM book bringing a handful of these characters together in their own book.With this one-shot…the world of SPAWN changes forever! New heroes. New villains, and more importantly, new titles coming to a comic shop near you. Join this list of artists as we unveil a historic moment in the mythology of SPAWN’S UNIVERSE:
JIM CHEUNG
TODD McFARLANE
STEPHEN SEGOVIA
MARCIO TAKARA
“Spawn’s Universe” #1 is a book of monstrous size for a single issue floppy, but that’s because it’s an anthology of stories designed to create hype and demand for Todd McFarlane’s upcoming expanded universe. The first story is the main story of the issue, which seems to be a continuation of the main series and introduces a new character. The following stories are much smaller snapshots into the lives of three characters titled “Gunslinger Spawn”, “Medieval Spawn”, and “She-Spawn”. While all of them are written by Todd McFarlane, they all have different reasons for existing and have different artists attached to each of them. As a result, this review is going to be formatted a bit differently and briefly discuss each story and the creative team behind it.
The biggest single contribution to “Spawn’s Universe” #1 is McFarlane’s writing, which he does in every story in the anthology. Overall, McFarlane’s writing is pretty good. He has some good character development and sets each of the comics up in such a way that allow for cool looking characters and ideas such as a cyborg gorilla or secret organizations of medieval wizards and dragons. It evokes a lot of the tropes and storytelling beats from the first issues of Spawn from the early 90’s and it’s a great way to build hype and if you’re an established fan of the Spawn Universe it should all be very interesting and exciting, which leads right into two of the biggest problems with “Spawn’s Universe” #1.
As a creator McFarlane has always had two strengths: his highly detailed artistic style and a very keen business sense that helped him develop a successful toy company. The point is that while his writing is decent, it’s not good. His script has the idea of a great story, the dialogue and narrative captions are incredibly unnecessary and he uses twenty words when all he needs is five. Also, it’s very clear that McFarlane has been working with the characters for so long that it’s difficult to make the universe accessible to new readers. These problems lead to “Spawn’s Universe” #1 feeling a bit bloated and inaccessible, although established fans of the character and the series will most likely find it enjoyable.
The artwork in “Spawn’s Universe” #1 is excellent across the board. Mcfarlane outsourced the pencils and colors of his hallmark character to several artists and they all hit it out of the park. Jim Cheung’s artwork is probably the biggest star of the show since it’s the artwork on the main story and takes up most of the comic. His highly realistic and incredibly dynamic style allows for a ton of hyper realistic detail that do a great job of showing all the blood, gore, twisted bodies, and flowing capes that turn this comic into a decadent art show and evoke all the excess cheese that made comic books in the 90’s so interesting. Naturally, the highlight of the artwork in this story is the cyborg gorilla, because all stories are more interesting with the inclusion of a cyborg gorilla.
Continued belowWhile Cheung may be the main artist on “Spawn’s Universe” #1, he’s not the only one. Stephen Segovia does a good job of drawing in a similar style to the main story on the Medieval Spawn short while artist Marcio Takara has a take on the She-Spawn story that is a little heavier on the inks and gives the story a much richer and darker feel. But the best artwork in the entire comic comes from Brett Booth’s work on the Gunslinger Spawn’s story, which renders all the blood, spikes, and sliced off faces in incredibly fine and gory detail. The artwork promises a universe filled with blood and violence and it does the best job of getting future readers pumped up for the future.
“Spawn’s Universe” #1 is a reminder of all the over the top, incredibly cheesy, very well drawn, excess that made the comic so beloved by so many people for such a long time, and while the issue somehow manages to be both packed with a ton of information that only diehard fans will really understand and not have enough information to enjoy on its own, it’s still a pretty good preview of all the decadent excess to come.
Final Verdict: 7.1- It’s an anthology catalog of future projects that is very well drawn, but the stories are either very densely packed with insider information or too short to be interesting on their own.
