REVIEW: Monolith #1 (of 3)

Set in the future, this Spawn Universe story is unlike anything you’ve seen before. Featuring an unique art style, creative character desigs and a prosaic writing style, Monoloith #1 is an exciting story to read.

Issue #1 of Monolith is all about how the main character, also named Monolith has been thrown into jail and chronicles the journey of his escape. Monolith is the last of the hellspawns and we can see him battle a myriad of prison inmates and evil badguys in hopes of escaping captivity. Truthfully it is not the most “intelligent” read in a Spawn Universe story, given things like “Sam and Twitch” or even the original Spawn comics which are way more lore based and feature tons of dramatic and heart-wrenching moments. That being said, Monolith is still a fun read through, it’s all meat head humor, guts, glory and blood but it does it rather well.

The story is pretty simple, Monolith is in prison. He breaks out of prison, he kills inmates, he faces off against an evil boss, Mother Nature changes his mind and he decides to not go full Hellspawn and instead walks away from true carnage. Most of the story is just gore, but there are two parts that really stand out for me. The first being a flash-back where we see a younger, human, kid Monolith and we are introduced to the idea that Monolith wasn’t this hellish creature all his life. This flash-back ends with him literally beheading his younger human self, and is quickly tied into the story with a beautiful transition of him throwing a bodyless head of an inmate; thus tying the flash-back with the current narrative. This transition is done masterfully and I must give props to such a wonderful narrative device to tie the past with the present. The second moment that really stood out for me is when Mother Nature, also imprisoned in this cosmis jail, breaks out from her confinement and derails Monolith’s murderous spree in hopes of a more peaceful approach. This was nice for two reasons; the first being that we are able to see that Monolith is not really a death-machine and can be made to reason when a higher purpose is shown, and the second is by introducing us to the character of Mother Nature whose design is very cool and I hope we get to see more of. There is a bit of comedy throughout the series, kind of like “The Boys” can be made to be funny in how grotesque and over-the-top violent in can be, but for the most part it is just an action comic.

The art style is quite interesting. It is not drawn by Todd McFarlane, so we can’t really expect his level of mastery of posing, shape, and composition here but nevertheless it is still nice to look at. Especially the character designs, which given we are in an alien jail there are a lot of really cool characters to look at. I also really liked the Monolith design; Spawn turned Hulk mixed with a barbarian aesthetic, it’s honestly just really cool to look at. As for the environment designs, I can’t really say I am a fan of them. Many of the environments have a feeling of being 3d model landscapes that have been traced over and colored to give the appearance of actually drawn backgrounds, and well they feel rather flat compared to the really cool characters that sit on top of these carton flat backgrounds. It’s a shame because most thing Spawn have an amazing art style that draws you into the world, and with such a cookie-cutter storyline it’s hard to no get bored with the overall look of the book. The coloring is nice, but nothing to really write home about.

That being said it’s a fun story. The narration boxes are used to their maximum and whilst they are a lot of them, they all have a very prose-like tone of voice that makes it seem like you are a reading a fairy tale or a children’s book, which of course you are not because this book is bloody.

All in all it was a fun read, it was fast, quick paced, and the storytelling was just as quick. The poses were cool, there aren’t many panels that stand out for me, and the art style like I mentioned wasn’t the biggest selling point with this feeling of most of the environment design bing traced either from 3d models or from pictures but all in all it was fun. I don’t think I want to read the rest of the issues since I’m guessing it’s mostly going to be Monolith beating the crap out of a myriad of monsters, but this was fun. In conclusion, it was fun but the overall polish of the product could have been much better. If you want to pass a quick 20 minutes just looking at bloody action scenes, then this book might be for you. It’s fun, a little childish in parts but fun.

Writing: 3 Stars
Art: 4 Stars
Colors: 5 Stars

Overall: 3.5 Stars

Written by: Sean Lewis
Illustrated by: Valerio Giangiordano
Coloring by: Ulises Arreola
Lettering by: AndWorld Design
Cover art by: Valerio Giangiordano
Published by: Image Comics

Reviewed by Antonio “Mabs”