In this issue a war is being fought between Cataclysm and Sinn for control over the throne of hell, with the help of Clown Cataclysm who hopes to turn the tides and take the throne for himself! But Al Simmons aka O.G Spawn is not going to allow that, he has other plans. This issue continues showing the same beautiful art we’ve come to know and love from the title created by Todd McFarlane, but 300+ comics later we now have a much more beefier cast of characters. Some memorable Spawn variants like Gunslinger Spawn, Medieval Spawn, a Spawn that looks like Venom, a Spawn with Wings, a giant red Spawn, and Jessica Priest aka She Spawn. In bright beautiful colors we see this amazing cast of characters plotting and discussing what to do next to stop this war forever and avenge the fallen hell Spawn.
Spawn is such a classic, as soon as Image started and McFarlane started making this title you knew that it was going to go for a long time. However, to this long and remain relevant, interesting, and innovative as all hell is a feat that I don’t think many other creators have accomplished in the Western world. I say the Western world because in the universe of manga, we know of series going all the way to 1k issues and many more, but Spawn is one of those stories that has never really stopped being Spawn which is something truly fantastic. Another reason to applaud the longevity of this series is how polished it has gotten throughout the years. The story is straight to the point, and even though it follows the lore of 345 comics before it, you can jump in on issue 346 and know exactly what is going on and who the major players are. You have Al Simmons the current leader of the band of Hell Spawns, you have Bad Guy #1 Sinn, Bad Guy #2 Cataclysm, and Bad Guy #3 Clown; all of this information is laid out to the new readers right in the first 10 pages and the next 13 pages keep the story moving forward smoothly and painlessly. Even though McFarlane is no longer writing the scripts, he still provides additional help, which is very nice because this issue of Spawn feels refreshing but still very much tied to the previous original issues.
The art is amazing, as always, but now you get Spawn in HighRes, vibrant colors, and with even more spikes and chains than ever before. I am a huge fan of the character designs in this comic. Every character is superbly interesting and creative. While I love the awesome designs of all the different Hell Spawns, my favourite design has to be the giant Spawn, Cataclysm, and all the monsters fighting in the Hell War. There is an ape cyborg which looks freaking awesome! He looks so awesome in fact that he is featured in the main cover illustration. The backgrounds are just as wonderful. Everything is painted with a mix of masterful inking techniques and strong shading with a nice wet brush blending technique that makes the pages look almost like oil paintings. They also have a bit of paper texture overlays here and there but most of the textured elements are achieved with inking or painting techniques. As I’ve mentioned before the coloring is fantastic. The red on Al Simmons looks so bright and pretty, I honestly don’t think Spawn has ever looked so vibrant before. He is often set on top of a contrasting grey or blue backdrop which only serves to make that red pop more. If you opened this book at your local comic book store, there’s no doubt in my mind that those vibrant reds are gonna make you want to buy it instantly.
Even with all this praise, there are still a couple of problems here and there that could’ve been fixed. There was a typo in one of the word balloons that read “Our best bet is it to follow the path redeemer saw.”, of course, should not have that extra “it” in there and should just read “Our best bet is to…”, other than that there was also one-word ballon that should have been placed further up than the one that came afterward as to avoid the confusion of which word balloon to read first. Other than these two very minor issues in the reading experience, this is just a wonderful comic with a wonderful team of professionals who no doubt have been doing this for decades already. The word balloons are fantastic and I particularly like the ones used for the narration boxes and the ones used for each of the Hell Spawns. It is very cool to see that even though they are all variants of the same entity, they all have their very own design and personality, right down to the word balloons they use to speak. I would’ve loved a few more sound FX thrown into the mix but Spawn has always read like a very serious story so even though there are some sound FX’s, they come few and far between and they all are very serious with big square outlined letters. Where it broke that mold was with exaggerated balloons, and whilst we only got two or three of them, those few we got looked awesome.
In my opinion, this was a great book. It wasn’t the most action-packed issue of the Spawn universe because we’re dealing with plans and wars and such things, but it still had its nice share of action moments that looked fantastic. This comic is just good, it’s gone for so long that it’s one of those examples of working so hard at something for so long that you can’t help but make it awesome. Even though it’s not exciting per se, it is still fascinating to read as a comic, and in many ways, it is a master class in good storytelling, good writing, good design, coloring, and lettering. It’s just good all around.
Is it worth the purchase? Sure. It’s a Spawn title, Image has been publishing this title for ages for a good reason. Now, is it a good title to jump into for someone who has never read Spawn? Maybe not so much. Whilst it is super easy to read even for a newcomer to the series, it is not a bombastic issue. I’d say, if you’re gonna show Spawn to someone, and you want to show them some of the newer issues, perhaps wait a little bit for the war plot to get to its climax issue and show them that one. This issue is more of a build-up for the payoff, of course, you need these sorts of issues to really tell your story and to truly give the ultimate satisfactory payoff, this issue is not for the Spawn philistine. It is however great for comic veterans, and anyone who loves the medium of comics because as a piece of media, it hits all the points a good comic must hit to be considered good in the first place.
Writing: 5 Stars
Art: 5 Stars
Colors: 5 Stars
Overall: 5 Stars
Written by: Rory McConville & Todd McFarlane
Illustrated by: Carlo Barberi
Coloring by: Jay David Ramos
Lettering by: Tom Orzechowski
Cover art by: Mike Deodato Jr
Variant Covers by: Kael Ngu
Published by: Image Comics
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