REVIEW: Rat City Issue 1

The highly anticipated Rat City issue one is here! Last year Todd McFarlane spoke about the ten titles that would be released in 2024 as part of the “New U” as the Spawn universe continues to expand.

Not all those titles will be ongoing, many being mini-series. Rat City was one of those titles that was announced early on and made a lot of positive noise amongst Spawn fans.

This title takes place in the year 2107 and follows Peter and his comrades as they navigate a new conflict in Azerbaijan. Peter, a special opts officer is working with a team to take down a warlord. As you can probably imagine, things do not go smoothly, but what does happen lays the foundation for Rat City.

Written by Erica Schultz who is best known for her work at Marvel on titles like Daredevil, X-23, and Hallows’ Eve. Erica has also been awarded the Best Comic Book as the co-creator of the crime series M3 with the Vices Press at the Burbank International Film Festival.

With Erica taking the lead on Rat City as the writer she becomes the first woman to write a Spawn Comic Book!

The art is done by Ze Carlos who has worked several titles for publishers Marvel, Dark Horse, and Image on titles like ASM, Rogue Sun, Avengers, Captain America and many more.

Ze’s work on the design for Peter as a Spawn is incredible. The look and feel are definitely Spawn but with a Cyberpunk feel to it. An amazing step by step illustration of the final costume can be seen at the end of issue one.

This is a definite recommend from me as we get to dive into more of the Spawn universe!

Writing; 4.5 out of 5
Art; 4.5 out of 5
Colors; 4.5 out of 5

Score; 4.5 out of 5

Written by; Erica Schultz
Art by; Ze Carlos
Colors by; Jay David Ramos, FCO Plascencia, & Marcello Iozolli
Letters by; Erica Schultz
Published by; Image Comics

Check out when Al interviewed Erica all about Rat City: