Angst wrapped in a cape - Spawn #107 on the Family Values Tour

Spawn.

Yeah, that guy.

You take the look from Venom, the cape from Batman, the chains from Ghost Rider, whip them all together and BAM!, you have a "grimdark" character with an alarming amount of staying power.

I was not immune to his demonic charms. Spawn might very well be my first "indy" book, or at the very least, my first regular title to collect that wasn't published by Marvel or DC.

(Well there were some Sonic the Hedgehog comics I had from somewhere . . . and a random issue of Power Rangers, but I didn't go whole hog on those.)

When a young lad hits just that right age, and the cosmic forces of angst and self-loathing start to set it, a character like Spawn has a certain appeal. Could I relate to being a black ops soldier dude who was sold out by his bosses and left for dead? Not really. Did I feel like I'd been spat out of Hell every day on the way home from school? Sure!

Spawn #107 wasn't my first issue of the series or anything, I just came across it when going through some of my old, unsorted books. Pressed between two thick gaming magazines, it had been preserved pretty well for a comic without a bag and board. Inside I found echoes of my youth, and a pretty decent first chapter to a story arc I may or may not have ever finished collecting.

This one is kind of a by-the-numbers "act one". Heck, it's not even a proper act one for Spawn himself since the central conflict doesn't really rear its head. Shoot, I'll double back on that. This story isn't about Spawn at all; it's a backdrop for a father-son drama between a member of Spawn's supporting cast and his estranged son.

You folks remember Sam & Twitch, right? The Bullock and Montoya to Spawn's Batman, these two coppers would often weave in and out of Spawn's world and occasionally we'd get a peek into theirs. Marvel scribe and Jessica Jones creator Brian Bendis even did some journeyman work on their spin-off title. This issue starts a Twitch arc. A little over a year prior to this, Twitch and his problems at home had become the center point for a storyline involving pedophile-turned-demon Billy Kincaid, and I remember his reunion with his wife at the end of that arc almost moving little me to tears.

(Or maybe it was Greg Capullo's bodacious babes, of which Twitch's wife was one.)

So Twitch's family drama is set to return in this arc, with his son living like a couch surfer and falling in with what we're led to assume in this first chapter is the "wrong crowd". Don't panic, Spawn and several other groovy ghoulies appear aplenty to keep things from going all after-school special.

Alright, Sam & Twitch were hardly "obscure", but a show of hands for who remembers Wolfram, Spawn's hobo werewolf buddy. Anyone? I had forgotten about him too. It's all good though, because in this issue he meets his end thanks to a holier-than-thou monster slayer named Simon Pure.

(Simon Pure. I just know the younger me thought that was dope.)

What about the guy on the cover? With the guns and the blasting and the necroplasm stuff? He appears in this ish, taking on both sides of a mob war and getting his chain yanked by this Simon Pure fellow. Simon seems like the type who might try to read Spawn the riot act, but instead he alludes to a greater threat . . . something on the horizon, dun dun DUUUN!

Brian Holguin was writing the book at this time, with what I'm sure was pretty lax supervision by creator Todd McFarlane. I haven't read any non-Spawn work by Holguin, but I can't say he's a lousy writer or anything. He would have been just as at home cooking up punchy little pot boilers for Marvel's X-Men line or DC's Bat-books at that time. Unobtrusive stuff that speaks to teenage boys--man knows his audience and I can respect that.

Capullo had left at this point (I think for personal reasons) and we get Angel Medina as the main artist here. I've since read some Spidey's drawn by Medina, and while that 90's "Image style" isn't exactly my thing anymore, I can appreciate the detail on every page. These pages are overstocked, if anything.

This is a pretty typical setup issue that could also function as a first issue for new readers, or a "jumping on point" as publishers are wont to call them now. You get an explanation of what Spawn is and an example of what he does, a new enemy/rival in Simon Pure, and the introduction of a sub-plot that'll keep the soap opera suckers coming back to see if poor Twitch will get his son back.

If I sound a little "meh" about this issue, I think it probably reflects how I felt back then. Like I said, I don't know if I even got the rest of the arc. This is from a time in my personal reading history when aesthetics were becoming less important to me than story. And stories needed to be "trippy" for me to get into them. Cue Morrison's X-Men. Cue Warren Ellis's Planetary. Cue my first experiences with marijuana. I was morphing from one teenage stereotype into another.

So yeah, Spawn. That guy. I don't really miss having his adventures as a part of my monthly schedule, but I don't regret having read them either the way I regret the music from that era. (Jonathan Davis and Fred Durst have a lot to answer for.)

Thanks for reading!
Twitter: @ChrisBComics
E-mail: backissuechris@gmail.com
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