Comic Review: Spawn #166
Spawn #166
Written by: David Hine
Art by: Brian Haberlin
Colors by: Tom Orzechowski
Cover by: Greg Capullo
Publisher: Image Comics
Story: The Voice-Hearers Part One: Skin Deep
*Spoilers*
Spawn was one of Image Comics’s first series debuting in 1992. I was there for the first issue. I have in my long boxes the first ten issues of the series, ten issues I enjoyed greatly. Maybe it’s those fond memories that bring me back to Spawn ever couple of years. Maybe it’s that, for all that he they are criticized, when you get right down to it, Al Simmons is a compelling, tragic character whose attempt to repent for his actions in life by combating the hordes of hell on Earth is a tale from which I cannot readily turn away. Maybe, from time to time, I just don’t feel like I’m buying enough comics. Whatever the reason, I picked up this past Wednesday’s Spawn #166. Usually when compelled to pick up an issue, I find myself in the midst of a story arc and I have no idea what’s going on, but it appears the Gods of Comicdom guided me true and I stepped in at the beginning of a new arc.
Spawn’s recreated the world and resurrected the humans who were killed during the battle between God and Satan. But maybe everything wasn’t put back together quite as smoothly as Spawn originally thought. People have been doing horrible things, such as a man kills his roommate because the roommate left the cap off of his toothpaste. Also a girl begins cutting and eating her own flesh. Things aren’t just off…they’re disturbingly wrong. Twitch tries to get Spawn to do something, but Al’s caught in a bout of self-loathing over the unlocked memories of a time when he beat his beloved Wendy causing a miscarriage.
I enjoyed my return to Spawn. First, the cover is disquieting. Spawn is in his rotted “zombie” form snarling at the reader with roaches crawling over his face. Capullo’s cover really does capture your eye and then repel it with its content. Capullo doesn’t do the interior art, but Haberlin does a fine job with the disturbing images as well. The last page with its splash of the girl who’s cutting herself and eating her flesh is shocking, but even that grotesquerie doesn’t match the eerie little girl in the elevator. She’s seen in seven panels, a pale little girl who sticks her tongue out revealing an insect on the tip of it. But the bug was not the creepiest thing about her. It’s her eyes before she sticks her tongue out at the young man in the elevator; Her eyes looking straight ahead, out of the comic at you, the reader, with disturbing recognition. If you want to see what I’m talking about, it’s the panel before she sticks out her tongue, when the man says “Hi” to her…creepy.
Hine’s story certainly looks like it will be a good tale. It’s the first part of a new arc, so there’s a lot of setup here, but if the creeps continue, then this will be a fun arc. I would like to point out, however, to the continuity naysays, that it took little effort on my part to find out what occurred leading up to this issue.
4 Worms...There's an awkwardness to the story about the self-eating girl being told in present tense and then Twitch finishing the story by telling it to Spawn in the past tense.
Written by: David Hine
Art by: Brian Haberlin
Colors by: Tom Orzechowski
Cover by: Greg Capullo
Publisher: Image Comics
Story: The Voice-Hearers Part One: Skin Deep
*Spoilers*
Spawn was one of Image Comics’s first series debuting in 1992. I was there for the first issue. I have in my long boxes the first ten issues of the series, ten issues I enjoyed greatly. Maybe it’s those fond memories that bring me back to Spawn ever couple of years. Maybe it’s that, for all that he they are criticized, when you get right down to it, Al Simmons is a compelling, tragic character whose attempt to repent for his actions in life by combating the hordes of hell on Earth is a tale from which I cannot readily turn away. Maybe, from time to time, I just don’t feel like I’m buying enough comics. Whatever the reason, I picked up this past Wednesday’s Spawn #166. Usually when compelled to pick up an issue, I find myself in the midst of a story arc and I have no idea what’s going on, but it appears the Gods of Comicdom guided me true and I stepped in at the beginning of a new arc.
Spawn’s recreated the world and resurrected the humans who were killed during the battle between God and Satan. But maybe everything wasn’t put back together quite as smoothly as Spawn originally thought. People have been doing horrible things, such as a man kills his roommate because the roommate left the cap off of his toothpaste. Also a girl begins cutting and eating her own flesh. Things aren’t just off…they’re disturbingly wrong. Twitch tries to get Spawn to do something, but Al’s caught in a bout of self-loathing over the unlocked memories of a time when he beat his beloved Wendy causing a miscarriage.
I enjoyed my return to Spawn. First, the cover is disquieting. Spawn is in his rotted “zombie” form snarling at the reader with roaches crawling over his face. Capullo’s cover really does capture your eye and then repel it with its content. Capullo doesn’t do the interior art, but Haberlin does a fine job with the disturbing images as well. The last page with its splash of the girl who’s cutting herself and eating her flesh is shocking, but even that grotesquerie doesn’t match the eerie little girl in the elevator. She’s seen in seven panels, a pale little girl who sticks her tongue out revealing an insect on the tip of it. But the bug was not the creepiest thing about her. It’s her eyes before she sticks her tongue out at the young man in the elevator; Her eyes looking straight ahead, out of the comic at you, the reader, with disturbing recognition. If you want to see what I’m talking about, it’s the panel before she sticks out her tongue, when the man says “Hi” to her…creepy.
Hine’s story certainly looks like it will be a good tale. It’s the first part of a new arc, so there’s a lot of setup here, but if the creeps continue, then this will be a fun arc. I would like to point out, however, to the continuity naysays, that it took little effort on my part to find out what occurred leading up to this issue.
4 Worms...There's an awkwardness to the story about the self-eating girl being told in present tense and then Twitch finishing the story by telling it to Spawn in the past tense. *Note* - I added the Spawn #166 to the cover image because I could not find the cover with the logo, issue number, company logo, etc. It does not represent the appearance of the cover.
posted by Bodog at 10:19 PM
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