Item: Spawn
Rating: 7.2
Author: Jesse Schedeen

As massive as the hype was surrounding the release of Spawn #1 in 1992, could any collector have imagined the series would still be trucking along 27 years and 299 issues later? Especially once the market bottomed out a few years later? Spawn has weathered the many highs of lows of the industry, growing into a franchise of its own, "spawning" a movie and an animated series and helping to launch the careers of superstar artists like Greg Capullo. Alongside Savage Dragon, it's the only book still standing from that initial Image Comics lineup. All of this makes Spawn #300 a milestone well worth celebrating. Whatever this oversized special lacks in terms of plot, it makes up for in visual appeal.

Spawn #300 is divided into five chapters of varying length, most of which are written and inked by creator Todd McFarlane and drawn by Spawn/Image veterans like Capullo, Jason Shawn Alexander, J. Scott Campbell and Jerome Opena. The one outlier is Chapter 2, which features guest writer Scott Snyder and art by McFarlane himself.

This issue proves reasonably accessible for a book that's technically the penultimate chapter of a larger storyline. It helps that McFarlane delays getting into the meat of the story, instead hooking readers with a grisly scene of murder in rural America. That opening sequence honestly works well independent of its ties to Spawn himself. Which is just as well, as it's largely ignored from that point on.

Perhaps anticipating this issue will lure in many readers who followed the series early on and eventually lapsed, McFarlane and Capullo focus the main story on familiar elements like the Spawn/Clown rivalry and the iconic but oft-abandoned necroplasm counter. That latter element allows the series to recapture some of the nostalgic allure of the abandoned Image United miniseries even as it ventures down a very different path. Ultimately, this story boils down to a pretty standard tale of an underdog hero making their stand against superior foes, but it's an approach that works well in terms of establishing a new status quo for Al Simmons and sweeping the dust of the past away.

Capullo's return to Spawn is easily the highlight of the entire issue. While his art doesn't pop quite as much under McFarlane's inks as it does DC collaborators like Jonathan Glapion, it still crackles with energy and helps the story maintain a strong balance between R-rated superhero carnage and horror. If anything, it would have been nice to see McFarlane's script ease off a bit and leave Capullo to do his thing. Many panels are burdened with narrative captions that add absolutely nothing that isn't already conveyed through the art. What purpose do captions like "Spawn coldly stares back, in silence," serve, anyway?

Incredible Artists Celebrate Spawn's 300th Issue

The remaining chapters tend to focus on various supporting characters, many of whom experience their own profound transformations alongside Spawn himself. The Snyder/McFarlane collaboration is easily the best of the bunch. It's always a treat to see McFarlane fully rendering a new Spawn tale, and Snyder's depiction of the rivalry between Spawn and Redeemer brings much-needed depth to a book that mostly focuses on superficial thrills.

McFarlane and Alexander's story notable mostly for the surreal mood Alexander's art brings to the table. Similarly, McFarlane and Campbell's collaboration is notable more for featuring new Campbell art than the way in which it reinvents one of the book's supporting characters. Campbell's female characters may have some of the most bizarre anatomy in comics, but there's no denying his work has a certain energy and impact. The splash montage featuring a who's who of Spawn characters also packs quite a punch.

The final McFarlane/Opena story may be the most disappointing of the bunch, if only because it's so short and barren. This quick, two-page story doesn't give Opena much chance to flex his storytelling muscles. Hopefully issue #301 can make up for that disappointment.

Verdict

Spawn has always been a series that tends to favor art over plot, and that remains true as the series celebrates its latest milestone. The main story does succeed in establishing a promising new status quo, but it's really artists like Greg Capullo, Jason Shawn Alexander and Todd McFarlane himself who justify the price of admission. After three decades, Spawn still has his good looks.