Spawn, Compendium 5

Spawn Compendium #5

by Todd McFarlane, Will Carlton (Pseudonym), Jonathan Goff

TODD McFARLANE unleashed his signature creation, SPAWN, in 1992. In doing so, he created the most successful independent comic book in history.   Join Spawn in SPAWN COMPENDIUM, VOL. 5 as he discovers the true meaning of becoming a Hellspawn and settles on a path of bloody revenge in search of a way back to his humanity!   Includes SPAWN #201-250, collected for the first time in FULL COLOR and featuring some never- before-collected issues!   Collects SPAWN #201-250

Genres: Comics, Horror, Graphic Novels

1080 pages, Paperback

First published February 4, 2015

About the author

Todd McFarlane is a Canadian comic book artist, writer, toy manufacturer/designer, and media entrepreneur who is best known as the creator of the epic occult fantasy series Spawn.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, McFarlane became a comic book superstar due to his work on Marvel Comics' Spider-Man franchise. In 1992, he helped form Image Comics, pulling the occult anti-hero character Spawn from his high school portfolio and updating him for the 1990s. Spawn was one of America's most popular heroes in the 1990's and encouraged a trend in creator-owned comic book properties.

In recent years, McFarlane has illustrated comic books less often, focusing on entrepreneurial efforts, such as McFarlane Toys and Todd McFarlane Entertainment, a film and animation studio.

In September, 2006, it was announced that McFarlane will be the Art Director of the newly formed 38 Studios, formerly Green Monster Games, founded by Curt Schilling.

McFarlane used to be co-owner of National Hockey League's Edmonton Oilers but sold his shares to Daryl Katz. He's also a high-profile collector of history-making baseballs.

Reviews

[Wintry Monsters Press · Rating 3 out of 5]

The series is getting better again but I'm still not a fan of this art style they've been using for so long. I've gotten used to it finally, though.

[Jason McCoy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was my least favorite of the Spawn compendiums. After saving the entire universe, Al commits suicide. We’re supposed to believe it’s so he can trigger a way to stop heaven and hell from rengaging the apocalypse, but seriously? And don’t get me started in the whole Wanda’s impregnated with God and Lucifer, who happen to be sociopaths to the Nth degree. What a waste of YEARS of writing. If there were a few threads I needed to understand to pick back up in issue 300, I’d have skipped the hole thing. I’m giving 2 stars cause the art was spectacular, and Max plus his son’s story was tight.

[Sam Judge · Rating 5 out of 5]

Spawn Compendium 5 picks up at issue #201 where we begin proper with Jim Downing's arc.

Jim trying to piece together his past after awakening from a coma finds himself becoming a media darling after performing Jesus like acts of healing on TV. Supported by journalist/publicist Marc, his girlfriend Susan & his former (religious) nurse Sara he begins to piece together his past whilst navigating his new found fame as a holy man.

However, it soon becomes apparent that pre-coma, Jim was infact a mad scientist of sorts who under the watchful eye of Jason Wynn (boo! hiss!) tested and created many failed 'super soldiers'. He would ultimately be booted off the project by Wynn who declares him to be a failure and nothing short of a man man. Still obsessed with creating the perfect soldier, Jim 'frankensteins' himself as the final test.

The Clown makes his return and tries his best to keep Jim/Spawn onside to protect him from the return of hell boss Malebolgia who Al Simmons previously destroyed. Similarly new villian Bludd, a wealthy corporate vampire, battles for control in the abscence of Malebolgia.

Jim realising not only heaven & hell are both after him for his immense hybrid angel/demon powers begins having to do battle with the symbiote suit itself. All around him are sucked into the events which pull him from pillar to post until the showdown of evil vs. light kicks off.


The departure of the signature 90's McFarlane artwork style is very much welcomed in my opinion. Szymon Kudranski's gritty and realistic drawings really do justice to the story and themes portrayed. I really enjoyed the writing in this volume although some of Jim's dialogue as Spawn is very hammy but not so much you can't overlook it.

Some of the call back issues were welcome, at this point we're over 200 issues into the long running Spawn saga so a reminder of what has happened and why helps you contextualise the plot and reframe where we're at as readers.

I'm very much looking forward to continuing reading into the next volume of Spawn.

[Karl · Rating 2 out of 5]

Spawn has never been known for the quality of its writing, but this run is a particularly low point for the series. The story is meandering and circuitous, stretching what could've been a 5-10 issue arc into 50 issues. The whole Jim Downing storyline is weird (in a confusing and badly plotted way, not an interesting way) and ultimately pointless. The new characters are poorly developed and annoying. Some characters seem to appear purely to fill pages and dangle more plot threads. The dialogue is the worst it's ever been. There doesn't seem to have been anyone editing the book at this time, because there's a plethora of grammatical and mechanical errors, perhaps the most persistent being the ending of sentences with question marks despite them being in no way questions? <-Like that.

Normally, the art is enough to keep Spawn worth flipping through, but that really dropped off on this run. I don't think Kudranski is a bad artist, but I believe he phoned it in for most of this job. Any drawing that isn't of a monster (ie. just normal people, which fill most of this book, having the same conversations, endlessly) looks flat, lifeless, weirdly distorted, and like a bad tracing job. Adding to this, he clearly copied and pasted character drawings, and even whole panels, any time he could get away with it. The majority of most pages are so filled with black ink that there's not much actual drawing in them. He put in some effort for drawings of Spawn and some demons and whatnot, and they can be cool, but not enough to make up for the fact that most of the book is lazily rendered talking heads.

I'm not sure why I like Spawn, other than having the notion that it's cool having wedged itself into my subconscious when I was eight. And I'm not sure why I decided to read every issue around the time the Origins and Compendium books started showing up on library shelves, other than that I'm a masochistic completist.

[Chad · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wish I'd taken out stock in black ink while Szymon Kudranski was drawing this book. I could have made millions. This is all about the new Spawn. Al Simmons is gone now and this new Spawn wakes up from a coma at the exact same time. He's got new powers including the power to heal others. Parts of this are pretty good. Parts of it are issues long info dumps. McFarlane is one of the most inconsistent writers in the game.

These compendiums are the only way to get the entire Spawn story without buying the individual issues. Only 12 issues out of the 50 here have been previously collected.

[Patrick Poe · Rating 4 out of 5]

The best of the compendiums yet! It’s a crazy thing to say that Spawn really hits its stride 200 issues in but it really does. These 50 issues of Spawn were full of mystery and intrigue that kept me excited for the next issue and I can’t wait for the 6th compendium to come out soon! The first couple compendiums feel like homework for a comic book nerd but it really starts to pick up in vol 4 and 5, it’s unfortunate to say that you kinda have to read the first 150 issues of Spawn to get to “the good part”. Not saying there aren’t good issues in those first 150 but there’s definitely a difference.

[Jacob Litwicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Art quality carries a wandering story

I respect the need to deviate from standard hero formulas, but the Downing era wandered simply too much. The 210-240 range especially simply couldn’t get footing. The art however; chefs kiss!

[Kevin Newman · Rating 3 out of 5]

The dark artwork saves on drawing I guess.

[Cameron Fraser · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's truly a miracle Spawn survived this truly abysmal run of issues, everything bad about Spawn concentrated into 50 issues.