Sam and Twitch Origins Book 1

Sam and Twitch: The Complete Collection #1

by Brian Michael Bendis, Ángel Medina (illustrator)

The Spawn Universe`s favorite detectives come at you full-force in their groundbreaking series. Featuring an all-star cast of creators, the bar was set high for gritty crime fiction when Sam and Twitch first came on the scene.
Follow the exploits of NYPD`s two most dedicated public servants as they try to uncover the secrets behind the Central Park Witchcraft murders and also solve the mystery of Udaku.
Collected in an all-new size and format, SAM AND TWITCH ORIGINS HARDCOVER BOOK 1 brings you the art and stories that made this series a classic. Extra features include a cover gallery and behind-the-scenes art.
Collects SAM and TWITCH #1-13

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Crime, Horror, Graphic Novels Comics

328 pages, Hardcover

First published July 26, 2011

About the author

A comic book writer and erstwhile artist. He has won critical acclaim (including five Eisner Awards) and is one of the most successful writers working in mainstream comics. For over eight years Bendis’s books have consistently sat in the top five best sellers on the nationwide comic and graphic novel sales charts.

Though he started as a writer and artist of independent noir fiction series, he shot to stardom as a writer of Marvel Comics' superhero books, particularly Ultimate Spider-Man.

Bendis first entered the comic world with the "Jinx" line of crime comics in 1995. This line has spawned the graphic novels Goldfish, Fire, Jinx, Torso (with Marc Andreyko), and Total Sell Out. Bendis is writing the film version of Jinx for Universal Pictures with Oscar-winner Charlize Theron attached to star and produce.

Bendis’s other projects include the Harvey, Eisner, and Eagle Award-nominated Powers (with Michael Avon Oeming) originally from Image Comics, now published by Marvel's new creator-owned imprint Icon Comics, and the Hollywood tell-all Fortune and Glory from Oni Press, both of which received an "A" from Entertainment Weekly.

Bendis is one of the premiere architects of Marvel's "Ultimate" line: comics specifically created for the new generation of comic readers. He has written every issue of Ultimate Spider-Man since its best-selling launch, and has also written for Ultimate Fantastic Four and Ultimate X-Men, as well as every issue of Ultimate Marvel Team-Up, Ultimate Origin and Ultimate Six.

Brian is currently helming a renaissance for Marvel’s AVENGERS franchise by writing both New Avengers and Mighty Avengers along with the successful ‘event’ projects House Of M, Secret War, and this summer’s Secret Invasion.

He has also previously done work on Daredevil, Alias, and The Pulse.

Reviews

[Mark]

Sam & Twitch are two characters we meet in the comic Spawn created by Tod Mcfarlane. These two down to earth NYPD policemen get caught up in Spawns world were they clearly not belong.
The two men have just been hired back by the NYPD in a string of weird killings. And they get caight up in a case about witches.
This collection contains installments 1 to thirteen . Episode 1-8 contains the story "Udaku" and 10-13 is the story called "Witchcraft" .
The book overall has a similar art to the Spawn series and so does the lettering. Spawn does not feature a real role except that hé is told to go away.
I love these characters as they are in essence humans albeit with their human wesknesses and frailties and yet they aim to serve and protect.
An excellent spin-off of Mcfarlane's Spawn series and probaly aimed at its fans. This collection is not about meta-humans but about good and evil.

[Frédéric]

I admit I'm a little disappointed with this Spawn spin-off.
A dark and fantastical atmosphere, two rather unusual police officers with a good buddy movie tempo, Bendis on the script... it was guaranteed to be a 4*.

And yet... The bulk of this volume is "Udaku" in eight parts, two of which are superfluous. It's far too long. The idea isn't bad in itself, with our two unpopular cops as the patsies in a larger scheme, but it's too poorly executed, with Bendis stretching out the scenes and dialogue ad nauseam to tell a lame plot with a poorly explained fantasy aspect.
And I hate Medina's artwork, which is a rehash of McFarlane's, which I don't like.

The second arc is better in terms of plot, but unfortunately the artwork is hardly any better.

It's not really bad, but I was hoping for better.

[Dávid Novotný]

Interesting dark police stories with little pinch of supernatural. Sam and Twitch are just ordinary good cops, with human flaws, but also with right amount cynicism and humour. Whole book is combination of right amount action with chatty police procedure. Art is pretty dark, and text is sometimes hard to read as comics doesn't use regular speech bubbles. Pretty interesting is short story One Really Bad Day, whole depicted from first person view of main character.

[Quentin Wallace]

This is a good supernatural noir starring the two detectives from Spawn. The first arc was a little confusing but still good. The second arc was shorter and a little more to the point. The art is good, but the text is somethings a little confusing due to an unusual stylistic presentation. Overall this is a pretty unique comic, and I wish we could see more of this genre.

[Highland G]

Not as good as I expected, but then I don’t know what I expected.
Changing artists always a negative, especially when the first artist was so much better.
I found all bar the first story very predictable. I did enjoy most of the first story though and it is the majority of the book.The end of each story is lacking in fuller explanation, the case just ends and they start the next issue on a new case.
Onto book two, probably wont be keeping these long term.

[Luc]

I recently reread the first 100 issues of the Spawn comic, a childhood favorite, and I found myself unable to enjoy the storylines at all. However, I still found the characters of Sam and Twitch to still be an enjoyable part of the series.

In 1999 Brian Michael Bendis, who was not Marvel famous yet, took these two cop characters that are set in a world of hero’s and a literal war with Hell and focused on the crime of the city. It told in Bendis’s classic style of small panels and lots of dialogue. This collection is the first 13 issues and has one large storyline and one smaller one both are good. It’s not necessary to have read Spawn in order to enjoy this series.

The art s provided by Angel Medina who would go on to do the art for the Spawn series for about 50 issues. He has a very distinctive style that works well with not only small panels of dialogue but also large action scenes. I will definitely be picking up more of this to read.

[Maya]

Bendis is a great writer. The story was interesting and I just enjoy reading comic books. Yay.

[Nicholas]

I think much of what I liked about this was purely aesthetic. Bendis and crew get the feel of a gritty police procedural down and add supernatural elements that make this into a quirky sort of X-Files in comic book form. Sam and Twitch are both likable figures, each with his own set of baggage, but an underlying sense of gravitas that their witty and circular dialogue belie. I don't have an incredible connection to the characters because I was never a reader of the Spawn series (although I'm thinking of diving in soon), but you warm to the characters quickly.

This volume contains two main story arcs and one one-off that fell flat for me. The first major arc is "Udaku." Sam and Twitch are forced out of retirement by a former department friend who calls on them to help unravel the corrupt threads of their former precinct in the NYPD, which puts them flat in the middle of a mob war with supernatural overtones. This one was very Citizen Kane with the only piece of evidence the pair have to go on being a single mysterious word on the lips of the recently deceased: Udaku. I liked this story quite a bit. It had a complex plot with lots of dead-ends to keep you guessing through and through. The reveal at the end was a decent payoff and seems to set the stage for an overall developing plot. The second arc, "Witchcraft" was less suspenseful and interesting. In the wake of their success on the Udaku case, Sam and Twitch become model detectives and are quickly given tasks of sensitive importance. When a coven of witches shows up in a local park decapitated and clearly in the middle of some type of ritual, Sam and Twitch find themselves delving into a world of covens and black magic. This tale seemed to have overtones of the "The Crucible," which for the most part were interesting parallels, but I felt failed to deliver in the reveal at the end. The killer is not intimidating or scary and the twist at the end falls a bit flat.

Stylistically there's a lot going on here. I love the artwork and the witty police banter and rationalization scenes that result in the solving of many of the crimes. "Dr. Death" is an awesome addition to the pair - a dry, witty ME that functions as the heart, and sometimes brain, of the gunslinging duo. The text is a bit problematic and the lettering rally difficult to read. There's a ton of dialogue on each page and sometimes the attribution and ordering can get confusing. I read that this series was cancelled because of publication delays that affected readership, which seems a shame because it has all the same good things going for it that Gotham Central has, and probably a better pair of protagonists to boot. I like the setting and the crimes they investigate remind me of the grittier X-Files episodes and of Se7en. If the rest of Spawn is like this, I think I'd be a pretty happy camper going through that series.

[Chris "Stu"]

I reread these on a whim, and was gratified to see that what I'd remembered from ten years ago was true: Bendis can write the shit out of a crime comic. These books are awesome. He basically could do no wrong by me up until about the time he started writing superhero comics. Oh well. He's making a lot more money these days, but early gems like Sam and Twitch and Jinx, and Goldfish, and even Powers have been left by the wayside.

[Krishnakumar Mohanasundaram]

I haven't read Spawn and I'm not used to the artwork or the style of Spawn. So going into this was so refreshing for me.

The artwork - detailed, well planned, well executed, nicely coloured and stand at 100%

The Style - Leaving out traditional speech bubbles, the dialogues are stylised in a way that the reader needs to put a bit of an effort - in a good way - to follow up. And this way of dialogues go very well with the artwork and the general tone of the story. So another 100%

The story and plot:
The album contains the story arc

Udaku - A mysterious, apparently inhuman murderer who begins to take down the members of the thug families in the city and leaves arranged human parts as his signature. What baffles the police is the inhuman nature of the murderer who apparently splashes into slime, leaving no clue of what he is made of, before appearing again elsewhere.

Witchcraft Murders - A murderer goes on a killing rampage, of women who still belong to and practice gentle witchcraft as a part of their belief. The murderers are gruesome and more terrific is the way the victims' bodies are displayed by the killer.

One Really Bad Day - An one shot, was also impressive with the artwork. They had literally managed to do a first person narrative with the artwork where get to glance the entire plot using the view of the main character. This was very unique and something I haven't seen before.

Definitely Recommended!

[Luis Joel]

Hermosas portadas por Ashley Wood, un dibujo aceptable por Medina y una historia por debajo de la media a la que Bendis nos tiene acostumbrado.

Claro, tiene sus momentos y estamos leyendo los inicios de la fama de Bendis como escritor, pero me ha dejado qué desear. El misterio de los casos no es muy relevante y tampoco te dan ganas de seguir leyendo los demás números. No logra aún adentrarse siquiera en los conflictos personales de Sam & Twitch. Y aunque llega a ser entretenido, te da la impresión de que la trama completa de los casos podría (y debería) resolverse en un sólo número.

El dibujo de Medina a veces llega a ser caótico, pero bueno, ese es como "su estilo".
Tiene algunas ideas interesantes, pero no alcanzan para justificar los vacíos de las serie.
Espero que el segundo volumen sea mejor, lo leeré porque me gusta Bendis&Maleev, pero no porque quiera saber más de Sam&Twitch.

[Matt Hansen]

Sam and Twitch are homicide detectives in New York City. They are the only clean cops in their precinct, and as such, catch all the gruesome murders that get overlooked and unsolved by the dirty cops and the cities superhero protector #Spawn.

This series has been on my radar for a while. I love the idea of a hard boiled crime comic set in the same universe and city as a major superhero, but never actually interacting with the hero.

Bendis was putting out great work when he wrote this in the late 90’s. It has been a while since I read prime Bendis, and it was a nice refresher.

This hardcover has two stories and covers issues 1-13, and both stories were different and great. I can’t recommend this enough. It’s great for new comic readers or people unfamiliar with the spawn universe or these characters. It is just pure police/crime procedural with a hint of supernatural.

[Luca Trovati]

Questo primo volume delle avventure della coppia di detective di New York è impressionante.
Bendis ha una mente fuori dal comune e mette in piedi storie che mai ho visto così ben rappresentate come su queste tavole.
Le tavole - matite, chine, colori- sono dense, farcite di contenuti, impressionanti per il livello di dettaglio che riescono a raggiungere.
Da avere, leggere e custodire gelosamente in libreria. Un hard boiled dai toni dark che gli appassionati del genere non possono, anzi, non devono lasciarsi sfuggire per nulla al mondo.
Anche solamente per la storia raccontata in prima persona. Geniale.

[Paul Bradley]

I stalled on Vol 15 of Spawn last year, it's just so dull, everything is happening in the spin-off comics and its just a cash-in ego-trip, not totally unexpected from McFarlane, so here I am, finally exploring the spin-offs, and lookie here, Brian Michael Bendis, the legend, writes this utterly brilliant crime procedural series. 9/10 My faith and interest is renewed.

[Sean]

3.5 really

[Caleb Abel]

Awesomely gritty detective stories. Might have to go even further into Bendis' older stuff by the time I'm doen with Book 2.

[Saugata Mukherjee]

Is there a Genre called crime-noir-supernatural-detective? That is what it is. Bendis creates a gritty crime drama in the supernatural universe of spawn with two hard as nails detectives. I have never read any of the Spawn comics created by Todd McFarlane (and the general consensus is, it has not dated well), so I was not aware of the detective duo Samuel "Sam" Burke & Maximilian "Twitch" Williams. But what a duo it proved to be. Perfect buddy cops in the gritty supernatural world of spawn. The stories are entertaining and some times intriguing, but what drives this book is the chemistry between it's two leads and Sam's wiseass-ness. Sam is the type of character I like to read about. Hard as nails and funny as a stand-up comedian. Often his observations/antics are what lightening the mood in an otherwise gritty horror-ish adventures. Especially his interaction with K.C are hilarious. Twitch is yin to Sam's yang. He is the brain of the operation and more grounded personality and often drives the narrative.
So, this collection contains majorly two story arcs- Udaku and Withcraft. In addition to this we get a one shot story, One Really Bad Day. Among these stories, Udaku is my favourite. It is more of a crime story among the 2. Witchcraft has a more of a mystery theme with a supernatural undertone.
For this series, Bendis channels his inner crime writer (which is on display in Powers and Alias). I love Bendis as a crime writer. His dialogues are razor sharp and witty, pace never slacks a bit, he is able to keep the story shrouded in mystery till the end. The art duty is majorly handled by Ángel Medina. It is beautifully rendered in this oversized hard cover version. He is able to support Bendis' writing with haunting visuals, plus he is a champion in facial expression department. Facial expressions alone made me laugh more than a couple of times. The action set pieces are fluidly depicted. Overall solid art. I have to give special metion to letterer John G Roshell. The lettering here is very inventive. Since this book is partly a police procedural, there are many interrogation scenes (very much like, Alias or Powers). Which by definition dialogue heavy. These scenes can become boring very quickly, but here they are very interesting. That is majorly because Bendis' natural ear for intriguing/witty dialogues, but innovative lettering also helps a lot.
Overall a very good read and a new entry to my ever increasing crime noir comics hall of fame. Thankfully, I already have the second and final book of this series with me. I can not wait to crack it open and start reading.

[Brent Ecenbarger]

I bought the complete Sam and Twitch series on ebay about 12 years ago. The idea of a regular detective story set in the world of superheroes sounded cool and original. For whatever reason, I never got around to reading the series until now, well after I found out about books like Astro City (which I love), Gotham City P.D., and the dozens of other books that come out every year about regular people in superhero universes. I also had no idea when I bought it who Brian Michael Bendis was. Bendis is of course one of the giants in the industry now, although one I've always found hit (Alias, All New X-Men) and miss (just about everything else).

My main problem with Bendis is that although the dialogue is snappy, it's often very one note with each character having the same snarky attitude and witticisms. There's certainly some of that here, but it's mainly relegated to all of the periphery characters. Sam (the heavy, opportunistic, vulgar one) and Twitch (the more respectful, family oriented, realistic one) have their differences so that it's usually pretty simple to remember which ones are talking. (Normally remembering isn't an issue in comics because a big arrow points to who is talking; in this book there are no speech bubbles, instead there are floating dialogue lines with single lines looping back and forth). With new characters or side characters, it reads more like a one note play centered on Bendis's humor.

The two main storylines in this first volume are about a South African crime family that has cloaked figures with incredible abilities taking over the organized crime in the city, and a murder mystery where the killer is targeting modern witches. There's also an interesting one shot told in first person from a killer's point of view fleeing from the police. Both stories were interesting enough that I was happy to keep reading, but neither was as iconic or interesting as something like the Purple Man from Alias.

The tone of this story was also very adult, definitely not something I'd recommend for young readers. (This is especially true if you read the letters pages in the actual comics.) There is also a great one page cameo for Spawn in one of the issues that I looked for as an image online to include with this review but had no luck finding. As far as Bendis goes, this has more of his strengths than his weaknesses on display and I look forward to checking out the rest of the series.

[Jordan]

I missed an early issue of this back in my initial Bendis-fanboy days, so I hadn't read a big chunk of the series, despite dutifully collecting the whole 19-issue run. I recently picked up the missing book and decided to give the complete series a read, very curious how it held up.
I must say, it didn't age too poorly. I don't care a thing about the Spawn universe, so I can't place it in that context, but as horror-tinged crime noir, the stuff is still as good as most anything in comics today, almost 15 years later. Bendis completely revolutionized comic scripting with his stylized, rapid-fire Mamet-esque dialogue, and some of it is a bit obnoxious and over the top here, obvious he was still learning the ropes and seeing how far he could push it. And while he's still one of my favorite writers, he's never been the best at plotting. Too many of his stories falter at the end, just kind of stopping rather than really wrapping things up, and it happens here as well.
But I enjoyed going back through these and it was plain to see the energy of a young creator experimenting, putting his all into something fresh and exciting. He's done better work before and since, but this is a pretty vital stepping stone in his writing evolution and a preview of what great work the man could do with someone else's characters given the chance to scuff them up a bit.

[Jinji]

Sam and Twitch vol.1 HC!!! I've been missing Spawn lately so I got the next best thing, his 2 cop buddies! Despite what the look like, these are actually 2 cops you want to encounter on the field. Sam, with his strong sense of justice and passion drives the duo through the scum of the city. Twitch, the ever loyal sharpshooter, and brains of the team, makes sure that they are always on the point an on the good side of the line. They are like the Jim Gordon of this universe, but they don't need no Batman/Spawn.

Vol.1 collects 2 arcs of the series, Udaku and Witchcraft. Both deal with violent killings, and mysterious clues. Forget the good old days of stabbing and shooting. Here, we have ritual slaughter, and dismemberment to the highest degree. But hey, when you have hell creatures flying left and right, I guess these sort of things would just pop up.

[Matt]

I had never heard of this creepy cop book set in the margins of the Spawn comic, and I've never read a Spawn comic, but I love Bendis's crime stories and grabbed a copy of this beautiful collection. The dialogue isn't as amazing as it will get in Powers, but there's great character and tension and play in the page layouts. Loved this.

[Sean]

I only ever got to read a couple issues of Sam and Twitch, but I thoroughly enjoyed what I read. It's a great, gritty take on the two cops (detectives?) that keep running into Spawn in the world Todd McFarlane created. I would LOVE to see this turned into a movie.

[Brian]

Great series. Loved it. Reminds me of Gotham central, but much better written. Highly recommended!

[Chris]

Great series. Perfect anti-heroes with all the right quirks to make them truly likable. Twitch looks like a nerdy Commissioner Gordon. Very funny but still maintains a decent plot.