Spawn Manga Shadows Of Spawn Collected Edition Vol. 1

Spawn Manga #1

by Jūzō Tokoro

BACK IN PRINT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 20 YEARS!Experience SPAWN like never before in 600 pages of stunning manga by JUZO TOKORO!Encounter new Spawns and iconic villains as a vengeful Spawn battles gangsters while trying to protect his loved ones. Meet Ken Kurosawa, a former bodyguard whose life ends in a car bomb during a gang war, leading him to a fateful deal with MALEBOGIA. Now, he must confront his past in a gripping tale of manipulation and destiny. This is pure manga magic!Collects SHADOWS OF SPAWN #1-3

Genres: Manga, Comics, Fantasy, Horror

Kindle Edition

Published June 18, 2025

About the author

所十三 (Tokoro Juuzou).

Reviews

[Wesley R · Rating 4 out of 5]

I feel like I keep getting into more niche comic properties in the strangest ways.

Decided to read this on a whim, and genuinely really liked it! The art is an interesting cross of McFarlane’s style with an average 80s manga aesthetic and it really works for me. It’s very sad that this just, ends abruptly with no continuation in sight. Even though it isn’t necessarily the most unique, there are a few parts of this story that really resonate with me or randomly got darker and interesting.

[Adrian · Rating 4 out of 5]

She looks... at peace. Mariko's found joy in her new life with this family. Seen years. Seven years have passed since that day. That's what the clown said. That it takes five to ten tears to recall a hell spawn. On top of it all, only those who have an "indispensable" skill that catches the Devil's favor are actually allowed to become Spawn.

This is Spawn as you have not seen it before. A spin off from the original Todd McFarlane Spawn series, Juzo Tokoro adds a Manga twist as Ken Kurosawa (aka "Double K") returns from the dead as a Hell Spawn after being killed by the local Mafia.

Devoid of memories of his past, he only has Clown and Beelzebub to help guide his path, which will never end well! Slowly he remembers his sister and vows to protect her from the tricks of the Devil who is trying to make Spawn a mindless minion for his army.

Fast paced, bringing back teenage memories of watching the Spawn film, great soundtrack by the way, this gets 4 stars!

Little chicky running around without even knowing how to use your powers... Oh, sure, you're called a Hell Spawn, but you're nothing more than a Shadow of a Spawn.

[Centauri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not familiar with Spawn and all its mythos, but the homage/continuation/reference to original Al Simmons is appreciated.
So, not a reboot or reimagining. This story is a skewed sequel because demons know not to trust their master. And I liked that. Bearers of the Spawn armor utilize it in unique ways to their personality. A nice and necessary touch. Its great to see a brawler getting the armor to react.
The whole mystery behind why the protagonist was selected needed more depth and explanation, though.

[Christian La Pointe · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting fun story. It borrows a lot from the origonal comic, just with a new martial-artist main character who becomes Spawn instead. Other than that its really similar. It even has the wordiness ans pacing of comics from the 90s! I love Spawn, and it was fun, just not fantastoc. We'll see how the next volume is.

[J.B. Mathias · Rating 3 out of 5]

While I enjoyed the artwork and the general story it felt like so much of the story was just exposition. I felt like the spawn story was being explained over and over again and despite that I still don't quite get it. It seems like such a simple concept but it just seems to defy logic to the point of not making sense. Malbolgia creates these spawn to do his bidding...but they all want to destroy him for being evil and manipulating them, so he sends some demons to help them and some to try to kill them...because if they die again they become his slaves all this over a backdrop of never having any idea how they are ever going to defeat the devil and are just told just keep fighting and survive like thats an endgoal. It seems like a really convoluted way to try make a hellspawn creation of the devil the hero.

I also felt like you never really got to see Spawn using his abilities to his best and the story loses major points for just ending randomly without resolving anything.

[intrepideddie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good artwork and good story. The story centers around the bringing to “life” another Hell Spawn (like the comic book “Spawn”). It’s *very* similar to the comic book story line, but feels much more rushed in terms of plot and character development. This manga actually references characters and events in the comic book, so if you’re not at least superficially familiar with the comic book, you may be left scratching your head in confusion several times throughout the book.

To get full enjoyment from this manga (and have a much better understanding of what’s going on), I highly suggest reading the first 10-20 Spawn comic books.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a fan of Spawn and not Manga in general, I found it very difficult to get used to reading a book backwards (to an American at least). Flipping pages from left to right and reading the dialog from right to left... Very confusing.

The development of the story is choppy at best. The dialog and art leaves details out, or at least seems to. This could perhaps be an artifact of a poor translation.

The art may be good for manga... For Spawn it leaves a lot to be desired.