In Spawn: Book 1, Todd McFarlane introduces us to Spawn, a creation from hell. Lt. Colonel Al Simmons died as an assassin for the United States and bargained his way back into this world in order to be with his wife. Unfortunately, the result of the bargain was that he lost his entire essence as he knew it, including his body and his memories, and become Spawn. As in instrument of a demon, Spawn must decide how he will spend the reminder of his second life and how he will use the newfound powers that he has. Will he destroy evil human beings, delivering them to the hands of the demon who created him, or he will he allow them to continue to kill and do evil on earth? An interesting concept for a superhero, and immediately bringing into question which acts are good and which are evil.
Take, for example, Spawn’s decision to let his wife, Wanda Blake, continue her happy life with her new husband, Terry. Instead of causing her further unhappiness, Spawn decides to avoid the impossible task of convincing his former wife that he is her dead husband. Is it right for him to allow her to continue to think that her husband is dead? Is it his right to disrupt her life? The moral ambiguity of the situation is complicated by the fact that now Wanda has a child, something that Al Simmons could not provide for her. Not only does Spawn have to cope with the fact that he was replaced, he also has to come to terms with the fact that as a human being, he was infertile. Most men do not accept such news easily.
Also called into question is the morality of governmental control over the people and the machinations of the criminal justice system. In bits and pieces, Spawn begins to remember his former life as an assassin, and how he disagreed with his boss, Jason Wynn, and some of his tactics, including intrusive files the CIA kept of civilians. Spawn remembers that as Simmons, they butted heads, but he did not always pursue when he felt that a wrong had been committed.
The story of Billy Kincaid demonstrates the corruption of both politics and the criminal justice system. Kincaid was convicted of killing a senator’s daughter in a most gruesome way, and is freed after a short time as a result of a legal technicality. No one doubts his guilt, just the legality of his imprisonment.
As the storyline progresses, and it turns out that not only is Kincaid a serial murderer of children, he is also a pawn of governmental evil. Multiple parties express frustration at not being able to keep Kincaid incarcerated. Detective Sam Burke and his sidekick, Twitch, express frustration at trying to find justice within the strictures of the law. The men suggest that the very laws that were meant to protect citizens from being unjustly imprisoned and punished for wrongdoing were allowing the innocent to be harmed by criminals. Defense attorneys, manipulating the laws, make prosecuting attorneys and law enforcement personnel helpless.
By showing Spawn, a vigilante who does not have to answer to the law, as more effective at punishing criminals than police officers, McFarlane asks some powerful questions about the judicial system.
Also of note in Spawn are the grisly illustrations. The demons, with bodies that look more supernatural human, are quite haunting. In addition, by using many panels that isolate body parts, blood splatters, and other smaller parts of the entire scene, McFarlane zooms in on a piece of the action and manages to make it scarier. He does well to draw by the idea that what the imagination pictures is more frightening than the gore that can be created by pencil or before a camera lens.
Spawn: Book 1 establishes not only the origin of Spawn and his troubles, but also makes way for an epic war of good and evil. A very entertaining read.
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