Showing posts with label grossberg. Show all posts
Showing posts with label grossberg. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

SPAWN #20 - November 1994

 Showtime - Part Two
Credits:  Tom Orzechowski & Andrew Grossberg (story), Greg Capullo (pencils), Todd McFarlane & Mark Pennington (inks), Tom Orzechowski (letters and copy editor), Steve Oliff & Olyoptics (colors)

Summary:  Spawn and Houdini chase Porsche MacNeill in Houdini’s magic car.  Houdini grows bored and leaves, while Spawn notices Terry Fitzgerald nearby.  Spawn disguises himself and rescues Terry from the Ukrainian bodyguards of Volokhov, the rogue atomic scientist.  Volokhov is at Porsche’s store, having a detonator repaired.  Spawn and Houdini reunite at Columbia University, where Volokhov threatens to detonate an atomic bomb if the Ukraine isn’t given a massive loan.  The bomb ignites, and Houdini learns his teleportation device has been disrupted by the Overlap.  In retaliation, he uses magic to transport the atomic blast to the Overlap.  Volokhov and Porsche are arrested, but Porsche is released due to lack of evidence.  Spawn plants a tiny explosive in his apartment to teach him a lesson.

Spawntinuity:  A flashback reveals Spawn first met Terry in “Language Immersion School” in Monterey, California.  You’ll also notice on the cover that Spawn’s eyes are much larger than they used to be, which seems to be one of Capullo’s contributions.

Review:  Fill-ins, by their very nature, don’t leave a lot of room for creators to have an actual impact on the characters.  This fill-in arc puts the writers in an even more difficult position, since it had to take place in-between two already published issues of the series.  Consequently, it occasionally feels like a Houdini story guest-starring Spawn, but I think the final result reads quite well.  Spawn never seemed to have a lot of motivation to do much of anything, so a character like Houdini is needed to kick off a storyline, anyway.  The actual moments that focus on Spawn mainly reiterate what we’ve seen in the previous issues (Spawn still views Terry as a friend on some level, and he doesn’t want Wanda to become a widow again), but they’re successful in making Spawn seem more human and likable than usual.  The plotline about a mad Ukrainian scientist isn’t typical Spawn fare, but this was still early in the book’s run.  The deviation didn’t feel totally out of place, since McFarlane hadn’t decided to make the entire series about dark urban horror yet.

Monday, April 5, 2010

SPAWN #19 - October 1994


 Showtime- Part One
Credits:  Tom Orzechowski & Andrew Grossberg (story), Greg Capullo (pencils), Mark Pennington (inks), Tom Orzechowski (letters and editor), Steve Oliff & Olyoptics (colors)

Summary:  Members of the mystic Overlap are studying the effects of atomic energy on Hell-Creatures.  A subliminal message is implanted within a Ukrainian atomic scientist attending a seminar at Columbia.  He’ll detonate an atomic bomb when Spawn is nearby.  Harry Houdini, an unpopular agent of the Overlap, is assigned the case with the hopes he’ll also be wiped out.  Meanwhile, Porsche MacNeill, a young electronics expert, is detonating bombs in his neighborhood, hoping to scare off the local homeless.  He accidently bombs Spawn while he’s asleep.  Spawn chases him but is interrupted by Harry Houdini, who promises to teach him about his powers.  After Houdini lectures Spawn, another bomb detonates.  Houdini teams up with Spawn to stop Porsche.

Spawntinuity:  The Overlap is described as a “reality that intersects all planes of existence” and the birthplace of magic.  It’s also trademarked by Andrew Grossberg, so it’s not an idea that sticks around Spawn continuity.  Houdini teaches Spawn how to draw magic from his costume.  He asks Spawn to summon a marble with the costume’s power, leading Spawn to accidentally create a marble statue.  I don’t think Spawn’s ability to create inanimate objects with his costume shows up again.  If Spawn really could draw magic from his costume, that would seem like an easy way to avoid going to Hell after his own powers run out.

Spawn #19 might be the next chronological issue, but it was released after issues #21-#24 were already published.  McFarlane skipped issues #19 and #20 and went straight to #21 after finishing the Spawn/Batman crossover.  He only offered a vague explanation in issue #21, but the rumor at the time was that Diamond changed their policy on late books, leading McFarlane to cancel all orders on the already late #19 and #20 in order to avoid making them returnable.  I was tempted to review the comics in the order they were released, but it seemed unnecessarily confusing.  The actual release order goes Spawn #1-#18, #21-#24, #19, #25, #20, then #26.

The Big Names:  Flint Henry draws a pin-up, mocking Todd McFarlane’s inability to count. 

Spawn Stuff:  The first wave of Spawn action figures is announced.  McFarlane manufactured them himself under the brand “Todd Toys” and I believe they were the first action figures to be made of any Image characters.  They did look very impressive at the time, but as Mike Sterling has pointed out, they look rather meek when compared to modern action figures (which owe a lot to McFarlane’s continued efforts to essentially make them slightly articulated models).

Review:  I don’t think Tom Orzechowski has too many writing credits, but he did write a few Classic X-Men backups before this fill-in run (his Nightcrawler story was great).  Plus, he went on to write a Harry Houdini miniseries with Andrew Grossberg.  I don’t know if this incarnation of Houdini or the Overlap ever appeared before this comic, but the story gives them a credible introduction even if the issue feels a little crowded.  This is certainly the opposite of decompression.  McFarlane could occasionally go overboard with the narrative captions, but he never produced a Spawn issue that took so long to read.  This isn’t a complaint; it’s just surprising to read a Spawn story that feels like a Jim Shooter-era Marvel comic.  At the very least, Orzechowski and Grossberg have a natural writing style, and Orzechowski’s lettering always makes giant chunks of text look good. 

The story so far has little to do with Spawn, but instead plays off the potential strangeness a being from Hell could attract while on Earth.  There is an effort to connect Spawn’s mercenary past with a Russian scientist, and to bring in Terry Fitzgerald as a government agent, so it doesn’t feel as if it’s a totally random story shoved into Spawn.  I like the portrayal of Houdini as an arrogant scoundrel who actually did know magic, and his condescending interactions with Spawn are fun.  McFarlane didn’t seem to push his guest writers into following a specific formula, which enabled them to go places we wouldn’t normally see in the series.
Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...