Spawnography

The road to 100 continues! (It really seems like we are always on the road some milestone, huh?) We get to meet the a couple of harbingers of the apocalypse in Ab and Zab, witness Mammon's growing influence on the plot and dive into Terry and Wanda'srelationship struggles a bit.  This week's recommendations include the oft-referenced in this couple of issues film Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid...

And we're back to regular Spawn! This time with another guest in tow! Adam Lata, the moderator of r/SpawnsUniverse , joins us to chat about the first tease of Urizen! Along the way, we'll discuss Adam's connection and history with Spawn, some Insane Clown Posse lore, different types of magick and arcana and, of course, some hedgehog facts. Did we cut out some explanation of Ken Penders' Sonic run?...

You demanded it so we delivered! The breakout star of Spawn issues #19 & #20, Harry Houdini, is back in his own solo adventure! Tom Orzchowski, Andrew Grossberg and Alan Weiss spin a yarn that combines Indiana Jones, Houdini's own history, gods, demons, religious figures, aliens, time travel and the Pope?! Joining us on this jaunt through time and space is Chris Osborne, host of the Play Comics po...

Brian Holguin's own little "Spawn Across America" arc takes a darker turn with a Rashomon-style tale of racist violence that's met by Spawn's retribution and then the first part of a Richard Ramirez-referencing serial killer story. This leads Geoge and Pierce on a discussion about the nature of evil in Spawn and how it is and isn't effectively portrayed. Can a comic book like this one tackle more...

These two issues are one part "My Dinner with Cogliostro" and one part Brian Holguin trying his hand at his own version of the "Spawn Across America" arc from 60-ish issues ago. The results are certainly darker. Spawn has divorced himself from his humanity and the Al Simmons persona so he's meting out justice as he's sees fit. In a somewhat interesting paralell to the originl arc, he's specificall...

Suture's back, Marc Simmons continues to be here and Curse of the Spawn nears the end of its run. Alan McElroy continues to do his thing and George and Pierce once again lament some of the choices made in this title but they find some interesting avenues to explore the themes and execution of the book. We get an early appearance of Clayton Crain's professional work as well so that's interesting to...

Author Ethan Crone's obsession knows no end. He explores the depths of Rat City hoping to find out more about Spawn but is met with a flurry of vague and oftentimes contradicting recollections. Meanwhile, a specter of Spawn's past appears for the first time; Al Simmons has a brother! George and Pierce dig in to all of this and, undoubtedly, more.  This week's recommendations are to help someone th...

A showdown with Billy Kincaid's latest form! More powers of the Dead Zones revealed! Twitch pushed to a place he never thought he'd go. And when the day is won, Spawn QUITS! Wait... what? Yeah, that's right. George and Pierce will get into it. This week's recommendations are the pet a cat or, more generally, to find the love that you have for yourself reflected back at you in some way. And Bartees...

We all know that 52 only matters in the DCU but can you believe it?! It's been a whole year of Spawnography! Thanks for taking this journey with us!  This episode, George and Pierce probably talk too much about the X-Men considering that this is a Spawn podcast but when they do get on track, they dig into the who, what, wheres and whys of Jason Wynn and Billy Kincaid. And as the world around in re...

I scream. You scream. We all scream about the return of BILLY KINCAID. Joining George and Pierce for the haunted homecoming of one of Spawn's greatest foes is Rob Duenas, artist of SPAWN KILLS EVERY SPAWN. We chat about Rob's history with the character, talk a ton about the process of comics making and go on enough tangents to make two hours feel absolutely breezy.  This week's recommendation is S...

The road to episode 50 ends here! George and Pierce dig into this latest chapter of Spawn and lament some of the artistic choices but overall, they have a good time with this one. The Exterminator case is coming to a close thanks, in part, to Sam & Twitch's investigation and Spawn is ready to mete out some justice. But what is the significance of the mysterious mark that keeps appearing around our...

George and Pierce delve into the  Seven -tinged depths of depravity that Brian Holguin brings to these two issues and in the process, they are delighted by the propulsiveness he's brought to the plot. A killer is loose in Spawn's alley and it's up to Spawn to stop them! Bobby is still reeling from the loss of his best bud, Bootsy. Who is Sarah Frost? Twitch is... DEAD?! How many books are there th...

We take a small detour from our regularly scheduled Spawn coverage to take things back to the year 1996 when Alan Moore and Scott Clark were tasked with bringing readers a Spawn/WildC.A.T.S. crossover they would never forget. The result falls a little short of those lofty expectations but we'll get into it. Joining us in this excursion into the now unfortunately known events of this miniseries, is...

The Green World arc comes to a close! Who is the Keeper? What does this mean for Spawn? What's going to happen to Bootsy? Issue #75 proves to be one of the best milestone issues yet! Then issue #76 follows that with a heartfelt denouement that helps recenter Al and grounds the book with far more affecting emotional stakes than we've gotten in a while! George and Pierce dig into it further but your...

Eddie Beckett has no idea what the bag of necroplasm he found has in store for him. Before he knows it, he will become THE HEAP! We are barrelling toward issue #100 and we get two of the most propulsive issues in a while. Pierce and George have a good time getting to know a truculent new foe made of trash as Spawn, Bootsy, Cog and the gang deal with the fallout of the last few issues and what it m...

The rules of the Spawn Universe are evolving in exciting (and sometimes contradicting) ways! We've got vampires, everyone. Christian vampires, or at least ones in the employ of Heaven, and our hosts are split on their feelings about lead vampire, Wolfram, and what this means for Spawn in general.  This week's recommendations are to listen to The Mamas & the Papas as well as an excellent Jon Bois v...

It's time to find out more about Dead Zones! No, not the wonderful 1983 David Cronenberg film starring Christopher Walken and Tom Skerritt. These Dead Zones are pockets of heaven on Earth that affect Spawn's powers! Meanwhile, Spawn is fully embracing his Grim Reaper-esque mantle by showing off a new power and we get the debut of the truly iconic Maggotface Spawn. Plus, the Freak is back! There's...

After another Curse of the Spawn diversion, we're back with original flavor Spawn as we dive into issues #67 and #68. Trouble is brewing in the Bowery amongst the night people and that'll spell some bad news for Spawn and the his gang. George and Pierce dig into these two issues and take the necessary tangents into explanations of Kindred the Embraced, Vampire the Masquerade and forgotten 80s Tom...

Who is Abdiel and what does he do? George and Pierce find out in Curse of the Spawn #15 and #16. Usual colorist Brian Haberlin tries his hand at writing and the results are solid! This little two-parter adds some texture to the Spawn Universe while bringing in some characters from the McFarlane Toys Total Chaos line into the mix as well. In the back matter, we run down some of the choices of the 1...

We've got the second half of the "Face to Face" arc that further explores the fallout of Spawn getting his face back and then losing it. Poor Al can't catch a break. We lament that this is still a bit of Spawn with training wheels meant to appeal to new readers but then in classic Todd fashion, the second issue we cover has a little more "oomph" than the first. We'll explore a little more esoteric...

Al's got a new face and he's making that Terry and Jason Wynn's problem! We loved to dig into these two issues because they are actually legitimately fun despite some aspects of them kind of "playing the hits" as it were. Cogliostro is vague! Spawn wants to kill Jason Wynn! Sam and Twitch are getting ever closer to figuringout... something... maybe? Wanda is unaware of the dynamics of the polyamor...

Angela's back! And we're back covering Spawn after a few hours talking through some Curse of the Spawn. (Thanks for bearing with us!) This is a fun one that proves that sometimes a comic just needs to be a 6 or 7 out of 10 to be really entertaining. We don't delve too much into the Curse of the Spawn arc that is related to this issue (though we can if the listeners demand it!) but we felt that we...

We're back with another Curse of the Spawn episode and this one is about as bleak as it gets. We get to see what Sam & Twitch have been up to in the background of some recent Spawn adventures but Alan McElroy's extremely "Seven"-inspired tone makes this one overall, a pretty tough read.  Big trigger warning for this arc regarding depictions of sexual violence and violence against women. Trigger wa...

Hey there, Hellspawn! We've got a CURSE OF THE SPAWN arc for you! We're digging into the origins of Jessica Priest and it turns out they aren't too dissimilar from a bunch of familiar action movie tropes. We get into a bit of an introduction of Alan McElroy and Dwayne Turner to help provide some context for these creators much like we did with the ToddFather back in episode 1 so that eats up some...

Who killed Al Simmons? If you said "Chapel," you are wrong! Circumstances in the real world (namely, the Spawn film) have affected the story so Todd spins a yarn to get this retcon going and we learn about the legally distinct character, Jessica Priest.