Spawnography

The Summer of Hellspawn is here! For the next two months, we will be covering the entirety of Hellspawn by Brian Michael Bendis, Ashley Wood, Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith before returning to our regular Spawn coverage. Before we go any further, we do was to issue a pretty heavy trigger warning for this book and a lighter trigger warning for our discussions of it. If you are affected by depictio...

Overtkill's back and he's better than ever! For Spawnie this year, Overtkill's here!  (^Obviously, that should be sung to the tune of the Hess truck jingle) But Overtkill is back and he's brought along a new writer for a couple of issues, horror aficionado, Steve Niles. You might be familiar with his work on 30 Days of Night, Batman and Kick-Ass but George and Pierce will dig into how well his wor...

This week, we've got a trio of stories that aim to refocus the main Spawn title after the events of the #100 milestone. Who and what is Spawn after the death of Malebolgia? What does he stand for? What is his place in the world? Is his humanity just a distant memory? This definitely feels like a retread of similar stories - namely, the "Spawn Across America" arc some 70 issues ago - but with Holgu...

Time to take a detour into a weird little artifact in Spawn publishing history, "Spawn: Simony." Originally published in French by the company that put out the main Spawn comics in France, it eventually got an English translation. Is this exactly where it fits in continuity? Uh, sure! Is this some underrated gem? Uh, probably not! But your humble Spawnographers will do their duty while also talkin...

And we are back to our regularly scheduled Spawn programming! Thanks again to Todd McFarlane for joining us last episode!  This episode we say goodbye to Greg Capullo and hello to new series regular artist, Angel Medina. Spawn hangs out with Granny Blake to decompress after the recent events of the comic and we get acquainted with the beginnings of this new era of Spawn. We'll get into some person...

We've covered 100 issues of Spawn and now we get to talk to the man himself, Todd McFarlane! We had a great conversation about Todd's approach to the book, how the book evolved over those first 100 issues, the secrets behind the Harry Houdini arc and a little bit of what Todd might have done differently.  Many thanks to Todd for joining us and his team for helping set up this opportunity. This wee...

We have made it to a milestone! Issue 100! This marks the culmination of the first era of Spawn and it is a doozy! Will Al confront Malebolgia? What's going on with Wanda and Terry? Can Spawn find redemption? All of this and more awaits and George and Pierce dig into the issue. Plus we talk about some of our favorite comics fights and how this milestone issue stacks up against the past ones. This...

Who hired Ab and Zab to unleash Urizen? How can an army of angels be stopped from attacking Earth? How did Al recover from his seeming defeat at Urizen's hands? Should Angela be played on the big screen by the singer of Castle Rat? What's Cyan got to do with this and what's the deal with Wanda's pregnancy? George & Pierce will get into al this and more in the penultimate episode before number 100!...

Armageddon is on the horizon and the fate of Earth hangs in the balance! Our hero may not have the chops to fight Urizen himself but with a little help from an angelic ally and a dose of the Greenworld's power, we're seeing him evolve into somthing more than his humble hellspawn origins. As always, George and Pierce get into it.  This week's recommendations are renowned Seattle punks, The Gits. Ch...

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...