304. Spawn #1 ... Image ...

And speaking of an Image founder, one of the top 2 is Todd Mc who came off from a hot launch of a new Spidey title to this, his own comic that is still running until today. In fact, the timing is also good as Todd has been for the past few years back on the comics trail and busy revamping his Spawn trying to regain some readership

I will be honest. When this came out, much as I loved Todd's Spider-Man (not his Amazing Spider-Man run though), I didn't bother with this issue or series until friends lent me and even then, it failed to do much for me

Sure, the design of the Spawn is cool and so are the villains but somehow, I prefer lots of super heroic fisticuffs as opposed to Spawn who is afraid to run out of juice

Anyway, basically, for those not in the know, Spawn is Al, a chap who got iced by the govt operatives and comes back as a hellspawn with limited power that dwindles as he uses them. He is not meant to be a good guy and Hell has definite plans for him but until then, he is his own man as he doesn't know what is going on with him, how he came to be alive again or even who he was back when he was alive as his memories are all scrambled

So he is definitely not your average super hero

In this first issue, we are shown all this confusion as forces now start to surround him while he tries to regain a sense of who he was and his purpose. What I found disappointing is the tools used to communicate the current news event in the form of newscasters. Unfortunately, this becomes a standard tool even in subsequent issues. So while the artwork is awesome, the character design is awesome, I felt that there is too much "subtlety" to the Spawn comics as opposed to outright blow-em-ups

Ratings: 4/5