Spawn #228
Writer/Plot Todd McFarlane
Art by Szymon Kudranski
Color by FCO Plascencia
Lettering by Tom Orzechowski
Plot Jon Goff
Cover by Todd McFarlane
Editor: Todd McFarlane
Image Comics
Release Date: February 13, 2013
Cover Price: $2.99

Spawn #228 is the first Spawn comic I’ve read since 1997. After giving this issue a read, I’m thinking the next time I pick up an issue will be in 2097.

Writer Todd McFarlane starts off right by giving me a nice character breakdown and summary on what I’ve missed, and actually, these couple of paragraphs REALLY fill me in on what I’ve missed in the past sixteen years. Unfortunately, it seems like I didn’t miss a whole lot. There’s a new Spawn. He has a girlfriend. Or ex-girlfriend. And honestly, that’s about it. This issue tries really, really hard to make itself an enticing mystery, but the thing about mysteries is, on some level, they have to make sense to the reader. He tries to do his own version of a David Lynch type super hero book, but falls way off the mark. Everything he tries to set up, just kind of leaves the reader wondering “why?” and “What’s going on here?” The villain of this issue is the Clown, who shows up and talks to a sleeping woman. That’s about the only forward motion in the book.

Artist Szymon Kudranski is only slightly less confusing. He’s got a painted style that would normally fit great into a moody, crime book, but without a solid story to hold it together, his art just kind of sit there, waiting for purpose. His use of shadows is WAY overdone, and I can not honestly tell you how many times I found myself saying “is that a lip?” on any single given page.

Maybe this just isn’t the issue of Spawn to pick up if you haven’t read the title in awhile. Maybe if you’ve been reading faithfully for years, this is a great issue, and it makes perfect sense. Maybe I’m wrong about this whole book. But, maybe I’m not.