King Spawn #24 // Review
Give me your tired, your poor...your unsavory characters from the wrong side of Hell. New York has become home to some demons. There’s someone who is going to do something about that. He’s got kind of a lot in front of him, though. It’s going to be a bit of a challenge to deal with it all. He’s not alone. That doesn’t mean that it’s not going to be a challenge in King Spawn #24. Writer Sean Lewis continues his walk through demonic darkness with the weird guy and his crazy cape in a story that is given additional script by creator Todd McFarlane. Artist Javier Fernandez conjures the conflict into the visual with the aid of Ivan Nunes.
There’s a big pig-looking monster with a ram’s skull. Looks like something out of Georgia O’Keeffe’s worst nightmares. It’s immense. Honestly, there’s no way it’s under ten feet tall. Spawn is being handed over to the thing. He’s not looking too well, either. He’s been beaten--a ragdoll of a mime wearing a cape of melted licorice. He’ll turn things around, though. He always does. He didn’t get through 30 years on the comics rack by letting himself get the slime beaten out of him with some giant monster.
Lewis has a clear grasp on the kind of drama that drives supernatural horror action. The supporting character of Yoko actually seems a hell of a lot more interesting than the title character. Her inner struggle lights up the more tedious ends of another McFarlanian supernatural slugfest. There’s some weight and complexity to the demonic politics of the drama as well. Granted--it’s mostly unintelligible gobbledygook, but it’s clearly well-thought-out unintelligible gobbledygook, and THAT’S what’s important. The complexities of the politics and the emotional struggle of the characters actually kind of feel like they might be coming from somewhere.
Fernandez keeps the action menacing throughout the book. It’s very immersive action that’s...admittedly only taking place in a big empty space in Manhattan. The action feels overwhelmingly percussive throughout the book, with the occasional moment of supernatural horror that hits the page with potent force. Fernandez could be fined for excessive use of motion lines in the background towards the end of the issue, but he’s using them in a way that REALLY amplifies the action...and it sure beats looking at a blur of a big empty warehouse in the background as Spawn beats the hell out of another monster.
And it’s all punctuated by the furtive “plap” of a severed head at the end of an issue...and the ominous return of a guy smoking a cigarette. Honestly...the current storyline feels like it might have been running for a little long. As painstakingly written as the script is, there isn’t quite enough holding the drama to the page. If Lewis and company could lean back from the action just a little bit more, the series would improve immeasurably. Lewis CAN write decent drama, and his dialogue doesn’t suck. If they slow it down and let the drama creep across the page, it could feel a lot more interesting.
