As Nirvana and Jay-Z before them, McFarlane and Capullo have put a stripped down twist on a modern classic that in many cases makes it better than the “studio version” previously released to consumers.
Batman/Spawn : Unplugged is a silent comic that allows McFarlane and Capullo’s pencils and inks to speak volumes to readers. Whether looking at the reflection of Spawn’s beloved Wanda in a window pane or staring at The Joker’s rotted face from Capullo’s “Death of The Family” New 52 arc, this graphic picture book cuts out the hassle of McFarlane’s run on sentences and tells the plot of Batman/Spawn in a cliff notes manner, without sacrificing a page of art.
I’ve seen Batman graphic novels get reproduced as coloring books, black & white “Noir” schemes, and just plain paperwhite text based novels. Never have I seen a Batman or Spawn book produced in this shape, and the experiment here between two of Image and DC’s biggest icons is nothing short of a success. DC has recently been dipping their toes with silent comics in their Sunday strip-esque series Speechless!. With this full on foray into a graphic one-shot, it would be a great marketing move for DC to offer more reprints of their classic titles (time for another print of Watchmen) in this “Unplugged” format while the iron is hot.
With Batman/Spawn being released only mere months ago in a thriving comic book industry which see’s dozens of titles released weekly, Capullo and McFarlane’s creation was almost certainly going to go down as a tale that was doomed to be forgotten; especially when an average Google search will pull up Miller and McFarlane’s 1994 Batman/Spawn, before Capullo and McFarlane’s unimaginatively titled collaboration. With their story now featuring a by-line and minimalistic gimmick, new air has been placed into the 2020’s Spawn/Batman crossover, and with all these elements factored in, Spawn/Batman : Unplugged now not only stands on the shoulders of it’s predecessors, but is the clear favorite due to the time put in to make this “special” even more special.
Score: 5/5
(W) Todd McFarlane (A/CA) Greg Capullo
Publisher: Image Comics/DC Comics