Complete with a murder of ravens, King Spawn number thirteen is for sure to be the most unfortunate I’ve ever seen Spawn, and the irony is that he has a crown on his head. It took me being on a Greyhound Bus having to overhear a female I had just had relations with fellate some guy in the back row for me to finally stop having any emotional attachments to any female I deal with.
Wanda literally moved on from Spawn with arguably his best friend, something very common within the act of love & war. I get why Spawn says things like “My wife’s soul is at stake” and “… now I have a chance to bring back my queen”. The possessiveness, completely driving Spawn to a level of selfishness that I haven’t really seen before, which is a tough sell since Spawn in general is initially an extremely selfish and stubborn character; all over a nature that is unfitting of a hero, but completely expected of a titular character classified as a HellSpawn.
Heavy credit goes to Andworld Design for putting emphasis on the title’s surrounding the noble classifications of a female in western society and showing just how important that is for Spawn. Thomas Nachlik’s art is haunting. The demon roaming through the woods to get into a chess competition that turns extremely violent in a few moves with a kid who works as a Shazam type character who might be able to bring down Spawn should he allow the crown to corrupt him fully. And corrupting him it is. Should Wanda come back, surely Spawn realizes she wont even want him any longer after all the lengths he has gone to get her. And from the main “Spawn” book to here, I am almost at as much of my wit’s end of every book opening with somebody begging Spawn to open those damn “Dead Zones”.
Sean Lewis is really able to make Spawn’s stark and selfish actions a constant stream that can be empathized with, as opposed to any of the other title’s running currently in Spawn’s Universe, that make Al as approachable as a garden snake. At least here in King Spawn, there is background to Al’s bad attitude. Duking it out with a fellow Spawn just to have him explode into a murder and have them caw at him “King Pawn” like he’s getting teased in grade school, the constant begging of these otherworldly apparitions for him to open Dead Zone’s like he’s a damn custodian, while his ex-best friend who impregnated his wife is plotting against him in the role of the semi-protagonist, all of this being forced into the background because Spawn, despite now having all but become the king of hell, still hopes.
A torture device of his own, combined with the possibility of having the power to make his ex-wife more than a memory, Spawn is driving himself crazy something all too easy to do when the opportunity for companionship is on the table. Heavy is the crown and lonely is the throne, and Sean Lewis does not shy from showing the weight of the void that Spawn has recently inherited, despite having the world on his shoulders with so many responsibilities thrusted upon him since kid’s started getting blown up with Psalms attached to them as if the Civil Rights movement of the 60’s just started to gain traction again.
Not hard to shed a tear for Spawn during this, as his plight is very easy to mirror since life is filled with loss and the opportunity to philosopher’s stone that natural part of life would be enough to drive anyone to the depths of their most depraved. Fitting behavior for a ruler of the damned. Long live the King, as long as Sean Lewis and the gang can keep providing such a prestige reflection pool.
Score : 5/5
(W) Lewis, Sean (A) Fernandez, Javi