Spawn: The Movie - Comic Book Adaptation (1997)

Spawn: The Movie (1997)

Adaptation: Ted Adams (from an original story by Mark Dippé + Alan McElroy) | Artist: Carlos D'Anda | Page Count:48

"Each time you go out there, you come back a little more dead inside."

A comic book adaptation of the Spawn movie that in some ways is better than the shit that spawned it.

The first few pages tell of the ongoing battle between Heaven and Hell, and how a demon named Malebolgia requires a leader for his army on Earth, which is where our antihero Al Simmons comes in. A black ops killer for a shady organisation, Al develops something akin to a conscience and begins to lose control of his life.

At just 48 pages it moves stupid-fast, like a Marvel comic from the 90s, leaving a lot of potentially interesting stuff underdeveloped; e.g., the quote above foreshadows a deeply ironic quality that's barely touched upon, and we get no time to know Al before he's thrust into his second life, so the contrast is lost.

Terry and Wanda get even less characterisation. Wynn is a cookie cutter egomaniac, while Cagliostro, who seems to come from nowhere, functions as a standard 'exposition' guy.

The positives: the lack of actual spoken dialogue is a boon. Being just words on a page means the Clown is less annoying; and while he would earn that honour by default because he couldn't possibly be more annoying than John Leguizamo made him onscreen, his reduced role is a major help, too. The artwork is good and the colouring successful, meaning both Malebolgia and Hell look a million times better than the bargain basement version presented in the movie.

So what you have is a comic book adaptation of a movie that is itself an adaptation of a comic book. It makes me wonder why they even bothered, unless there was plans to continue that version of Spawn in paper form — like the woeful Judge Dredd (1995) movie received (in Judge Dredd - Lawman of the Future) — because it makes more sense for a reader to acquire the original Spawn TPBs instead. You might even find a few pages of the early books on the floor of a dedicated comic shop, due to the lame-ass job the publisher did gluing the pages together.