Reviewed by Antony Johnston.
SPAWN:
BLOODFEUD
Writer: Alan Moore
Art: Tony Daniel and Kevin Conrad
Published 1998 by Image Comics/McFarlane Productions
Picture the scene: a non-comics reader who enjoyed SPAWN at the cinema sees, somehow, that Alan Moore has written a SPAWN comic. Alan being famous in his own right aside from comics, this hypothetical person's interest is naturally piqued. A character they have enjoyed before, in a self-contained book by a very famous writer. A perfect opportunity to "snare" a new reader... one that is sorely wasted.
The book deals with a lost SPAWN chapter. At the end of the RETRIBUTION story, Spawn left a villain called The Curse nailed to an alley wall. This book explains how The Curse escaped, to later appear in ABDUCTION. It also introduces the villain Monster-Hunter, and embroils Spawn in a homicide investigation in which he is the prime suspect... or at least that's what the introduction claims. In truth, The Curse only appears in the prelude chapter (all six pages of it) as a device to introduce the Monster-Hunter. So we still don't find out exactly how he got back into Spawn's life. But never mind that. I've never read a Spawn book before in my life, so (as outlined above) BLOODFEUD should be a perfect jumping-on point for people like me. The film was quite popular and much-hyped, serving to introduce Spawn and the vital elements of his background. And if anyone can turn a fairly hackneyed concept into a work of art, that man is Alan Moore.
So what went wrong? A large part of the problem is the art. From the word go, Daniel's composition and rendering are sumptuous, super-detailed, strongly kinetic... and just plain confusing, even to an old comics hand like myself. It seems that technical wonder and painstaking detail has risen above narrative flow in importance. Each page is practically a pin-up poster, which would look great on your wall but makes actually reading the story a formidable task. Panel borders are almost as detailed as the pictures, but then broken constantly. Often two or three panels per page will just be floating above a single background picture, with little or no continuity. Credit for visual flow must actually go to veteran letterer Tom Orzechowski for his balloon placement, without with the act of following the action would be almost impossible.
But it's more than that. Heresy though it may be, even the story isn't all that great. I don't know whose idea BLOODFEUD was (Moore's or the publishers) but frankly Moore can write this stuff in his sleep. Maybe he was wary of trying something too taxing with what is essentially a superhero; maybe he owed the publisher a favour. Maybe he lay back and thought of England. I don't know, but I certainly wouldn't pick up another Spawn book based on reading BLOODFEUD, even if Moore was writing again. Sure, Moore brings his inimitable style and prose to the book. It has his voice, and the psychological issues dealt with (being a Hell-powered member of the undead, for a start) are also characteristic. But it feels... lazy. Moore is known as a perfectionist, a painstakingly detailed scripter who leaves nothing to chance. And yet BLOODFEUD reads and feels like it was banged out in one draft, hack work to pay the rent during a slow month.
This apparent dichotomy feels almost blasphemous, but it's the only explanation I can think of for why this book is so bad. The dialogue, while naturalistic for the situation, is hardly inspiring. Scenes feel more like set pieces than part of an evolving story. The whole book is nothing more than a build-up to the final slugfest between two improbably-proportioned guys, with no wit or wisdom gaining the upper hand. Even the fight scenes aren't compelling. I'm clearly not SPAWN'S target audience. I'm not quite sure who is, but sales would seem to indicate that there are an awful lot of them. It would be easy to deride the book for being aimed at fourteen-year-old heavy metal fans... but I was a fourteen-year-old heavy metal fan and this wouldn't have lasted more than two seconds in my hands back then either. Besides, I still am (a heavy metal fan, not fourteen) and yet BLOODFEUD just fails to appeal, on any level.
If you're an avid SPAWN fan, you probably already have the original serial form of this story anyway. If you aren't, I really wouldn't recommend starting here. And if you're new to comics completely, picking this up could be a very bad idea indeed.
Not Recommended.
SPAWN is available in a huge number of trade paperback collections and has spawned (ahem) racks full of other comics, including Brian Michael Bendis' SAM & TWITCH (reviewed elsewhere in this edition of PopImage). There is also a movie, an HBO animated series, and an extensive range of action figures.
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