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For Season Two of the podcast we've taken an in-depth look at the foundation and history of Image Comics. To accompany that we've done a blog series on comics published by Image in their exciting and chaotic formative years - 'Early Image'.
Spawn: Blood Feud #1-4 (1995)
Written by Alan Moore
Art by Tony Daniel and Kevin Conrad
Lettering by Tom Orzechowski
Colouring by various
When Alan Moore returned to the mainstream and superhero comics after his self-imposed exile it seemed both appropriate and baffling that he would choose Image Comics. Moore had become disillusioned with the industry following disputes with DC Comics over creator's rights, ownership, and unfair financial deals - grievances shared by many of the Image partners and the motivation for setting up their own publishing company. However, early Image comics were lambasted for their poor quality, style over substance, and unprofessionalism - the polar opposite of the reputation Moore had established for himself. Even more surprising were the titles that Moore took on in those formative Image years; his own homage to Silver Age comics 1963, and Rob Liefeld's teen-boy take on modern superheroes with Supreme, Glory, and Youngblood, as well Jim Lee's alien sci-fi action team WildC.A.T.S. But nestled in there was Todd McFarlane's Spawn - a tale of an ex-CIA operative who is killed and then resurrected as a 'Hellspawn', and uses newly found superpowers to fight evil. The dark supernatural elements mixed with traditional superheroics were a perfect match for Moore's experience with the likes of Swamp Thing, Captain Britain, and Marvelman. After writing an issue of the regular Spawn series, a couple of miniseries featuring Spawn's nemesis The Violator, he teamed up with rising-star artist Tony Daniel for the 4-issue series Spawn: Blood Feud.
Spawn's costume had always seemed like it had a life of its own; McFarlane's art style had the hero's cloak flowing endlessly around his panels, and chains flying in every direction in imitation of the way he had once drawn Spider-Man's webbing. Moore runs with the premise and explicitly makes it a sentient being from the depths of hell, living in a symbiotic relationship with Spawn and having its own needs - being fed, principally. One has to assume Moore intentionally leaned into the comparisons with the Marvel character Venom, who was co-created by McFarlane himself. The realisation for Spawn that his costume is more than just a spiky cool set of threads coincides with a spate of horrific killings on the New York streets and alleyways he calls home. With Spawn unable to recall his nighttime activities, and hearing a voice in his head claiming to be his own costume, the scene is rather obviously set for him and the reader to assume the thing has taken on a life of its own and is the mysterious monstrous murderer.
The police - generally inept, as they always seem to be in superhero comics - call in a specialist to help with these killings. John Sansker struts onto the scene, decked out in designer suits and hulking over the hapless police detectives, declares Spawn to be a vampire, commits to taking him down, and orchestrates a media campaign against him. To the surprise of no-one, Sansker, turns out to be more than just a guy who works out at the gym a bit too much, and is in fact the villain responsible for the killing spree. Moore cleverly tips his hat to the true perpetrator right out of the gates, by giving us first-person POV scenes for both the murders and Sansker's introduction to the police. In typical Moore fashion, and a riposte to the prevailing trend in other Image titles at the time, the tale ends without an action packed, splash-page filled, showdown between Spawn and his antagonist, with Sansker escaping through the sewers to see another day and (oddly) a pledge to takeover Hong Kong in 2070. What we are left with is an understanding from Spawn as to the nature of his costume and their relationship, and an interesting deepening of the Spawn lore for other writers to investigate.
Tony Daniel had come out of nowhere to take over regular pencilling duties on Marvel's X-Force, ironically taking over from Greg Capullo who had left to work with McFarlane on Spawn. His work there was decent enough - if a bit in hock to X-Force co-creator Rob Liefeld - but there was little there to suggest he was the right pick for a more considered horror influenced comic, or someone to pair with a legend like Moore. However, without doubt he stepped up for Blood Feud. Working with inker Kevin Conrad, he combines the expressive manga-light faces of Joe Quesada with the darkness and dirtiness of McFarlane. His storytelling and page composition is outstanding - though that may be more due to the famously detailed scripting from Moore himself. The POV scenes of the killings are particularly well done, terrifying and gory whilst maintaining the mystery of the perpetrator. Perhaps his best work is on Spawn's living costume, especially when separated from its host; he brings a real believability to this swirling, amorphous, hell being, and imbues it with its own personality. The only misstep in the art is the use of computer graphics for bubbles in a couple of underwater scenes - against the dark pencilled art the effect is incredibly jarring and serves only to make you realise you're looking at computer generated images.
Alan Moore's work on various Image characters proves that a good writer can elevate even the most hopeless of characters. Spawn was already one of the more interesting concepts from the Image founders, but in Moore's hands in Blood Feud, we get an intriguing horror mystery that brings a genuinely interesting concept to life. Add in great art from Tony Daniel, and it is definitely one of the early Image comics that had stood the test of time.
