Written By: Todd McFarlane
Artist: Jason Shawn Alexander
Colorist: Jose Villarrubia
Lettering By: Simon Bowland
Cover by: Francesco Mattina
Published By: Image Comics
Spoilers
Spawn #287 is a great comic book, this issue adds another piece to a story that seems like it’s going to become something masterful.
I’ve been able to re-read a bunch of the early stories of Spawn from the monster size compendium that collects the first 50 issues and I’ve been having a blast. This current, more gritty issue really shows a progression in Todd Mcfarlane’s storytelling ability from 25 years ago, it’s always been good but this new run is something special. The art again by Jason Shawn Alexander is perfect and dark, the colors are really well done. This time around I want to mention the covers, Spawn has many variant covers for several if not all of the current series run. Issue #286 came in several variants including the black and white cover I was able to get. This issue has two covers, cover A is Francesco Mattina Spawn busts out of jail’s beautiful “screaming Spawn” and cover B is a great piece of art by the book’s artist himself Jason Shawn Alexander, I might have to buy them both, they’re amazing.
Well, the spoiler from the last issue is that an old foe is coming back into play, and its none other than Overtkill. Yes, the cyborg beast of a man is back but not fully functional, he is in the deep underground with Spawn, under the prison and hanging by the ceiling in ragged condition. If you look up Comic Book Greats on Youtube or maybe own the home video from the early 90’s with Todd Mcfarlane and Rob Liefeld, you will see them create a character on the spot with Stan Lee called Overkill, looking a lot like Overtkill. I’m guessing they liked it enough to use it but wanted to alter the name slightly maybe to avoid any character rights issues with Marvel.
Overtkill first appeared in issue 6 of Spawn in 1992 and that issue has an amazing cover displaying the crazy cyborg, he was peppered into a few more stories early in the series and I always loved him so I’m excited to see what comes of this. In this issue we see Spawn tortured and put through hell in horrible, nasty ways. The series seems to be building a nice slow burn into something amazing so I’m on the edge of my seat wondering whats going to happen next, whats going to snap?.
Overall: 8/10
Canadian indie comic book writer, self publisher of scribbles and former managing editor for a small comic book company.
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