#spawn dark ages

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It is 901 AD. The Dark Ages. The darkest of times. Centuries after the Romans retreated and faded, yet many centuries before reason and order would take hold. The Dark Ages were times marked by sweat and blood and lives cut short by famine and disease. Desperate days. These were the times the lands known today as Great Britain were fought over like raw meat in a dog’s teeth. The world was up for grabs. New religions were sweeping the continent like a plague of hope in a hopeless time. These are the days that a Hellspawn named Covenant walked the earth in search of the truth, understanding and solution to the curse that bound him. These are his Dark Ages. These are his adventures…

Since he first burst on to comic book stands and shops in May, 1992 “Spawn” has been a semi consistent presence in popular culture spawning a HBO animated series, live action movie, continued threats of another live action movie, toys, etc. This presence is in part due to an easily recognizable iconographic signature, primarily a circular emblem with green eyes on white with a hint of red. The S-shield meets Grendel’s mask. Not unlike the various toy lines of the eighties this repeatable iconography allowed for the implementation of all sorts of Spawns, Medieval to Mecha and everything in between. The ease at which this imagery is mechanically reproduced, with its gross capitalism, can at times rightly create the suspicion that all that “Spawn” has wrought is superficial, facile, juvenile, and not worth considering. At times it is those things, but there can be more that explains why “Spawn” and all its derivatives have created an enduring icon and consumer relationship. “Spawn: The Dark Ages” a spin-off series that ran for 28 issues from 1999-2001 is an example of how a “Spawn” comic can be all those things and more as the first 5 issues put it all on display, artistic excess mixed with an male anti-hero drama that isn’t too far removed from types of prestige TV series of the 2010s.

Due to “Spawn: The Dark Ages” beginning publication 7 years into the publication of “Spawn” is able to use the established tropes and language of the property to condense and illustrate what makes a Hellspawn engaging. There is a level where it is aesthetic, it was certainly part of the early promise when McFarlane and eventually Capullo drew the main book. Early on narratively there is the promise of mystery, of identity. Who is this Spawn? After that mystery is solved the character perspective becomes one of redemption, however that is defined. Hellspawn were not “good” people in life. Al Simmons was a CIA hitman, he murdered and more in the name of country. The Hellspawn for the “Dark Ages” Lord Iain Covenant, killed in the name of religion and in search of absolution from his other sins. Hellspawn are people of violence and are eventually undone by that violence. What changes when they are returned back to the mortal plane by Malebolgia, with their new life represented as a ticking clock, is the hope that they can use their power an maybe enact some violence that can do some good. “The Dark Ages” is able to condense what was the first roughly 18 issues of “Spawn” in to two and a half, with the creative team employing the overall tool set of the property.

The main artist for the first half of “The Dark Ages” is Liam Sharp. The technological shifts in in how coloring is done has changed how his line work appears. Brian Haberlin’s pallet is solid but isn’t overly rendered, with most figure work getting a basic blend of base medium and highlights. His value choices are influenced by the copious amount of black used by Sharp, which is the primary source of texture and rendering on the page. Compare Haberlin’s work against Romulo Fajardo Jr. in “The Brave and the Bold” or Steve Oliff in “The Green Lantern,” Sharp gives that latter more space to work and define the image. “Dark Ages” being not just a 90s book but a “Spawn” book brings other obvious comparisons. Sharp uses thicker more inky and jagged lines compared to the obsessive noodling of Todd McFarlane or Jim Lee. The splash page of Guy DuBlanc unmasked in the fifth issue feels closer to the work of Frank Miller, with copious line work and a degree of hashing but with an abstract quality compared to the obsessive precision of the Image founders.