Comic Book Review: Spawn #250

Title: Spawn 250
Publisher: Image Comics
Writer: Todd McFarlene
Art: Szymon Kundranski
Color: FCO Plascencia
Lettering: Tom Orzechowski

Spawn 250 marks the return of it's original protagonist All Simons. I've waited so long for this special issue of Spawn and now I have a review of the longest running series from Image Comics.

Although Spawn 250 seemed to be so big in the comic book world, this issue has some ups and downs, and I'm gonna start with the downs. Spawn 250 is about 58 pages if I've counted correctly, but I think it was too long and could be fitted in 22 pages. I think Todd Mcfarlene spent too much pages showing reports about the bugs and bats infestation in New York City which was compared to the 9/11 attacks at some point. There were too much narrations and dialogues which sometimes got my eyes confused which one should be read first.

Spawn 250 promises the return of original hero Al Simons and I think every fan of the book expected to see him at most part of story, but even the current Spawn Jim Downing appeared almost at the 3/4 of the entire issue as he fought against the symbiote Spawn costume which I find very similar to Spiderman fighting against the Venom costume, after all Todd McFarlene has worked with the Spiderman series before he left Marvel and founded Image Comics.

Spawn 250 seemed to show readers the end of Jim Downing's era rather that the return of Al Simons. And if a fan wants to see the true return of the original hero, better wait for Spawn Resurrection 1 next month and Spawn 251.

And just like what I've said, Spawn 250 issue got some ups and downs, and now let me talk about the ups. The visuals and illustrations of Spawn comics has always been superb thanks to Szymon Kudranski. The panels showing the swarms of insects looked really creepy and I can feel them crawling to my skin whenever it's shown. The green neon light representing the powers of Spawn looks so great too and that moment when Al Simons is rising as the Spawn once again got me at the edge of my seat. And those mysterious numbers finally revealed it's meaning L. I. V. which says "long L.I.V. the king" which refers to Al Simons was amazing, it's one comic book moment worth remembering, and right now it's already my favorite.

Spawn 250 is finally done, although there were some down sides, but towards the end it was still awesome. This book from Image continues to marvel me. And come next issue, as McFarlene hands over the series to a new creative crew, I expect new adventures conflicts.