SPAWN #290 Review: Let Horror Reign

SPAWN #290 Review: Let Horror Reign

SPAWN #290 Review: let horror reign. Let horror reign in Al’s hell on earth, because his plan that further unfolds in SPAWN #290 is both frightening and effective.

For Eager SPAWN Readers, there are SPOILERS in this article.

SPAWN #290 – Let Horror Reign

Francesco Mattina, Lee Loughridge, Violator, Spawn, SPAWN #290, Jason Shawn Alexander, Todd McFarlane

Spawn’s ruthless vendetta grows in exciting, unnerving and downright fright-filled ways.

From the start of the six-part ‘Dark Horror Arc’, Jason Shawn Alexander and Todd McFarlane broke new ghastly ground for the character and world of Spawn, whose hell-ish origins were already quite grim and mysterious.

As time has unfolded from those issues to SPAWN #290, the plot grows more intense, more secretive and more expansive.

For once, Al is not being used as a pawn, or being manipulated for another’s gain, whether in heaven, hell, or earth itself.

The hellspawn that is Al Simmons is something more, something no one is quite sure of yet.

What is becoming clearer by the issue, is that the story hinges on Spawn whose rage has pushed him way over the edge, so that anyone who is in some way corrupt and useful to Al need fear for themselves and their families’ sakes.

When Spawn allows The Freak to go and leverage for bank codes with a man’s wife’s engagement ring hidden in the mouth of a doll made out of a human skull, sticks, and a yellow dress with daisies on it, the reader shudders at the site.

It means that Spawn is now unhinged, uninhibited, and eerily calculating.

And make no mistake: the images from Jason Shawn Alexander are visceral.

His art absolutely amazes.

He creatively draws on sound, so that vibrations, the pluck of a tooth from a skull, saws splitting brains open, and the “SNAP” of a telephone pole add realistic dimensions to the pages.

And the expressions, glowing eyes, and even the body language of an enraged Spawn Costume stretched out to greet an old rival in the Violator-Clown add a sense of weight, movement, and grisly detail.

The realism and surrealism balance each other so well that many of the scenes are nightmarish in all the right ways.

In this book, Lee Loughridge is also brilliant, as his colors add bold brightness around the bleak shadows giving focus to the emotions in the story.

And lest we forget, the practically glowing cover by Francesco Mattina is fantastic.

I am a big fan of good writing and great story that reaches for extraordinary heights, and that is what we have here.

The script/plot of Todd McFarlane is as sharp as a battle-ready sword edge.

For now that his ex-wife Wanda has died and Cyan has been exposed as having powers to mirror Al Simmons’, Spawn moves to publicly call out all of the hidden angels and demons trapped on earth to get at them.

He cannot take them all on alone, but he has grown powerful enough to recruit a slew of his oldest, fiercest enemies including Overt-Kill, Cy-gor, the Curse, and The Freak to do his bidding!

Al even refers to this team of horror as “[his] pets”.

The team’s distraction gives Spawn access to the computer terminals that can reveal all of the players in the conspiracy against mankind.

Turn the corner.

When faced with Clown at the issue’s close, Al points out that his face paint markings have changed prompting an apparent power-sucking blow.

But as Spawn is struck and then bloodily stabbed with a sign post, and seemingly drained of his powers, Violator’s teeth come to the surface of his chubby mouth.

The Violator is lurking beneath.

Later on, the Costume removes the metal from the wound and Al’s life returns with a flicker of green in his eye, and he says: “Excellent. He took the bait.”

All the while, the world’s financial markets have just crashed and bedlam surely awaits.

The build-up to SPAWN #300 is just incredible!

Grab a copy of SPAWN #290 from your LCS while you can, folks [Red Shirt Comics had me covered].

Francesco Mattina, Lee Loughridge, Violator, Spawn, SPAWN #290, Jason Shawn Alexander, Todd McFarlane

“SPAWN #290 Review: Let Horror Reign” was written by R.J. Huneke.