Spawn Kills Everyone Review (Todd McFarlane, JJ Kirby)

I had a bad idea recently and decided to check out Todd McFarlane’s “classic” Spider-Man: Torment - turned out it was as crummy as I’d heard (though I enjoyed the nostalgic artwork)!

I also realised it was the first actual Todd McFarlane comic I’d read and then had another bad idea: what if I read another one, but this time of McFarlane’s signature own creation, Spawn? I put it to my group of fellow mentally ill weirdos comics readers and that became the Buddy Todd-y Read for October: to read any Spawn comic aka Spawnoween!

Torment was a ‘90s comic and early on in the Todd’s career, so I thought given that I know early ‘90s Todd couldn’t write, maybe it’d be better to sample something modern-day Todd had written - maybe in the intervening three decades he’s learned a thing or two and gotten better? So I selected Spawn Kills Everyone from 2019 and, you’ve guessed it already, he hasn’t gotten better - he still stinks as a writer and Spawn remains a largely unread comic for the simple reason that it be awful!

Todd is trying to ape Marvel’s success at “Character Kills…” comics, like the bestseller that was Deadpools Kills the Marvel Universe, with his Spawn Kills Everyone book, which is also what made me pick up this comic - perhaps a playful Todd would be more palatable?

What I wasn’t prepared for was Todd attempting comedy - wow. It. Is. Painful.

Spawn here is in chibi form for no reason - possibly because a baby version of Spawn is “funnier”, in the same way that Elmer Fudd was “funny” cos he looked and sounded like an overgrown baby even though he was supposed to be a grown man? And also Spawn’s targets are Marvel, DC and other pop culture characters because there aren’t enough Spawn characters in his own universe that are well-known enough to make this a comic with potentially broad appeal.

So the flawed conceit of the Spawn Bores Everyone one-shot is that baby Spawn isn’t in movies because of the competition and the way he gets Spawn 2 made is if he kills the superhero actors, who he thinks are the superheroes themselves (hoho), and that will somehow push him to the front of the queue. Except you can’t kill characters if there are acknowledged actors playing them in movies. You’re just killing disposable actors that can be replaced - so right off the bat, it makes no sense.

Todd introduces Spawn on the toilet because that’s hilarious apparently and then Spawn doesn’t understand cosplayers at comic-con, which is the other side-splitter.

Then we’re onto the Spawn Bores Everyone Too miniseries which has a new flawed conceit: if Spawn kills the superhero characters - who, this time around, are the actual characters and not actors - then he will get a movie. Even though in the previous one-shot he knows actors are playing the characters and killing the characters won’t stop actors from pretending to be the characters - so… more stupidity.

And also more toilet humour! Baby Spawn eats too much junk food and ends up on the toilet where he gives birth to hundreds of tiny baby Spawns even though he’s a baby and a dude (I assume - shows how little I know the character)?! What an idiotic development.

Baby Spawn apparently goes on a killing spree of superheroes every year and the previous year he racked up scores, if not hundreds, of kills - yet somehow it made no difference because tons of superheroes, all of them recognisable, are still around, so I guess he targeting the ones nobody knew about (like the taller, muscle-bound version of himself)? It’s just more poorly thought-out nonsense from the Todd.

So his turd babies (as he refers to them) help him to kill famous characters, all done in rib-tickling Todd style (Cap can’t handle being in a Canadian flag outfit and dies from shock! Hulk dies from tight pants!) and the clown character from Spawn (I don’t its name, nor care) does a Thanos/Infinity Gauntlet parody for no reason which ends in literal diarrhoea. You’re gonna be needing oxygen with this comic guys, it’s too funny.

Shockingly none of this garbage lands Spawn a movie deal. Also the joke’s on Todd - the superhero movie bubble has burst post-pandemic with nearly every one tanking HARD at the box office so it’ll be even longer before we see another Spawn movie. Ha!

Ready for my conclusion: Spawn is bad. Todd is a bad writer.

I know. It’s a bit like conceptually knowing that being shot hurts but not knowing how bad and deciding to shoot yourself in the foot in the name of “science” - I knew Spawn was going to suck because Todd is such an inept writer but I didn’t know how bad. And now I do! He is waayyy down there.

Ok. Never doing that again! Let’s all go back to not reading Spawn, forget Spawnoween was ever a thing, and try to read some actual good comics this holiday season!