As my virility migrates south and my odds of developing any number of terminal illnesses starts climbing north, I become more and more interested in traditions. Maybe it's because I like the idea of setting aside time to remember things past, because someday that will be me. Maybe it's because as I get older, I'm building a greater respect for things that last. Maybe I'm just becoming a bigger, softer asshole. I don't know.
What I do know is that I have a couple of movies that I watch every Halloween. It's my version of tradition. It's not a chore, it's....comforting. It helps that both of them are outstanding films with solid replay value. Those two movies are The Crow and Trick R' Treat. I imagine the first is quite familiar to most of my readers, and the second mostly unfamiliar, and that's a shame. We'll get to both of them in the next installment of the Ugly American.
This time, I'm going to tell you about a prospective new addition to the Halloween tradition. It's horror based. It's comic bookey. But would it be good enough to make the Halloween tradition cut? Let's find out.....
Spawn: The Animated Series (1997-1999)
The animated Spawn series ran for three seasons on HBO, if you can believe it. I had vague recollections of it being a little buzzy when it first premiered. It must have garnered some interest, since it was picked up for two more seasons. But as for the episodes themselves? I couldn't remember.....anything, really.
Upon watching them again in 2013, I know why. The scientific explanation for my failure to latch onto any solid memories of this show is because it is "not good". Oh, the production quality is there, even down to the DVD packaging. The case is solid metal, you'll break your foot if you drop that case on it. The animation itself looks fantastic, albeit DARK. This was the late 1990s, when cel animation was still the norm, thankfully. Anything digital causes my brain to simply check out and leave me cold. I think the only digitally animated show I can watch and enjoy is the short-lived MTV Spider-Man series. But I'm getting off track.
So yes, the show looks good, and the show sounds good. They got Keith David to do Spawn, (you may remember him voicing Goliath on Gargoyles) and Michael McShane does a wonderful rendition of Twitch. There's nothing unprofessional about it.
I was surprised at just how spiritually dark the show is, even given the fact that HBO was unlikely to restrict them much. Al Simmons is depressing to look at, and depressing to listen to. He mostly sits by himself and moans things like "Who am I?" for no particular reason.
For sport, he sits idle while maniacs and former acquaintances murder homeless people around him. He can see it happening, and he almost always exacts some kind of vengeance when it happens. But he can never be arsed to prevent any Bum Abuse. Sometimes he abuses them himself, verbally shredding innocent people who are inexplicably interested in being friendly with Simmons.
Spawn exhibits no sympathy or empathy for anybody apart himself, his wife, and his daughter. He exhibits no interest in doing much of anything to improve his plight. Mostly he whines, moans, and kills people if they don't leave him alone. He's not an interesting or likeable character, which is a problem.
Then there's Clown. Hoo boy. At one point he snatches a picture of Wanda away from Spawn, fires his hand down his pants, and then just starts tugging. That's the kind of show we're dealing with here. And that's almost interesting, if relentlessly maudlin.
Todd McFarlane is the blessing and the curse of Spawn. No corporate entity would take the chances that he does with that IP. Masturbatory clowns? Never going to be drawn from a corporate well, but Todd is free to do what he likes, and some of that feels almost novel and fresh.
In fact, if I were to point one shining element of the series, it would be McFarlane's intros. Before each episode, a camera creeps up behind a doodling McFarlane, at which point he turns around and presents some thematic questions before advocating that you turn the lights off. There are usually skulls and potions about. It's all very spooky.
He comes off as a bit douchey and too serious about the whole thing..but you know what? He's also captivating. You learn more pertinent information about the Spawn mythology in those fleeting moments than any ten episodes of story content. He clearly has a clue about what he wants to do and what's driving his story, and he's genuinely passionate about it.
Here's the problem - somewhere along the way, Todd McFarlane got it in his head that reminding an audience they don't know things about the story is a story. And it's not. That's the opposite of a story. He still hasn't figured that out, by the way.
I guess we'll never know for sure, but if I may engage in a little story forensics, I blame the Hobgoblin frenzy of the mid-to-late 1980s. You remember the Hobgoblin craze in Amazing Spider-Man, right? I know Remy does! The Green Goblin was dead and gone, Peter had all the Osborns accounted for, so who in the world was this jacked-up asshole in the goblin glider throwing exploding pumpkins at Spider-Man? Nobody knew. For a LONG time. Spider-editor Jim Owsley (now Christopher Priest) kept the secret so well he wouldn't tell Jim Shooter. Sales rose, people were talking, and it was all over the mystery of the Hobgoblin.
Well, McFarlane comes onto ASM not long after that. He had been doing work for awhile, sure, but it definitely had to be in his brain. If you want to draw an audience, you dangle a mystery in front of them. That's what people want. That's what sells!
Unfortunately, what Todd forgot was that the Hobgoblin mystery was built on a foundation of hundreds of issues of meaty goodness, not obscure ghosts. The mystery worked because the psychological base was so juicy.
Quick impression of Gwen Stacy's spine for you:
"Snap!"
Ta-daaaa!
That's why Peter Parker and his audience cared about the Hobgoblin. There was a tangible, gripping history there. Spawn has none of that. Who is Al Simmons? I don't care. He's a mopey jerk. And a government hit man before that. Yuck.
And if I don't care about the main character, how many tons of apathy do I have toward the diabolical Jason Wynn, his missing gun shipments, and his plans for the White House? Those threads comprise about 40% of the plot, and they generate zero interest particles. I couldn't explain to you why those elements are in there.
I suppose those conspiracies connect to the main story because they put Wanda and her new beau Terry in jeopardy. But we have no idea who these people are, because Al doesn't really remember them, so who cares? Or maybe it's a cautionary lesson about government corruption?
It's hard to know what the lessons of Spawn are. I feel like somewhere deep below its nougat filling, Spawn wants you to know that there is no fate, and that you can always choose a redemptive path for yourself. You can almost sense that somewhere around chapter 2,354 Todd wants Al to find a way to break his pact with Malebolgia, disrupt the plans of hell, and then wait in heaven for Wanda and Cyan to return to him.
If that's the case, Spawn is taking a really bizarre path in getting there. Occasionally this cat named Cogliostro shows up and irritates the shit out of you. By the way, the only way you'd know the guy's name is Cogliostro is by reading the end credits, because he certainly doesn't advertise that fact. It's a mystery, so that it makes it interesting, right? (slaps palm with forehead)
Cogliostro knows everything you as the reader/viewer need to know in order to understand and care about the Spawn story. He reminds Spawn (and you) of this each time he appears, and revels in keeping all of those treasures to himself. Here's an encapsulation of an actual conversation between Spawn and Cogliostro in a dark alley:
SPAWN: Piss off, old man! I'm busy brooding!
COG: You're about to make one of the most important decisions in your life and the future of earth, and you'd better make the right choice!
SPAWN: Uhhhhh! So annoying! What are you even talking about?
COG: If I told you, it wouldn't even matter.
At that point you just kind of throw your hands up and concede defeat. That's not a narrative, it's a skeleton of a narrative so lacking in manners that it outright tells you that it will never have any meat on its bones.
Precious little of the skeleton makes sense, by the way. As the Spawn story is constructed, the Hellspawns sign a pact with Malebolgia. Apparently something about this process invariably produces amnesia, at which point Malebolgia sends them to earth so they can bitch about how non-compliant the Spawns are. What??? He doesn't remember making "the deal", why would you be surprised that he's not living up to it? And the only information you as the audience would know about "the deal" is from Todd's intro, not the story itself. All the "story" does is remind you that you don't know what happened, and neither does he. It's madness.
If you show Simmons make the deal to be the Devil's muscle in exchange for being re-united with his wife, and then watch him pop up five years later when she's already moved on, NOW you might give a crap about things. Particularly if you establish a real loving couple first. And it would help the audience invest in the character if they know more than Spawn, but are unable to help as they watch him get pummeled by forces out of his control. They might even identify with such a character.
But not this character and not this series, unfortunately. It's a lot of darkness, and child molestation, and shooting, and altogether too much interest in government insiders and conspiracies you couldn't possibly care about. But it's definitely Spawn. Is it worth watching? Ehhhh....no? I recommend viewing the Todd intros and skipping the rest.
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