Originally created in 1992, the original main character or anti-hero of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn was Al Simmons, a CIA agent sent to Hell after being murdered by his own boss, then returned to Earth by a deal with the devil, called commonly Malebolgia in the series. Spawn has been the subject of several spin-offs, and Spawn: Shadows of Spawn is one of those. It takes place in the same world as the original series, but the author and artist, Juzo Tokoro, spins the mythos of the series a bit for his original story, creating a crossover manga with an American feel.
The story of Shadows of Spawn revolves around Ken Kurosawa, a young man who dies after being the victim of a car bombing, connected to his ties to the street gangs in Japan. His dying wish is to be with his nine year old sister, Mariko, and to protect her always. Ken is sent to Hell, and makes a deal with Malebolgia, that if he is returned to Earth to protect Mariko, he will become a Hellspawn in Malebogia’s army, and will fight for him when it comes time for the Apocalypse.
Seven years after his death, Ken is returned to Earth as a new Hellspawn, memories clouded and fragmented, and is confronted by the Spawn comic staple of Clown, the demonic, egg shaped guide to Al Simmons. Yet Clown is replaced for a while by Beelzebub, a bee-reminiscent fairy from Hell, the two present for the rest of the current series, even when Clown returns as his more demonic form of Violator, albeit smaller from his defeat by Spawn and punishment by Malebolgia.
Ken’s mind is solely on the protection of his now sixteen year old orphaned sister, Mariko, who has become a karate champion and movie star in her own right after moving in with her dead parent’s friends in California. He fights demons sent to challenge him by threatening Mariko, and seems to be following Malebolgia’s plan until he is introduced to Cheveyo, also known as Zombie Spawn, a Hellspawn who has been alive on Earth for five hundred years, and has degenerated to the appearance of a zombie.
Cheveyo gives Ken a second outlook on his new life, and slowly Ken comes to decide that he is not going to follow Malebolgia’s plan and eventually drain himself over and over again until he becomes an empty shell, a drone soldier who remembers nobody and nothing but war. He accepts Cheveyo’s tutoring and learns more of the world where angels and demons battle, and where Heaven and Hell are never at rest, and where he can choose to fight, or he can choose to let the world be devoured by evil.
The story is completely separate from that of the original Al Simmons, while still retaining some of the important elements. Like the original canon, the main character has come back to Earth after a deal with the devil to protect the woman he loves, be it a wife or a sister.
This story also has the older and wiser mentor in the form of Cheveyo, who also convinces Ken to defy Malebolgia in order to not fight on the side of Heaven, but to spare Earth when the time comes. Ken is an anti-hero just as the original Spawn is, but also his own character, and is surprisingly charming as the clueless street thug with a heart of gold. Though it’s a cliche character type, Tokoro writes this character well, and the readers will find themselves manipulated to the emotions the author attempts to evoke, because Ken is someone he or she can connect with. He is true to his past, and doesn’t pretend to know anything about history or art, and while he’s taunted by the word games of Clown/Violator and Beelzebub. It’s refreshing to see a character who is as clueless as the reader, and even someone who isn’t a fan of the Spawn series will be able to follow the plot because of the way Ken is written.
The art of Shadows of Spawn is classic of that in the manga genre. Characters are given the wide eyes, with very few Japanese characters actually looking Japanese. The faces are too rounded in some cases, and featureless, given the look that they may have been hurriedly drawn to meet deadlines, as some comics subject to the crossover tend to be.
Shadowing on characters and faces are odd, as if the person inking them was unused to doing such work, though black and white is more difficult to shade properly when the only colors to work with are black, white, and gray. Backgrounds go from slightly detailed to overwhelming depending on the scene and the place, but has little to show for the glamor of Los Angeles, where the main story is set, preferring to concentrate on the characters, though Mariko is supposed to be an up and coming, famous movie star.
The book its self is a two hundred page compendium, encompassing the three volumes of the Shadows of Spawn that have been translated so far. It is put together in the popular style of manga, where it is read right to left instead of left to right, with humorous instructions at the end of each separate book within the volume, with “Uncle Violator” showing a new reader how to read the unusual page style. The cover art suffers from the same shapelessness of the art inside, and it wraps around the binding to the back, though the art there is nothing more than the cloak of the costumed Ken/Spawn.
The last few pages are imbued with random pictures of places in Los Angeles that inspired the author and artwork exemplifying those photographs, and then something found in many manga, extra artwork. If the artist had taken as much time with the actual story art as he had with these pictures, the book artwork would have been amazing. Unfortunately, these extra snippets of art show how talented Tokoro can be, while also showing the reader how poor the art inside can get at times.
The translation from the original Japanese was done by Francis Takenaga, and while it is well done for the most part, there are few things lost in the change from Japanese to English. Some of the punctuation doesn’t make sense in the places where it’s set, and a reader has to try and figure out what word is in the wrong tense before a sentence makes sense.
While purists of the series might be hesitant to pick up any graphic novel not about Al Simmons, who has yet to make an appearance in Shadows of Spawn, I encourage them to give it a chance, for the simple fact that the art and the story is a new experience, even if it isn’t the gritty, dark form that most fans are accustomed to from the original work. Even though the artwork is typical of the manga genre, and could use some cleaner lines in character faces, as well as the translations leaving a bit to be desired in some places, it makes up for these deficiencies with a creative twist on the mythology of the series, and the originality of the demons featured, leaving the reader wanting a second volume of this collected edition.