Spawn #357 // Review
Lyra is exploring a facility. It's an old warehouse of some sort. She runs into a woman. Evidently she had been trapped there for sometime. So Lyra gets to save her. Some demons locked-her up in a room in the warehouse. Kept running experiments to see if they could regain their powers. She’s been locked-up for 2 weeks. She’s going to get her chance to escape in Spawn #357. Writer Rory McConville continues the long-running indie series with artist Brett Booth, inker Adelso Corona and colorist Robert Nugent. Action mixes with horror and drama in equal parts in another entertaining issue in the series.
The woman’s name is Marjorie. As it turns out, she’s an angel-demon hybrid just like Lyra. They both figured that they wee the only hybrids in existence. So it’s good news for both of them to find out that they’re not alone, but they still have to figure out a way out of the warehouse without having to deal with a messy horde of demons. When Spawn pops-by to introduce himself, he’s understandably suspicious of the whole situation. Given the nature of vampires and demons and angels and things all crawling around the Earth it IS a bit difficult to know who to trust…
McConville populates the issue largely with dramatic scenes that seem to be attempting to ratchet up the tension. The drama makes it to the page in a way that feels suitably entertaining. The dialogue feels crisp and energetic, even if it's largely they are for the purpose of exposition. There isn't a whole lot that's going on in the actual scenes. So much of what's happening in the plot is delivered in the dialogue as look on with some degree of tension. thankfully, the characters all look kind of interesting so it's entertaining to see them have conversations on the page.
And our team does a really good job putting together a immersive and atmospheric world for the dramatic tension to exist within. There is a lot going on on the page that feels like it could explode at any moment. It's worth noting that the battle scarred Spawn doesn't have much of a presence on the page in comparison to the comparatively cool, looking, angel demon, hybrid, known as Lyra. Spawn seems to be a jungle of scars and hanging fabric who just doesn't appear to be the prime center of the action the way he is in the script. Lyra just seems much cooler by comparison.
It would be really cool to see Lyra and her own series. She certainly has the right dramatic and the right conflict to inhabit the center of the page quite well. Certainly she's doing that for a good portion of this issue. And it's really only a matter of time before she does. She does a really good job of serving as the central hero and a couple of different scenes over the course of the book. Once again, the title character seems somewhat ill suited to his own comic book. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, though. the center of the action of the issue really feels quite interesting. It just doesn't happen to be the title character for the most part.
Grade: B
