I also just recently learned that Alan Moore and Todd McFarlane had actually collaborated on a second issue of Spawn.

To his credit, Image Comics co-founder and Spawn creator Todd McFarlane must have realized quite early on that, despite the fact that he was now writing and drawing his own massively successful creator-owned series, he was primarily a comics artist and not a comics writer. So less than a year into his new title, he hired not one, not two, not three but four guest writers, each producing an issue apiece, and each of those running back-to-back-to-back-to-back. 

And they weren't just any writers, either. Rather they were probably three of the bigger names in mainstream superhero comics of the time* (two of these, I think, being among the best writers of such comics, even though we've since rightly canceled one of them, and thus "lost" his once admirable body of work), and the fourth one of them being one of the better-known cartoonists responsible for an ambitious and long-lived creator-owned series, of the sort McFarlane and his fellow founders probably looked to as a form of inspiration.

Alan Moore. Neil Gaiman. Frank Miller. Dave Sim. They teamed with McFarlane for issues #8-11 of the series, providing the phenomenally popular artist-turned-writer/artist with some important building blocks for his comic, characters and elements that would continue to inform what became the Spawn franchise for years...decades, even**. (I just checked, and the latest issue of Spawn listed on comics.org is Spawn #368, so the main title has since surpassed Sim's 300-issue run of Cerebus, although McFarlane wouldn't personally write and/or draw all of those issues. Erik Larsen's Savage Dragon, by the way, seems to be closing in on Cerebus, the latest issue of that series listed on comics.org being this past July's #277.)

Looking at the table of contents of Spawn Compendium 1, the massive 1,000+ page tome collecting the first 50 issues of McFarlane's series, I noticed other guest-writers from these first years of the series. There was a three-issue arc by Grant Morrison, two issues by letterer Tom Orzechowski and an Andrew Grossberg, a second issue by Alan Moore and an issue by a writer named Julia Simmons. 

That second issue by Moore was 1995's Spawn #37, another done-in-one collaboration with McFarlane handling the art. I must have so thoroughly stopped paying attention to Spawn by that point that I don't remember even hearing about Moore returning for an issue that year and thus didn't realize it even existed until I perused the Compendium (Of course, I had just started college that fall, so what might have been going on with Image Comics then wasn't exactly high on my list of priorities at the time).

Since I had checked out the collection anyway, I figured I might as well read that issue as well. And, of course, write about it here.

First, I suppose I should note that it is not as good as Moore's Spawn #8, which I just reread after reading this. That first issue was something of a side story, starring Billy Kincaid, the ice cream man/child killer that Spawn killed in Spawn #5 (the last issue of the series I had bought before the guest-writers, the one that finally made teenage me realize, "Say, this isn't actually a very good comic, is it?").

Kincaid awakens in a bizarre Hell of sorts, which, like Dante's, is comprised of circles. Along with a band of others in his circumstances, he journeys through the setting, dreaming every time he sleeps of Spawn killing him, and finally meeting the demon "The Vindicator, one o' the five famous Phlebiac Brothers," who gives him a more guided tour, recruits him into Hell's army and introduces him to Spawn's devil figure.

It's basically 22 pages of wildly imaginative world-building, it's only one weakness—depending on how one feels about McFarlane's art or Orzechowski's letters, I guess—being the ending, in which the childish word "Ca-ca" is used instead of "Shit" at a pretty pivotal moment, a moment that basically provides the moral or punchline to Moore's interpretation of Spawn's mythology. (I don't see a Comics Code Authority stamp on those early covers of Spawn, so I wonder if saying "Ca-Ca" instead of "Shit" was McFarlane or Moore self-censoring, perhaps aware of how many younger readers must have been fans of Spawn at the time...? Although, those first few issues sure are violent, so I don't know...)

Spawn himself doesn't really appear in Moore's first issue, save for in Kincaid's nightmares of his dealing with the character at the end of his natural life. ("i dream about it all night long," he says, in the all lower-case signature lettering Orzechowski gives him, "the sound of the chains. the cloak flapping. spikes. skulls.")

In contrast, Spawn is on-panel throughout much of Moore's second issue, although the story Moore is telling actually has its own protagonist, The Freak, and Spawn is more of a guest-star in his own comic. Notably, I think Moore could have told this particular story with just about any other superhero or crime-fighting character.

Moore and McFarlane introduce The Freak gradually over four panels on the first page: A longshot of him, his body in silhouette, at the entrance of a rubble-filled alley; a close-up of his hands gesturing; a close-up of his bare feet; a close-up of his gritted-teeth grin.

The whole time he is babbling, Orzechowski giving him his own distinct dialogue bubble shape and lettering as well, some of the capital letters that form his words being smaller than the others, and thus not quite lining up right.

His dialogue mostly reads like free verse poetry, and, while it's not great poetry, it's remarkable just how much work Moore must have put into this otherwise somewhat clever but fairly straightforward (and, honestly, rather British) plot.

The Freak will talk incessantly throughout the book, sometimes seeming to narrate to the reader, sometimes seeming to be talking directly to Spawn or another character, but always in quite colorful (and, honestly, mostly purple) imagery.

A turn of the page gives us our first clear view of the character. He's very thin with knotty, sinewy muscles, and he's dressed only in a pair of raggedy jeans and a medallion. He sports a wild mane of long, grayish white hair and overgrown, pointy fingernails, and his face is clearly that of a comic book madman, with bulging eyes, arched and angry eyebrows and a Joker-like toothy grin (On the next page, in which we get a close-up of his face, he's also drooling).

The Freak is set upon by quartet of bad guys, whom McFarlane has drawn to resemble characters one might expect in some sort of post-apocalyptic, Mad Max-inspired movie. They too are shirtless, there are Chapel-like skulls painted on their faces, and their hair is...weird. 

Rather than saying what I really think of these particular designs, I'll just share a picture of them.

I imagine Moore's story called for generic street criminals, but that's not what McFarlane drew (Additionally, and more oddly still, they are armed with various blades, at least one of which looks like some kinda fantasy weapon, with blades extending from both sides of the hilt). Maybe not, though. Moore's first script for Swamp Thing was famously, notoriously detailed, spelling out every single detail he envisioned; I'm not sure if that remained the case fo his later work with unlikely collaborators like the Image guys.

Anyway, because these blade-wielding men are so outlandish looking, it's weird when one of them says, "Looks like Hallowe'en came early," in reference to The Freak, who is obviously more under-dressed than dressed-up, and later, when Spawn says of them "You and your fellow rodents prey upon the homeless and the weak and then go home to mom!" as if they are play-acting at being bad asses.

Anyway, they set upon The Freak, and a huddled figure wrapped in red and wearing a wide-brimmed hat that we saw on the first pages suddenly rises to reveal himself as Spawn. 

The bad guys have literally stepped on Spawn to get to get at The Freak, and so the hell-powered superhero and apparent defender of New York City's homeless sends the would-be killers running, lifting two of them by the neck and throwing them at the other two, and levelling a threat: "Believe me, you know nothing about Hell... ...But I can TEACH you."

The Freak and Spawn shake hands, the wordier of the two saying, "It seems that we are fellow knights; brothers within this putrid, decadent domain of fly-blown shadows...I, sir, am a freak of nature, and proud to be called one."

Spawn asks him why he's in an alley "dressed up like that," which, again, suggests that maybe McFarlane should have The Freak in a costume of some kind, rather than just being mostly naked, like a castaway on a cartoon desert island. And when Spawn then asks, "So what's your story?" The Freak replies "My story? What, you mean my origin?"

There's a double-page splash—the second such splash in the issue's first nine pages—where he explains how his loved ones were killed, at the behest of the villainous "Doctor Delirium", who further experimented on The Freak's mind, turning him into what he is today.

Spawn agrees to help him, and eventually the two infiltrate Doctor Delirium's lab, outfitted with all kinds of weird, sci-fi equipment, and they are then confronted by the doctor's men, one of whom says, "Looks like a couple of the doctor's special projects decided to go walkabout."

The Freak and Spawn fight their way through them, and Spawn jumps through the door of the doctor's office. The Freak confronts the doctor ultimately throwing him out a window to his death while Spawn holds off the doctor's men/the orderlies, gripping them with the living folds of his cape. 

As becomes increasingly clear, The Freak is insane...I mean, he's obviously insane, and talks about his own insanity all the time, but not just "mad" in a comic book kinda way, but actually delusional. The doctor is just a regular doctor, not a supervillain—and, on the penultimate page, on which The Freak's very much still-alive ex-wife talks to someone in an office about his attack on the institution, we learn that it's Dr. DeLorean, not Doctor Delirium. 

After The Freak kills his old doctor, he and Spawn fight their way out through a crowd of policemen—McFarlane's art showing us that The Freak murders at least two or three of them with the gun he took from the doctor, while Spawn brushes them aside with his animated chains; it seems an important detail, as by this point The Freak is gunning down innocent men, and Spawn is helping him do so. It's a purely visual detail, though, and nothing Spawn remarks upon later, so I can't help but wonder if there is here another disconnect between the two creators. 

Debriefing in the sewer after their shared adventure, Spawn tells The Freak, "I'm not your conscience. You did what you had to."

The Freak says he has his next target already picked out, and Spawn walks off with the words, "Well, good luck. Hope you succeed." 

So essentially The Freak is a crazy person who escaped from an institution, and then returned to murder his former doctor, having spun a rather superheroic-like fantasy about his own past and his time in that institution...a fantasy that could have been helped along had McFarlane drawn him with a costume of some kind (That also might have helped explain how and why Spawn got swept up in The Freak's delusions in the first place, as if Spawn had more directly bought into him as a hero figure).

The story makes Spawn look a bit foolish—although, this is Alan Moore and the year is 1995, so what superhero couldn't stand being made to look at least a bit foolish? On the last page, before their farewell, Spawn does finally question The Freak about what just happened, and while it's clear that The Freak is an armed maniac with plans to kill again, Spawn lets him walk. Perhaps Spawn isn't ultimately as foolish as he is morally ambivalent then...?

There are some hiccups in the storytelling though, like all that bizarre equipment Spawn sees when they introduce the institution, and the orderlies referring to the doctor's "special projects", which suggests that maybe the doctor was up to something hinky, and maybe it wasn't all in The Freak's head...?

Anyway, while strong in several aspects, one certainly expects more from Moore, and he and McFarlane don't seem to be on the same page in the telling of this particular story. 

Unlike Moore's first issue, then, I don't think this one is quite as well worth tracking down at this point, some 30 years later. 

The Freak would return in future issues of Spawn, comics.org saying he makes some 13 more appearances in various Spawn books, the latest of which seems to be a 2010 issue of Spawn written by McFarlane. 

That's about twice as many future appearances as The Vindicator made. So, despite the weakness of the story, McFarlane seems to have gotten a decent return on his investment, and I'm sure Moore got a decent enough paycheck for his writing duties.

*************************

And despite having another 40 issues or so of Spawn comics I have never read sitting there in front of me in the Compendium, that's just about as far as I got into the world of '90s Spawn. 

I did see that the very next issue, written by another of those guest writers, Julia Simmons, apparently featured the first appearance of a cybernetically-enhanced gorilla named "Cy-Gor", and so I read that. 

It's not great, and the gorilla only makes a one-panel appearance after much build up, so I kept reading, telling myself I would do so at least until Spawn fights the gorilla, but when I hit the first page of issue #41, half of which is devoted to seven paragraphs of text which is probably some 500-800 words worth of prose, I decided to give up on Spawn again. 

I'm not so interested in cybernetic gorillas that I'll read an essay in a Spawn comic to get to it. (By that point, the character seems to have built himself a throne, started hanging out with a character that looked like McFarlane's version of R. Crumb's Mr. Natural, and there was also a character who wore a weird hat/mask like sorta like the one worn by Dumb Donald from Fat Albert and The Cosby Kids...)

And as for Cy-Gor? Well, he seems to have gotten his own six-issue miniseries in 1999, written by none other than Rick Veitch...!

*Although Gaiman's 1989-1996 Sandman rather quickly deviated from its initial premise as a sort of horror book set in the DC Universe into something far more literate and interested in its own original characters and mythology, I think its origins as such make it a superhero comic, albeit a very odd one. That and, of course, the fact that it began as a reimagining of Jack Kirby's 1974 Sandman series, itself a reimagining of the original Golden Age comics character created by Garnder Fox and Bert Christman (A character that Kirby had also worked on as a much younger man). I forget who first made this argument—my best guess is Mike Sangiacomo, whose writing about comics I would have read in the Cleveland Plain Dealer in the mid-nineties—but a good part of the way Gaimain's Sandman might have took off in the direct comics market was the way in which it adhered to standard superhero comics conventions despite rapidly becoming very much its own thing. Think the monthly-shipping floppies, the shared universe setting, the DCU continuity and guest-stars, the specials and miniseries...there was even a gimmick cover (a glow-in-the-dark one on 1991's Sandman Special) and an imprint-wide crossover event series running through the annuals, 1993's "The Children's Crusade". 

**Although given the later legal fight between McFarlane and Gaiman over the character Angela, I wonder if the future stories that the various Spawn comics got out of her conception were ultimately worthwhile for McFarlane. She, of course, eventually—and rather oddly—ended up a Marvel character, being folded into their Thor mythology, although given the toxic nature of Gaiman's reputation now, I highly doubt we'll ever see Angela again anywhere.