Spawn #171 - Image

I've been a huge fan of this book, ever since it's inception. I've also been a huge fan of McFarlane's ever since Young All-Stars and the Hulk. Even if he is a little over-exposed, and over commercialized. But that's ok. He's living the American dream. But, I also have to say, that this book right now, is probably the best I've seen in quite a while. I think it's flourishing all around, creatively wise. I think that David Hine is doing a fantastic job with these stories. And I continue, every issue, to be impressed with Brian Haberlin's pencils. I don't really feel that you could really say that the series was floundering for a while there. I just think that they had these huge myopic story-lines, that had been going on, in some form or another, for such a long time, that they needed to be wrapped up. I think that proved to be somewhat of a problem. They had to figure out how to do that, while staying within the believability and continuity of the character. In other words, I think that they dug themselves a very deep hole, and were having some difficulty getting out of it. But, having said that, they did indeed get out, they wrapped up most of the hanging story-lines, and now . . . now they're on to ever bigger greatness. This issue we're dealing with the demons, Ab and Zab, whom Spawn has pretty much left to their own device. Well they've created what they call Hell House. Basically what they've done is furnish the house, in each room, with Sin-Eaters. "They read your mind and manifest in the form of your greatest sin. They use that illusion to summon your guilt." And they've ended up trapping, unwittingly, Spawn in one of the rooms. Nyx helps to break him free, which puts him on the mission of breaking the rest of their guests free. In the process he finds a familiar figure in one of the rooms. It's his brother, Richard. It seems that Al Simmons has 2 brothers. And he completely forgot about them. Which is really just the beginning of their next story-arc. Fantastic! Like I said, this book, now, seems to be getting better with every issue.