Spawn #197 - Image

I kind of feel like I'm a 'nagging-Nancy' right now. It seems like I've been griping about a lot of little things in my reviews lately. Some of them may seem inconsequential, but . . when you've been reading comics as long as I have it's hard sometimes not to notice inconsistencies. And that's just the stuff actually in the books. On top of that we have to live with the decisions and choices that the companies and creators come up with. Take this book for instance. I thought it was fantastic when Whilce Portacio came on board as the artist. His style seemed to mesh perfectly with this character, and the theme and feel of the book. However, since coming on board . . Spawn #180 . . the schedule seems to have fallen farther and farther behind. All 12 issues came out the first year, but . . there's barely been 6 for this past one. I'm not saying that it's all Whilce's fault. He may be waiting for scripts. I don't know. I just know that it's hard to follow a book when you don't know when the issues are going to be coming out. There were 2 months between this issue and the last . . 5 months before that . . and 3 months before that. As a reader . . that gets frustrating. You have 2 choices . . you either wait, or quit buying the book. Obviously . . I came back. Anyways, having said that . . in this issue Jim is caught between the struggle of the Clown and the Redeemer. Both sides wants him, but the Redeemer is consumed by another emotion . . love, and loss. It appears that the Angel that Jim stuck to the wall in the alley, and then the Clown later came along and killed, was the Redeemer's wife. So even though he's following orders, he wants to know what's happened to her. So, while he's coming at Jim out of frustration, the Clown has been manipulating his emotions by appealing to his loss of memory and self. He's approaching Jim by acting like he's trying to help him . . trying to be a friend. So it isn't to much of a surprise when, on the final page, Jim tells the Clown . .'I've got your back from now on. You seem to be the only one I can trust these days.' That's going to come back to bite him in the ass. And that really was the extent of Todd McFarlane's story this issue. Some good news . . I guess. It looks like Khary Randolph will be stepping in to take over the pencilling chores. At least for next issue. Which will hopefully put it back on schedule. And then in #201, Szymon Kudranski will be taking over on the art with a photo-realistic style. I think that'll look neat on this book. So I'm not entirely negative. I still love this book, and this character. It's just a frustrating title to follow . . sometimes.