The sole purpose of this book is to justify his toy company to eventually put out a Spawn/Batman action figure two pack. Todd realized long ago that the money is in the toys.
my memories of mcfarlene toys lie in figures for tenchi muyo and soul caliber 2. they were utter dog shit; made of cheap, horrible rubbery plastic, and they were in nonsensical poses that made them so they couldn't stand up without the bases they came with. and they were so poorly weighted that all four figures i had broke the pegs of those stands
Even today oddly, toys are still profitable. Just the retail for the factories are becoming stupid to hold on, and investors know it and probably are rigging it?
@@stonetic2515 don't get me wrong, they absolutely looked fabulous in the box and in the catalogues. just, you couldn't actually play with them or display them out of the box without handling them like a figure worth 10 times what they cost
His action figures piss me off because he picked up the license to dc figures which were 6 inch and made by mattel before he acquired it, and then made them 7 inch. Like why, 6 inch is the most popular scale. Now the dc figures barely fit i. Scale with anything other than themselves, not even the old dc figures
Exactly, yet he still sucks at making human anatomy even on the DC multiverse figures he's selling. None of them scale together or a few can't go well since overly tall or weird half realistic half cartoony. You can tell he just wants to do full on statues but collectors kept bugging him over figures with articulation
Genuine glee trying to see McFarlane decide who wins in a fight between his favourite OC and his action figure cash cow/favourite superhero he didn’t make. One highlight, Capullo’s pencils on that Batman/rogues splash was nice to see on his social accounts.
"As big and powerful as my enemies may be, each has their weakness. I find that, exploit it, and scare the crap out of them while doing so!" Actual Batman dialogue
I'll never forget reading some random fan letter to Todd McFarlane in an old Marvel(spidey)comic,it was like the shortest letter anyone had ever wrote and it said,"dear Todd McFarland...an artist you are, a writer you're not." And that was it!!!👌L😅L some things never change.
There's an old screwball comedy called The Kentucky Fried Movie that does a spoof on Enter the Dragon called "A Fistful of Yen". The character spoofing the villain Han decapitates a prisoner and then says, "Now take him to be tortured!". That was a comedy though.
I missed the old school comic book roasts that Zack used to do. This was fun. Also the book looks so bad, but then Spawn was always about the art over the story so it's not what I'd call a surprise to find out it's just F tier writing.
Spawn is the most boring superhero not overrated but just at the level he needs to be. There a reason Spawn will never reach the heights he did Years ago
If I had to describe Todd? He's, personality wise, equivalent to Vince McMahon. It's been more apparent in the 2000's and onwards. I'll always love Spawn but at times I wish he'd go public domain.
Todd's inking makes capullos art look like it was printed on a4 paper. Honestly, why didn't they get Scott Snyder to write? His skills at horror writing would've worked here. Heck, Scott's now bland formula would've been miles better than what we got.
I assume it was Todd's ego that prevented Synder from writing this crossover, since, like you said, it's perfectly in his wheelhouse in both tone and content. At the very least, Todd could have come up with the plot and Synder could have scripted it into something coherent!
I can relate. Whenever I've read Spawn stories I've always thought, "Am I just not getting it?" It sounds like a simple premise on paper, but the stories always come across as overly serious nonsense. A Batman and Spawn crossover is also another idea that sounds good on paper. Unfortunately, the chemistry just isn't there. It's just two dark, brooding characters, so the whole thing is a wash.
Yeah. If you're going to mash up two dark, brooding characters and one of them has to be Batman then the other one needs to be Punisher IMO. That's the crossover that has potential. Spawn brings nothing to the game but all the chains. He's got all those you could ask for.
No I’m the same, that goes for a majority of 90’s comics…. They’re just not that good and mind you I’m 37. That’s all you hear the old heads on thinking critical go on about is how great comics were in the early 90’s, no they were not. They were exposition heavy, poorly drawn and poorly inked and poorly colored with lousy dialogue. Now, I know they weren’t all like that but a majority, especially marvel and image were all Surface and no substance.
To all the morons who were praying that Todd McFarlane would take over "writing" all of DC's books, here you are. Still want it? Todd is a decent artist. Sadly, he insists on writing, which he has no skill at, and seems to refuse to draw, the one thing he IS good at. I loved Todd's art on Amazing Spider-Man back in the day. But when he started doing Spider-Man's self-titled book, it was pure trash! Yes, the art was nice. But the stories were so BAD! He had no idea how to do characterization. I pulled my hair out when he turned Wendigo into a cute forest creature! I always kind of hoped he would succeed so someone could wreck his creations on the par he did other people's. Sadly, as long as he makes a buck, he couldn't care less. He'll destroy them himself. UGH!
I can't paste it here or find a link but there is famous panel (from Batman I think) with a police detective telling some pistol wielding vigilante "Caucasian female. Approximately twenty years old. We don't know how she died because she was decapitated".....
Let me get this straight: Batman bluffs that he'll press a button that releases a bunch of insane mass murderers back on the streets to potentially kill hundreds while maybe taking out the bad guy along the way? To think that they say the Nolan and Snyder Batmen were mass murderers... Todd should really, really keep his pen away from anything related to the Caped Crusader.
It felt everyone forgot how bad the original Batman/Spawn crossovers were in order to build the hype for the new one; neither were highly regarded. Still, I like the glow-in-the-dark cover to the hardcover reprint - it has a funny smell. I guess the well-written issues of Spawn are still issues 8-11, a quartet of one-shot stories written by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave Sim and Frank Miller, in that order, which made the most of the character. And I got the variant cover with the glow-in-the-dark ink...funny enough, it's the cover art you didn't like.
I loved Todd as an artist in Amazing Spider-Man, I think his biggest mistake was believing to be a big star and working on Spider-Man. There was some cool art there, but the stories were terrible and the art was too messy overall anyway. Spawn had some good ideas and again some good panels here and there but it was hard to read. He could have been a great artist but he believed his hype, and since he made money off of it I don't think he ever got the chance to realize it was a mistake.
Too many people get a little bit of fame and then start believing their own hype. They think they know everything, can't make mistakes, and no longer need any kind of oversight. Artists, writers, scientists, politicians. TOO MANY.
I swear the writing is Spawn wasn't this bad early on! Then again, after this display I shudder at the possibility of revisiting what used to be a one of the favorite series of my early teens.
@@yagamifire7861 Yeah . I bought 4 spawn comic collections and the first one is a disaster. Cool to look at the panels but the story . Holy Shit ! No real arcs , no real meaningful struggles , those god-awful comic-creator opinion-comics in between that just stinks of arrogance and narcism , and the last trash of a comic-story about two gangs of the geeks and the nerds is just a straight up backstab at the comic-fans overall . The second book looks like it finally get a good story but man .... this aint just juvenile writing. Its incompetently juvenile writing. I still think that spawn have still great potential alone because it is still an Edgelord done right but how they wasted the potential is still upsetting to look at.
If time doesn't line up across the two dimensions...then how can you say Batman's mom died "on the same day" as Spawn's wife? "Uh... okay, uh... They were both named Martha...?"
So Todd's writing continues to be as frustrating as it was back in the 90's then, I see.... The more I learned from him lately the clearer it gets for me that he never took comics very seriously, he's just a talented artist and comics is a way he stumbled upon to make a living as a business man. His story coming out from Marvel to go starting Image is far more exciting than anything he ever wrote. He clearly just sees writing as being in service of the drawings and not the other way around.
Gotta say Zack , Todd McFarlane might not be a good writer, but he sure does know how to draw , I loved his work on Spider-Man when I was young, still does treasure these issues to this day , his work on Batman year two was also one of my favorite, so that’s my opinion on the guy
I liked Spawns first 100 issues. Especially the one offs that were their own contained story (like the issue where Spawn makes three guys tell their versions of how they broke into a womans house and murdered her). From the #150s, it was okay. But once they retconned the Armageddon arc, Todd turned Spawn into a basic superhero comic, and I've barely kept up since. Which sucks, because Spawn's my favorite character. This comic was... poor. Poor writing, poor execution. The only good thing about it was Greg Capullos pencils.
Tom King? I've never liked his writing on the Batman books. It was clear to me that he never understood the character and handled Bane very poorly. This is a writer who clearly doesn't even know what he's talking about.
I sold some of my collectibles to a guy who used to play D&D with McFarlane in the 90s. Apparently, he was a nice enough guy, but dropped everything and everyone as soon as he hit it big with Image.
Well dumb luck too, there are people more talented than mcfarlane that never ever made it. Just because you have the talent, the drive and the desire it doesn’t mean it’ll guarantee success. Just have to be in the right place and the right time.
That line went from a neat zinger about brainwashing soldiers to a line from Garth Marenghi's dark place and it wasn't even an abrupt fall into stupidity. It was like watching a train crash in slow-mo.
Thanks, I totally forgot about Garth Marenghi's dark place, but yes, there are similarities between the two, sad thing is Todd actually thought he was being "edgy"... much like Garth
So Todd MacFarlane saw Superman versus Batman, with the whole Martha thing with their moms and said to himself “I’m going to do the same thing but with Blake!” So stupid and uninspired.
Todd McFarlane was a big influence on my love for art when I was growing up. And after this story... I am just... Jehoshaphat.. When Todd makes another crossover book to boost his Toy Sales, (Cause let's be honest, that's what this is all really about and I respect that). I am BEGGING to the powers above, that he just releases an Art-Book, instead. Definitely no writing needed! Me and a ton of people would be satisfied just to look at a compilation of pretty pictures drawn by Todd McFarlane and friends.
I'm glad at least someone agrees that TMcF is a super crappy writer. I tried reading Spawn when it was new and the hype was overblown, but even as a kid I thought it was so wooden and cliche.
Todd McFarlane is used car dealer Rudy Russo (Zach will know this reference since he knows all those kind of references. It's in his mental library of old-school "grooveyard of forgotten favorites" references).
The inking isn’t THAT bad lol. TM is definitely arrogant but you can’t take away the fact that he’s created some pretty cool stuff in his time. His writing is shit though lol
I would still take McFarlane over most of Marvel and DC’s current crop any day. Would it be best to have great writers? Yes. But we are in such a bad place right now. I haven’t purchased a new comic in such a long time because it’s so bad. And they tell me they don’t want me as a customer.
So... they end it with showing that Wanda exists in the Batman universe... and Martha (still young) exists in the Spawn universe. So they could have just... met each other and been happy?
I liked what it was trying to do. The art was good. Todd is a better inker than when he does both pencil and ink. He does flip flop back and forth between digital inking and traditional, even on this specific book if I recall seeing some of his vids. But even he’s admitted that his anatomy isn’t as good as others. It’s his flair for drama that he brings to his art that makes up for his shortcomings. But this series (if it is one) and Marc Silvestri’s Batman title are to shore up DC’s sagging a$$ for end of the year. To make the their financials look good. Silvestri’s series is better but it’s a slow burn. Not a lot is actually happening to move the story forward. Hopefully it picks up, just not sure how many issues it’s supposed to be in total.
Wait, they made _more_ Batman/Spam crossovers?! I guess this particular one is more lopsided in Batman's favor? The one I remember had Spawn basically do everything because he's magic, including resurrecting Batman after he got himself killed.
Todd McFarlane use to be awesome but now he sucks. And I'm tired of hearing him saying there will be a new spawn movie since that is way too old now. Like it has already been over twenty years and I'm not even young anymore that I have lost interest. I understand that he needed time to make sure that the movie would be great but it shouldn't take him that long.
Honestly, I think I've gained a lot of respect for McFarlane as a businessman, hearing that he built this small media empire from Spawn despite the fact that it sucks.
What really confused me is why they made some hero an anti-killing character while his enemies turn into more bloodthirsty psychos more interested in killing than anything else. And no matter how these villains caused lot of innocent casualties, the heroes still save them from totally deserved deaths for no reason. This make me sick.
I love both Batman and Spawn they are my favourite dark heroes. However can anyone please tell me WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? Is there more to this story? Also Batman and Spawn have met twice before so how come they don’t know each other? And what the end plot for the Joker and Violator?
10:21 The only way this could make logical sense is that if you know anything about the functionality of a Hellspawn, they can die by decapitation or complete loss of Necroplasm. Is a broken neck considered decapitation?
I read an interview with Todd from the 90s and he has nothing but contempt for writers. He even said he never reads anything because it is unnecessary to read.
I always thought that the spawn comics were weak hit or a hard miss with its writing. Spawn is still stylisticly an awesome hero because its an Edgelord done right with still sooo much potential to get out . I just dont like the idea that he is the "King of Hobos"-thing , too many sidestories that are straight up stabs at the fans and other comics creators , too many filler stories and some very lame Side-characters that get sometimes too much story-time .
I understand that the old line, "The smart ones always go into finance, not " can apply to comics like anything else. But at least if it were a meritocracy, they'd actually be able to locate and raise up people with passion AND a shred of talent.
I loved Infinity Inc and followed him to Detective Comics, Hulk, then Spider-Man, before having enough. I at least got some nice value comics out of it from his Marvel run but never got into Spawn.
Remember when Todd McFarland was just a kid from Canada who loved to draw and gave us kick-ass Spider-Man and Spawn comics? Now he's just a complete corporate goon. He's become what he used to rally against. Damn shame.
The Image guys went big in the only era that could have liked them. The '90s were the one time where looks mattered more than writting so much more than any other. They could design the edgiest characters with the most extreme backstory but could not write a script. They thought they spontaneously turned into writers the same way Pokemon can evolve and gain a second type.
this video was the least informative I could have watched, it was just tangents without one thought being completed and the only thing that actually had any substance was nearing the end when you actually showed some of the worst writing moments the book had and wasn't just nitpicking of 2 or 3 panels. overall the video was 5% review 94% ranting and 1% ad for first kill. i highly suggest trying to take things in a more well thought out format because the ranting makes it feel like i wasted my time. at the very least i didn't waste my money on batman spawn.
Todd’s Batman Year 2, Hulk run, Amazing Spider-Man run, Spider-Man run, and early Spawn stuff was fantastic. Then, not so much. He was never a good writer. Remember, he bought all the Big Mac/Sossa *baseballs. 🤦🏻♂️
2:35 That Uninspired Panel #Cardealership #Wheaterlady #thatsthalife 8:35 What do you mean they don't do anything - THEY ARE POSING! (It is a McFarlance Comic!)
I liked the Spawn tv series and the design of this comic by Capullo. But, if Scott Snyder wrote this comic on direction from Macfarlane, he could make the characters exactly like the series. But, I guess that hindsight is a bitch.
I just bought this book from my local comic shop on Friday after the shop owner recommended it to me and I want my $6.99 and the 15 minutes it took me to read this shit back smh. I don't know why I listened to him because I usually don't buy modern comics for the obvious reasons. I shoulda just bought manga and older comics like I always do 🤦🏽♂️.
I don't remember much about Spawn comics, but I remember the following: I felt some urge to buy up these comics when I was a kid, like some weird obligation- even though I remember going back through 100 first issues and trying to figure out what the big deal was. There were already these cool figures and stuff, and it seemed like the characters were just around for an issue and a half and then they were dead, and most of them didn't do anything much. I kept feeling like I must have missed some crucial element that made these Spawn comics so 'awesome' and just couldn't find it. Eventually I just assumed I'd been duped. Some of the characters looked cool. I mean, I was like 14 or something, anything with skulls and chains and guns and teeth was 'cool' back then. Some things happened in the comics but I had no idea what was going on. It wasn't because I was dumb or missed an issue, it was just often unclear exactly what the Hell was going on. Most of the things happening in the books seemed to occur for no other reason than to set up a 'cool art' panel and that was really about it. Spawn was one of the comic book characters ever.
The sole purpose of this book is to justify his toy company to eventually put out a Spawn/Batman action figure two pack. Todd realized long ago that the money is in the toys.
my memories of mcfarlene toys lie in figures for tenchi muyo and soul caliber 2.
they were utter dog shit; made of cheap, horrible rubbery plastic, and they were in nonsensical poses that made them so they couldn't stand up without the bases they came with. and they were so poorly weighted that all four figures i had broke the pegs of those stands
Even today oddly, toys are still profitable. Just the retail for the factories are becoming stupid to hold on, and investors know it and probably are rigging it?
@@stonetic2515 don't get me wrong, they absolutely looked fabulous in the box and in the catalogues. just, you couldn't actually play with them or display them out of the box without handling them like a figure worth 10 times what they cost
His action figures piss me off because he picked up the license to dc figures which were 6 inch and made by mattel before he acquired it, and then made them 7 inch. Like why, 6 inch is the most popular scale. Now the dc figures barely fit i. Scale with anything other than themselves, not even the old dc figures
Exactly, yet he still sucks at making human anatomy even on the DC multiverse figures he's selling. None of them scale together or a few can't go well since overly tall or weird half realistic half cartoony. You can tell he just wants to do full on statues but collectors kept bugging him over figures with articulation
I feel like I like the idea of Spawn better that I liked the actual comic.
@@greenkidd529
So the HBO series is better than the comics?
I feel the same about the cartoon. Everyone tells me it's great. Honestly I just didn't get into it. Which sucks because Keith David's voice rocks.
The Darkness > Spawn
Yeah yeah, but Sam and twitch was pretty cool🤔👍 I don't know why I just really liked random issues of that comic back in the day
@@greenkidd529 Keith is the shit
Genuine glee trying to see McFarlane decide who wins in a fight between his favourite OC and his action figure cash cow/favourite superhero he didn’t make.
One highlight, Capullo’s pencils on that Batman/rogues splash was nice to see on his social accounts.
"Now I use what's above my neck. My brain!" Sounds like a Homer Simpsons line 🤣
"As big and powerful as my enemies may be, each has their weakness. I find that, exploit it, and scare the crap out of them while doing so!"
Actual Batman dialogue
I was in my head like "that doesn't sound like Batman."
Actual batman is dogshit today
@@laughing_man_3378 That's Todd talking. Ain't Batman's style to speak or think in this manner.
"You're finished punk!" actual Batman dialogue. H esaid punk a lot.
I'll never forget reading some random fan letter to Todd McFarlane in an old Marvel(spidey)comic,it was like the shortest letter anyone had ever wrote and it said,"dear Todd McFarland...an artist you are, a writer you're not."
And that was it!!!👌L😅L some things never change.
Sadley most of the Image guys totally lack in the writing Dept.
There's an old screwball comedy called The Kentucky Fried Movie that does a spoof on Enter the Dragon called "A Fistful of Yen". The character spoofing the villain Han decapitates a prisoner and then says, "Now take him to be tortured!". That was a comedy though.
We are building a fighting force of extraordinary magnitude
@@mrjefe8927 You have our gratitude.
"Take him to Detroit."
@@JustinGammon 🤣🤣🤣
This is Butkus, Klahn's bodyguard. He is tough and ruthless. This is Kwong, Klahn's chauffeur. He is rough and toothless.
I missed the old school comic book roasts that Zack used to do. This was fun. Also the book looks so bad, but then Spawn was always about the art over the story so it's not what I'd call a surprise to find out it's just F tier writing.
Spawn is the most boring superhero not overrated but just at the level he needs to be. There a reason Spawn will never reach the heights he did Years ago
I Miss The Ripping L😂L The "Ripping and the tearing"👈😆🤣🙃👍
If I had to describe Todd? He's, personality wise, equivalent to Vince McMahon. It's been more apparent in the 2000's and onwards. I'll always love Spawn but at times I wish he'd go public domain.
Todd's inking makes capullos art look like it was printed on a4 paper. Honestly, why didn't they get Scott Snyder to write? His skills at horror writing would've worked here. Heck, Scott's now bland formula would've been miles better than what we got.
I assume it was Todd's ego that prevented Synder from writing this crossover, since, like you said, it's perfectly in his wheelhouse in both tone and content. At the very least, Todd could have come up with the plot and Synder could have scripted it into something coherent!
I can relate. Whenever I've read Spawn stories I've always thought, "Am I just not getting it?" It sounds like a simple premise on paper, but the stories always come across as overly serious nonsense. A Batman and Spawn crossover is also another idea that sounds good on paper. Unfortunately, the chemistry just isn't there. It's just two dark, brooding characters, so the whole thing is a wash.
Yeah. If you're going to mash up two dark, brooding characters and one of them has to be Batman then the other one needs to be Punisher IMO. That's the crossover that has potential. Spawn brings nothing to the game but all the chains. He's got all those you could ask for.
No I’m the same, that goes for a majority of 90’s comics…. They’re just not that good and mind you I’m 37.
That’s all you hear the old heads on thinking critical go on about is how great comics were in the early 90’s, no they were not. They were exposition heavy, poorly drawn and poorly inked and poorly colored with lousy dialogue.
Now, I know they weren’t all like that but a majority, especially marvel and image were all Surface and no substance.
@@djinconroe yea If anything it should've had Robin to fter out the brood
I wanted to love "Spawn" as a teenager, art was sick, but I always thought that something is missing. I was smart teenager but still...
Honestly i think it could be done, but this writing was like a Saturday morning cartoon mixed with adult swim visuals
I remember Batman calling Spawn "Punk" 3 or 4 times in the previous crossovers. I wonder if he does it here.
To all the morons who were praying that Todd McFarlane would take over "writing" all of DC's books, here you are. Still want it? Todd is a decent artist. Sadly, he insists on writing, which he has no skill at, and seems to refuse to draw, the one thing he IS good at. I loved Todd's art on Amazing Spider-Man back in the day. But when he started doing Spider-Man's self-titled book, it was pure trash! Yes, the art was nice. But the stories were so BAD! He had no idea how to do characterization. I pulled my hair out when he turned Wendigo into a cute forest creature! I always kind of hoped he would succeed so someone could wreck his creations on the par he did other people's. Sadly, as long as he makes a buck, he couldn't care less. He'll destroy them himself. UGH!
I'm kind of sad that Todd McFarlane and Neal Adams never wrote a comic together. Admit it, you'd love to see how that would turn out...
I can't paste it here or find a link but there is famous panel (from Batman I think) with a police detective telling some pistol wielding vigilante "Caucasian female. Approximately twenty years old. We don't know how she died because she was decapitated".....
Bruh…🤦♂️😂
That can’t be a real panel.
Imagine phoning in the story between these 2 popular characters. Even Todd knows this isn't worth more than 2 hours of his time.
Let me get this straight: Batman bluffs that he'll press a button that releases a bunch of insane mass murderers back on the streets to potentially kill hundreds while maybe taking out the bad guy along the way?
To think that they say the Nolan and Snyder Batmen were mass murderers...
Todd should really, really keep his pen away from anything related to the Caped Crusader.
Horrible writing is why I stayed with Marvel when all my friends were jumping ship to Image.
It felt everyone forgot how bad the original Batman/Spawn crossovers were in order to build the hype for the new one; neither were highly regarded. Still, I like the glow-in-the-dark cover to the hardcover reprint - it has a funny smell.
I guess the well-written issues of Spawn are still issues 8-11, a quartet of one-shot stories written by Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave Sim and Frank Miller, in that order, which made the most of the character.
And I got the variant cover with the glow-in-the-dark ink...funny enough, it's the cover art you didn't like.
I loved Todd as an artist in Amazing Spider-Man, I think his biggest mistake was believing to be a big star and working on Spider-Man. There was some cool art there, but the stories were terrible and the art was too messy overall anyway. Spawn had some good ideas and again some good panels here and there but it was hard to read. He could have been a great artist but he believed his hype, and since he made money off of it I don't think he ever got the chance to realize it was a mistake.
Too many people get a little bit of fame and then start believing their own hype. They think they know everything, can't make mistakes, and no longer need any kind of oversight. Artists, writers, scientists, politicians. TOO MANY.
McFarlane tried to give Spider-Man the moniker ‘The ArachKnight’!
RIP MARVEL DC always win DC forever
@@midnightxtale👍🏻💯
I swear the writing is Spawn wasn't this bad early on! Then again, after this display I shudder at the possibility of revisiting what used to be a one of the favorite series of my early teens.
@@yagamifire7861 Yeah . I bought 4 spawn comic collections and the first one is a disaster. Cool to look at the panels but the story . Holy Shit ! No real arcs , no real meaningful struggles , those god-awful comic-creator opinion-comics in between that just stinks of arrogance and narcism , and the last trash of a comic-story about two gangs of the geeks and the nerds is just a straight up backstab at the comic-fans overall .
The second book looks like it finally get a good story but man .... this aint just juvenile writing. Its incompetently juvenile writing.
I still think that spawn have still great potential alone because it is still an Edgelord done right but how they wasted the potential is still upsetting to look at.
If time doesn't line up across the two dimensions...then how can you say Batman's mom died "on the same day" as Spawn's wife?
"Uh... okay, uh... They were both named Martha...?"
the slit throat and broken neck part had me on the floor!
🤣😂🤣
9:48
Here's a time stamp for you, too funny. 🤣😂🤣
So Todd's writing continues to be as frustrating as it was back in the 90's then, I see.... The more I learned from him lately the clearer it gets for me that he never took comics very seriously, he's just a talented artist and comics is a way he stumbled upon to make a living as a business man. His story coming out from Marvel to go starting Image is far more exciting than anything he ever wrote. He clearly just sees writing as being in service of the drawings and not the other way around.
"Todd McFarlane Is The WORST Writer In Comics"; learned this way back with The Torment.
Gotta say Zack , Todd McFarlane might not be a good writer, but he sure does know how to draw , I loved his work on Spider-Man when I was young, still does treasure these issues to this day , his work on Batman year two was also one of my favorite, so that’s my opinion on the guy
Writing has never been his thing, but it does seem that he's gotten worse.
Todd has numbers , sales , and business on his mind spawn just a stock to invest in he makes “content “ not art
I liked Spawns first 100 issues. Especially the one offs that were their own contained story (like the issue where Spawn makes three guys tell their versions of how they broke into a womans house and murdered her). From the #150s, it was okay. But once they retconned the Armageddon arc, Todd turned Spawn into a basic superhero comic, and I've barely kept up since. Which sucks, because Spawn's my favorite character. This comic was... poor. Poor writing, poor execution. The only good thing about it was Greg Capullos pencils.
Much like Tom King's Batman: Catwoman, it's best if you just zone out and look at the art.
Edit: is it Capullo? Something about the inks looks...off.
Tom King? I've never liked his writing on the Batman books. It was clear to me that he never understood the character and handled Bane very poorly. This is a writer who clearly doesn't even know what he's talking about.
90% of the writers at marvel and DC who are almost as bad as Todd sigh with relief that he still holds the top spot.
I sold some of my collectibles to a guy who used to play D&D with McFarlane in the 90s. Apparently, he was a nice enough guy, but dropped everything and everyone as soon as he hit it big with Image.
Todd inspires me to be an artist-writer- business mogul. All I know how to do is draw and nothing else. And that's enough to be successful!
Well dumb luck too, there are people more talented than mcfarlane that never ever made it. Just because you have the talent, the drive and the desire it doesn’t mean it’ll guarantee success. Just have to be in the right place and the right time.
Todd is a "we're not so different, you and I" kind of guy
That line went from a neat zinger about brainwashing soldiers to a line from Garth Marenghi's dark place and it wasn't even an abrupt fall into stupidity. It was like watching a train crash in slow-mo.
Thanks, I totally forgot about Garth Marenghi's dark place, but yes, there are similarities between the two, sad thing is Todd actually thought he was being "edgy"... much like Garth
So Todd MacFarlane saw Superman versus Batman, with the whole Martha thing with their moms and said to himself “I’m going to do the same thing but with Blake!”
So stupid and uninspired.
So the animated HBO series is the best way to enjoy Spawn? Because I’ve tried multiple times to read spawn, but got bored. I thought it was just me
Todd McFarlane was a big influence on my love for art when I was growing up. And after this story... I am just... Jehoshaphat.. When Todd makes another crossover book to boost his Toy Sales, (Cause let's be honest, that's what this is all really about and I respect that). I am BEGGING to the powers above, that he just releases an Art-Book, instead. Definitely no writing needed! Me and a ton of people would be satisfied just to look at a compilation of pretty pictures drawn by Todd McFarlane and friends.
“The best race car drivers can’t necessarily build a car from scratch. “- Me
It reminds me of the nonsense of Batman and Superman’s moms both named Martha.
I thought this book was supposed to save DC comics and rejuvenate the entire comic industry?
I'm glad at least someone agrees that TMcF is a super crappy writer. I tried reading Spawn when it was new and the hype was overblown, but even as a kid I thought it was so wooden and cliche.
I remember people hated the first Batman and Spawn crossover.
How can you tell if a piece is digitally inked?
Todd McFarlane is used car dealer Rudy Russo
(Zach will know this reference since he knows all those kind of references. It's in his mental library of old-school "grooveyard of forgotten favorites" references).
Used Cars right?! The Kurt Russell character...
@@markw110 U got it!
Spawn was never about the writing. Spawn (one of my all time favorites) is an art book.
The inking isn’t THAT bad lol. TM is definitely arrogant but you can’t take away the fact that he’s created some pretty cool stuff in his time. His writing is shit though lol
damn, my boi got a legit batman voice
2 of my very very fav' characters...wow...and Todd blew it....UGH!!!
Todd had over 30 years and STILL hasn't improved as a writer.
I would still take McFarlane over most of Marvel and DC’s current crop any day. Would it be best to have great writers? Yes. But we are in such a bad place right now.
I haven’t purchased a new comic in such a long time because it’s so bad.
And they tell me they don’t want me as a customer.
So... they end it with showing that Wanda exists in the Batman universe... and Martha (still young) exists in the Spawn universe. So they could have just... met each other and been happy?
I like the OG Spawn / Batman comic by Frank Miller
I liked what it was trying to do. The art was good. Todd is a better inker than when he does both pencil and ink. He does flip flop back and forth between digital inking and traditional, even on this specific book if I recall seeing some of his vids. But even he’s admitted that his anatomy isn’t as good as others. It’s his flair for drama that he brings to his art that makes up for his shortcomings.
But this series (if it is one) and Marc Silvestri’s Batman title are to shore up DC’s sagging a$$ for end of the year. To make the their financials look good.
Silvestri’s series is better but it’s a slow burn. Not a lot is actually happening to move the story forward. Hopefully it picks up, just not sure how many issues it’s supposed to be in total.
You are wrong ! Tom King is the WORST writer in comics
Not sure what people expected. I have yet to see any list with “Best” and “Writer” in the title, followed by McFarlane
Wait, they made _more_ Batman/Spam crossovers?!
I guess this particular one is more lopsided in Batman's favor? The one I remember had Spawn basically do everything because he's magic, including resurrecting Batman after he got himself killed.
Todd McFarlane use to be awesome but now he sucks. And I'm tired of hearing him saying there will be a new spawn movie since that is way too old now. Like it has already been over twenty years and I'm not even young anymore that I have lost interest. I understand that he needed time to make sure that the movie would be great but it shouldn't take him that long.
Modern Frank Miller is objectively worse than Todd McFarlane has ever been. Let's be honest.
I ordered it just to get some more Capullo Spawn art. Some of the Batman faces don''t look like Capullo art or McFarlane art.
Honestly, I think I've gained a lot of respect for McFarlane as a businessman, hearing that he built this small media empire from Spawn despite the fact that it sucks.
What really confused me is why they made some hero an anti-killing character while his enemies turn into more bloodthirsty psychos more interested in killing than anything else. And no matter how these villains caused lot of innocent casualties, the heroes still save them from totally deserved deaths for no reason. This make me sick.
Hack Snyder is probably the perfect director for Spawn. He doesn't value quality writing either.
Todd couldnt write anything himself which got him into legal crap after he hired neil gaiman.
I've always felt Todd's ideas are meant for 4 pages and should be allowed to be condensed. Given any distance to travel as a story and it unravels.
The first Batman/Spawn cross over that happened back in the 90's was complete dog shit as well.
I'm always worried if my writing is good enough. But this gives me confidence.
4:46 so the cia, fbi, atf, or irs
There too many to pick from to make the joke so there you can have all of them
I love both Batman and Spawn they are my favourite dark heroes. However can anyone please tell me WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON? Is there more to this story? Also Batman and Spawn have met twice before so how come they don’t know each other? And what the end plot for the Joker and Violator?
10:21 The only way this could make logical sense is that if you know anything about the functionality of a Hellspawn, they can die by decapitation or complete loss of Necroplasm. Is a broken neck considered decapitation?
I read an interview with Todd from the 90s and he has nothing but contempt for writers. He even said he never reads anything because it is unnecessary to read.
I always thought that the spawn comics were weak hit or a hard miss with its writing.
Spawn is still stylisticly an awesome hero because its an Edgelord done right with still sooo much potential to get out . I just dont like the idea that he is the "King of Hobos"-thing , too many sidestories that are straight up stabs at the fans and other comics creators , too many filler stories and some very lame Side-characters that get sometimes too much story-time .
Everyone in Gotham over 40 killed Batman's parents togheter, with the exceptions of Comissar Gordon and Alfred
Great video, but holy shit, that ending had me rolling. Perfect ad placement.
How do u make ur voice sound like Kevin conroy !!??
King Spawn, Gunslinger and Scorched books are the best books Spawn wise out right now
I understand that the old line, "The smart ones always go into finance, not " can apply to comics like anything else. But at least if it were a meritocracy, they'd actually be able to locate and raise up people with passion AND a shred of talent.
I loved Infinity Inc and followed him to Detective Comics, Hulk, then Spider-Man, before having enough. I at least got some nice value comics out of it from his Marvel run but never got into Spawn.
RIP MARVEL 😂
Remember when Todd McFarland was just a kid from Canada who loved to draw and gave us kick-ass Spider-Man and Spawn comics? Now he's just a complete corporate goon. He's become what he used to rally against. Damn shame.
The Image guys went big in the only era that could have liked them. The '90s were the one time where looks mattered more than writting so much more than any other. They could design the edgiest characters with the most extreme backstory but could not write a script. They thought they spontaneously turned into writers the same way Pokemon can evolve and gain a second type.
How much does that book improve if you erase the last 2-3 sentences in every speech bubble?
At this point though marvel is total crap.Even the old spawn movie is way better than anything in phase 4.
Fact
this video was the least informative I could have watched, it was just tangents without one thought being completed and the only thing that actually had any substance was nearing the end when you actually showed some of the worst writing moments the book had and wasn't just nitpicking of 2 or 3 panels.
overall the video was 5% review 94% ranting and 1% ad for first kill.
i highly suggest trying to take things in a more well thought out format because the ranting makes it feel like i wasted my time.
at the very least i didn't waste my money on batman spawn.
Todd’s Batman Year 2, Hulk run, Amazing Spider-Man run, Spider-Man run, and early Spawn stuff was fantastic. Then, not so much. He was never a good writer. Remember, he bought all the Big Mac/Sossa *baseballs. 🤦🏻♂️
I like spawn
And Batman
This looks good
But I'm only here for art.
The Marc silvestri Batman book is miles ahead of this Batman/ Spawn
Comic
I would take Todd McFarlane over Tom king!
2:35 That Uninspired Panel
#Cardealership #Wheaterlady #thatsthalife
8:35 What do you mean they don't do anything - THEY ARE POSING! (It is a McFarlance Comic!)
I mean, the writing may suck, but the art looks fantastic.
Zack's Kevin Conroy Batman impression is seriously underrated.
batman would say do it, kill spawn, he would try to save him he still saves the bad guys
How the hell have you herd of Ottumwa Iowa? There are people in Iowa that don't know about Ottumwa Iowa.
The only thing I actually liked about the New 52 was Talon. It's nice to see that they've just turned him into a pre-Knightfall Azrael rip off..
I started reading Spawn recently. Great art, great characters but jesus, the writing was horrible.
I liked the Spawn tv series and the design of this comic by Capullo. But, if Scott Snyder wrote this comic on direction from Macfarlane, he could make the characters exactly like the series. But, I guess that hindsight is a bitch.
I just bought this book from my local comic shop on Friday after the shop owner recommended it to me and I want my $6.99 and the 15 minutes it took me to read this shit back smh. I don't know why I listened to him because I usually don't buy modern comics for the obvious reasons. I shoulda just bought manga and older comics like I always do 🤦🏽♂️.
I don't remember much about Spawn comics, but I remember the following:
I felt some urge to buy up these comics when I was a kid, like some weird obligation- even though I remember going back through 100 first issues and trying to figure out what the big deal was. There were already these cool figures and stuff, and it seemed like the characters were just around for an issue and a half and then they were dead, and most of them didn't do anything much. I kept feeling like I must have missed some crucial element that made these Spawn comics so 'awesome' and just couldn't find it. Eventually I just assumed I'd been duped.
Some of the characters looked cool. I mean, I was like 14 or something, anything with skulls and chains and guns and teeth was 'cool' back then.
Some things happened in the comics but I had no idea what was going on. It wasn't because I was dumb or missed an issue, it was just often unclear exactly what the Hell was going on. Most of the things happening in the books seemed to occur for no other reason than to set up a 'cool art' panel and that was really about it.
Spawn was one of the comic book characters ever.
The original Spawn comic is so poorly written