Spawn: The Dark Ages Complete Collection

Spawn Universe

by Brian Holguin (Writer/Colorist), Steve Niles, Liam Sharp (Artist)

Spawn: The Dark Ages Complete Collection reprints the journey of Lord Covenant, a 12th Century knight killed in a holy crusade far from his homeland, who returns to Earth as a HellSpawn. As a plague of violence and turmoil blankets the English countryside, the Dark Knight must choose whether to align himself with the innocent inhabitants of the once-thriving kingdom, or with the malevolent forces of evil and corruption. Featuring behind-the-scenes bonus art and a cover gallery, Spawn: The Dark Ages Complete Collection is the first time the series will be collected in a hardcover, oversized format. Reprints issues #1-28.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fantasy, Graphic Novels Comics

700 pages, Hardcover

First published September 3, 2013

About the author

American writer who writes comics, novels and animation. Some of his works include "Aria", "Savior," "Spawn" "The Dark Crystal: Creation Myths," "Godslayer" and "Kiss: Psycho Circus".

Reviews

[The Lion's Share · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book really p****** me off. I'm surprised I managed to keep reading all 700 pages after wanted to give up after 10!!

It starts off with battle and lots and lots of pointless small stories and confusion... Not until issue 15+ do you get an origin story. Honestly it is pointless to read anything before issue 11. Only does it get interesting from there onwards. Also the artwork and writing before issue 11 is very amateur. The women, even 12 year old girls, are drawn like they starred alongside the Hoff in Baywatch, with taught bodies and tits the size of their heads, it's f****** ridiculous, I think the writer definitely needs to grow up and get out a bit more.

The writing to begin with is painful and it is not even worth talking about pre issue 11 because it's absolute pants. I would have given this three stars if it wasn't for the 200-300 pages of shit I had to read. So...the good stuff..

From issue 11 they start to talk about how he came to be freed and walk the earth as a hell spawn, he was freed by a girl who had lost her father to a demon, she then claimed to speak directly to God and started a crusade, building an army of children. After finding spawn or "covenant" as he is named, he thanks her and begins training the children. Eventually they get slaughtered by some other evil and then there's some Vikings and then there is some other evil dude and so on. It's a really basic story line, but to sum it up he regains his true identity and there is redemption further down the line.

A thoroughly undeserved 2 stars! Saved from a 1 star due to a better storyline later on and the fact that I only give 1 stars to books that I find insulting in one way or another.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Volviendo a la preparatoria... the good old days :')

[Relstuart · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great premise. Uneven execution but ended well. Probably more of a 2 1/2 star book.

[Nathan Denna · Rating 4 out of 5]

The art and story get progressively more brutal as the series moves on. That's something that I love, but it is understandably not for everyone. There is one scene in particular where Lord Covenant forces 2 people to engage in a horrific act in a dungeon that made my jaw drop with how twisted it was. The only issue I had with the series was that the artwork for the first several issues was not pleasant to look at. By that, I mean it was ugly. Lines and colors were thick and dark and made finer details very difficult to decipher. The majority of the book does not have this issue, though, as the art style changes a few times throughout the run. If you love dark subject matter and grotesque violence, then this is a great comic for you!

[Miroslav · Rating 4 out of 5]

Overall, it is a very interesting series - personally, I liked this a bit more than the original Spawn. First half of the series is great - Liam Sharp is excellent choice and I would prefer that he stayed for all 28 issues. Nat Jones does a decent job, but he is nowhere near Sharp and it shows. In my case, the first thing that comes to mind when "Spawn: The Dark Ages" is mentioned, will be Liam Shapr's artwork (which is clearly influenced by Simon Bisley). It's not something that you will usually see in a "mainstream" comic book. Same is true when it comes to the story - Holguin wrote the story for the first 14 issues, while Steve Niles wrote the second half. Niles' story is a bit streched and it seems he's loosing focus from time to time, or spends too much time on certain things. But, despite those flaws, he still manages to keep the reader and delivers a good ending (and the only fitting ending for series like this). Even if you are not a fan of Spawn comic, this collected edition is still worth buying.

[Davide Pappalardo · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a time, when I was a teen (more than 20 years ago, sigh), when Spawn was the coolest thing in the world to me. Image comics' hyper-violence, Grag Capullo's gritty art, a plot full of angst, bullets, gore, "gothic" undertones...it was like the Crown, Terminator, Ghost Rider, all mixed together. Then, things changed, as they always do. I got older, my taste got more "sophisticated" (yeah, sorry for the very conceited term) and I started noticing the "cracks": a plot with not much substance, a lot of going nowhere with it, the fact the decent parts were all from guest writers. Worse, it became clear McFarlane didn't have any real direction or vision, especially when he started trying anything and contradicting himself time and time again: Spawn became a background character aping Swamp Things and Dream, then a darker and hellish God that ended the war between Heaven and Hell - but the next week the war didn't really end - ...a mess. Writers went and go, retcons upon retcons destroyed any reedemability the comic still could have, and McFarlane started chasing any gimmick the Big Two were employing: a female version of Spawn, a replacement after the temporary death of Al Simmons (James Dowing, one of the blandest non-characters in the story of comic books) and so on. All that said: something good came out of this mess, once in a while. I never cared too much about Brian Holguin's writing on the main series (sometimes he read as as a poor man Alan Moore, sometimes as a poor man Neil Gaiman), but he did good on the miniseries he wrote, especially on Godslayer, even if none of them is a masterpiece. Spawn: The Dark Ages is probably a two and a half series objectively, but do to nostalgia and my enjoyment of macho violence, I'll give it another half star. We have a duality: one half of the story was written by Brian Holguin and pencilled by Liam Sharp, so we have boring writing and nice art (ruined in part by the inks), the other one written by Steve Niles and pencilled by Nat Jones, so we have here ok writing and lesser art. Luckily the series was completed (a luxury in the Spawn Universe), so we see an actual ending. The story is in a very 90's Image style despite being from the end of the decade, so don't expect great characterizations or a clear plot - the timeline is especially confusing - expect instead a lot of grusome violence.

[Raziel · Rating 3 out of 5]

“Think before you strike. The mind is always the greater power over brute strength... but brute strength comes in very handy on occasion.”

“My only regret... is that the world has fallen victim to a order of hateful gods and vengeful angels no better than the devils and demons who oppose them. I regret that I was unable to stop a way... fought by two evils drenched in hatred and blood”, Gareth.

“You are what you choose. Choose to be a man. Choose to be good. Choose to view the world beyond the perimeters handed to you, and you will live”, Dumas

[Maggie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Read parts of this series as a kid and didn’t get a chance to finish it until now. The art is amazing, although it feels like they never passed up a chance to show buxom women wearing very little and it feels like they abandoned any sense of realistic proportion. Like most early Spawn comics, it feels every popular comics trend of the time in its purest incarnation. If nothing else, I got closure for a childhood fascination.

[Chad · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found something much worse than Spawn. This series is pretty awful. It's mainly just kind of boring with some gross art. The story does get a bit better in the back half when Steve Niles and Nat Jones take over. Brian Holguin's writing is verbose. He seems to think he's writing prose. From Liam Sharp's static art and numerous one panel pages, he might as well be.

[Nick · Rating 2 out of 5]

Textbook and sample of cool idea with terrible execution. Big peeve of mine in comics is an excessive reliance on narration rather than letting the art do the storytelling. Spawn The Dark Ages feels like it’s 75% narration and it makes this feel so slow. What could have been really cool and interesting is just kind of meh.

[Łukasz Kosowski · Rating 3 out of 5]

Form better than the story which gets lost in the history it tries to portray. Still an interesting read for every fan of the Spawn.

[skyla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great story wish there was a sequel to it

I love the art in this series looks good and with so much detail the story compliments the art wish it wouldn't end

[Lawrence Neu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Solid spawn read

Solid spawn come revolving around medieval spawn I would highly recommend if that character interests you in the slightest 😎

[Brian Fagan · Rating 4 out of 5]

What an excellent collection! It contains the entire 28 issue run of the series. It looks great. The color looks great. The hardcover gives it a wonderful grand look like it's the Odyssey or Don Quixote.

The story's great too. The first 14 issues or so are all written by the same writer; Brian Holguin. A perfect story as far as I'm concerned. I'm a big Spawn fan and I loved the Medieval backdrop. It added a wonderful dimension to the Spawn mythos. And the last couple of issues of that first fourteen, The Children's Crusade storyline, is some of the best comic book writing and art I've ever come across.

The second half of the series was written by Steve Niles. It's good. Some of it's great. But, not all of it. The last couple of issues introduces a character that's supposed to be the main villain for Spawn, but is introduced without any build up so the final confrontation is not as powerful as it should have been.

But, still good. Highly recommended.

[Sam Wicked · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great addition to the Spawn legend. I really enjoyed the continuous struggle of this Hellspawn and the fact that he stays on his pathway with very little drawing him off course. Very few characters are left one sided in this collection, leaving you with the feeling that the book really only holds two villains, Hell and heaven.