While perusing the shelves of my local comic book shop, my eyes were immediately captured by the Scarlet and Raven colored capes of the two most polarizing heroes of comic book fandom: Spawn and Batman!

Written and illustrated by Todd McFarlane, with contributions to the visuals from Greg Capullo and Dave McCaig, this was a crossover brought to us by both DC and Image comics. This is a concept that has never occurred to me but left me all the more excited to read. To my surprise, this was the third time these heroes have collaborated, with there being previous team ups between these two back in the ‘90s.

The main selling point to this most recent collaboration is the art work. The variant cover alone was worth the $6.99 purchase. This cover, which was illustrated by J. Scott Campbell & Sabrina Rich, has Batman kneeling and Spawn standing directly behind them. Both of their capes are flared out to the fullest, with the scarlet red of Spawn’s mantle contrasting nicely with the deep blacks presented by each of their costumes.  Furthermore, Spawns’ arms are raised up, as if he is commanding a platoon of Bats and Imps to soar from beneath their capes.

The fabulous art work continues throughout the remainder of this issue. Even though this story takes place at night, every image is clear, well lit and detailed. The colors are vibrant, with an amber hue filling the skyline of Gotham city. The neon green energy streams from various parts of Spawn’s body, as it is easy to visualize the motion of this and other panels drawn. Even the wrinkles on Bruce Wayne’s forehead and the bags under his eye’s illustrate to the reader that the dark knight has worked tirelessly through the wee hours. The art gives these comic plenty of motion, and thus, makes it easy to draw in the reader’s eyes.

However, the lackluster story makes it easy for that same reader’s mind to wander. For as excited as I was to begin reading this comic, I found it quite trying to keep that same level of enthusiasm while painstakingly turning the pages. A brief synopsis of the plot is as follows: The Court of Owls manipulate Batman into arriving at crime alley on what happens to be the anniversary of his parents death. On this same night, the Court of Owls summon Spawn from a different dimension with the promise that the soul of his beloved ex-wife, Wanda, will be returned if he is able to defeat the one who took her life, which was supposedly Batman. After a “brutal” battle between these caped crusaders, they both learn that they were tricked by the Court, and then team up to exact vengeance on them.

The story is incoherent and the pacing leaves valley sized gaps in the plot. I found it difficult to follow what was going on exactly, as aspects of the story were unclear or poorly explained. For instance, Spawn’s summoning appeared to be pre-mediated by the Court of Owls decades prior to the current events taking place. Utilizing the pearls from Bruce Wayne’s deceased mother, Martha, which were dropped in the alley at the time of her demise, the Court of Owls were able to create a portal to summon Spawn. How did the Court recover these pearls some two decades before the events of the story took place? How did they know there just happened to be a portal to another dimension residing in these mystical pearls? And how were they able to not only contact Spawn, but convince them that Batman, a mere mortal, was the keeper of his wife’s soul? None of these questions were answered as it is left to the reader to suspend belief and trust in the clairvoyance of this secret society of Owls.

Conveniences were also carelessly thrown into the story as necessary to create drama or to move the story along. Dead Zones, which are mystical areas of Spawns world that disable his spiritual abilities, just happen to occur at significant locations in Gotham city where key battles just happened to take place. Yet, during these battles, any reader would want to see the main character fighting to their fullest with all of their power on display. Instead, we got a nerfed Spawn fist fighting Batman and some random Owl assassin who I’m still unsure of who this villain was.

Yet, the most egregious mistake Todd McFarlane made while writing this story was telling the audience what was going on and what the characters were thinking instead of showing us. Giving the reader a brief explanation of each of the characters origins in the beginning of the story is acceptable in order to provide context and information for those who may not be knowledgeable of their histories. The problem is, this is done throughout the entirety of the comic. In the beginning of the comic, Batman receives a bat signal, then the next page he is in crime alley. A caption box states that he met with commissioner Gordon who lead Batman to that location. Words were written into the background, describing the mood in the room during a meeting held by the Court of Owls. Another description would be written describing Spawn and Batman’s suspicions of one another.

This would be normal for a conventional book, but completely defeats the purpose for a comic.  The art is supposed to be front in center for any comic, with the images carefully drawn to show the reader every aspect of the environment; while the dialogue is set to convey the feelings and intentions of the characters through punctuation and fonts. This creative choice cheapens the story and adds to the pacing issues that were previously described.

This was a missed opportunity.  Two characters, both who were trained in combat before taking up their alter egos, both who experienced a traumatic loss and both who deliver justice in an unconventional fashion, had the makings of a fabulous team up. Instead, we got a comic with superb visuals, but an empty story; a perfect display of a gourmet steak dinner that you come to find out is severely lacking in seasoning and flavor

Apparently, the prior team-ups of these heroes in prior iterations also shared a similar problems based off of reviews that I read. Here’s hoping that one day, we as an audience, receive a Batman/ Spawn crossover that is worthy of their legacy that has been developed over decades. But until then, if you happen to purchase this comic, skim through the pages focusing primarily on the art work, as that is the only thing about this comic that deserves your attention.