DRAGON versus SPAWN
Messiah (Image)
Where: Spawn #52 When: August 1996
Why: Todd McFarlane How: Greg Capullo
The Story So Far...
With a simple choice, Al Simmons was returned to the fires of Hell when he spent the last of his powers curing former friend, Terry Fitzgerald, of malignant cancer. The decision rescued his wife from the heartbreak of losing her new husband, but damned Spawn's soul to torment in the fourth level of Hell.
Enduring torturous reflection, and the extraction of his heart, Spawn is soon whisked to the fifth level, where he's greeted with the torment of praise. The coming of such a savior was foretold in scripture, but the fifth level denizens, tinted green with envy, are divided by their faith.
A prophet walks among them, predicting a forty thousand year wait for the one true savior. He is Officer Dragon: sent to Hell by the malicious Fiend. His vision is no more true than the religion it is based on, but he must never the less prove himself by the law of an eye for an eye -- even if it costs Spawn!
Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Dragon 6 (Invincible)
Intelligence: Spawn 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Draw 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Dragon 7 (Unstoppable)
Agility: Spawn 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Spawn 4 (Trained)
Energy: Spawn 5 (Lasers)
Total: Spawn 29 (Metahuman)
As two of the founding heroes who established Image Comics, their meeting was inevitable -- but who will reign supreme in this clash of comic book icons?!
Spawn was black-ops assassin Al Simmons when he was murdered by his own partner while on mission. Tainted by a life of killing; Al's soul was damned to an eternity in Hell, where he chose to make a deal with the devil Malebolgia.
In exchange for joining the army of Hellspawn, Simmons was granted a return to the realm of living, so he could see his beloved wife, Wanda, one last time.
Al returned with a face like burnt cheese pizza, but damnation does have its perks! Spawn is fully furnished with a variety of hellacious abilites, including: a living costume & cape, super-human strength, speed, durability, teleportation, necroplasm energy blasts, shape-shifting, spiked armor, and much more!
He's gonna need all of those skills, plus his extensive training in hand-to-hand combat and military tactics, if he's gonna keep down Officer Dragon!
Dragon predominantly relies on super-human strength and durability to defeat his opponents. He's a proficient brawler who's damn near unkillable. We saw that when Overlord left him impaled on a building spire in Savage Dragon #7!
Spawn is pretty unkillable himself, and with this fight taking place in Hell after he resubmitted himself, he's no longer beholden to a countdown every time he uses his necroplasm power. That means Dragon is getting the whole hog, and that could well tip the balance in favour of Spawn. Let's find out if it does!..
The Tape: Spawn Ranking: Dragon (#385)
What Went Down...
Where: Spawn #52 When: August 1996
Why: Todd McFarlane How: Greg Capullo
The Story So Far...
With a simple choice, Al Simmons was returned to the fires of Hell when he spent the last of his powers curing former friend, Terry Fitzgerald, of malignant cancer. The decision rescued his wife from the heartbreak of losing her new husband, but damned Spawn's soul to torment in the fourth level of Hell.
Enduring torturous reflection, and the extraction of his heart, Spawn is soon whisked to the fifth level, where he's greeted with the torment of praise. The coming of such a savior was foretold in scripture, but the fifth level denizens, tinted green with envy, are divided by their faith.
A prophet walks among them, predicting a forty thousand year wait for the one true savior. He is Officer Dragon: sent to Hell by the malicious Fiend. His vision is no more true than the religion it is based on, but he must never the less prove himself by the law of an eye for an eye -- even if it costs Spawn!
Tale of the Tape...
Strength: Dragon 6 (Invincible)Intelligence: Spawn 4 (Tactician)
Speed: Draw 3 (Athlete)
Stamina: Dragon 7 (Unstoppable)
Agility: Spawn 3 (Acrobat)
Fighting: Spawn 4 (Trained)
Energy: Spawn 5 (Lasers)
Total: Spawn 29 (Metahuman)
As two of the founding heroes who established Image Comics, their meeting was inevitable -- but who will reign supreme in this clash of comic book icons?!
Spawn was black-ops assassin Al Simmons when he was murdered by his own partner while on mission. Tainted by a life of killing; Al's soul was damned to an eternity in Hell, where he chose to make a deal with the devil Malebolgia.
In exchange for joining the army of Hellspawn, Simmons was granted a return to the realm of living, so he could see his beloved wife, Wanda, one last time.
Al returned with a face like burnt cheese pizza, but damnation does have its perks! Spawn is fully furnished with a variety of hellacious abilites, including: a living costume & cape, super-human strength, speed, durability, teleportation, necroplasm energy blasts, shape-shifting, spiked armor, and much more!
He's gonna need all of those skills, plus his extensive training in hand-to-hand combat and military tactics, if he's gonna keep down Officer Dragon!
Dragon predominantly relies on super-human strength and durability to defeat his opponents. He's a proficient brawler who's damn near unkillable. We saw that when Overlord left him impaled on a building spire in Savage Dragon #7!
Spawn is pretty unkillable himself, and with this fight taking place in Hell after he resubmitted himself, he's no longer beholden to a countdown every time he uses his necroplasm power. That means Dragon is getting the whole hog, and that could well tip the balance in favour of Spawn. Let's find out if it does!..
The Tape: Spawn Ranking: Dragon (#385)
What Went Down...
Spawn stands on the battlefield while offerings of sacrificial tribute are thrown in the path of his coming opponent. The huddled masses become a makeshift arena, surrounding the exalted New God and Prophet on the infernal plane.
Spawn observes his challenger closely but cannot place him. They are strangers -- warriors pitted against one another by little more than circumstance. Were they to meet anywhere else they might be allies. Hell has made them enemies.
Dragon bares his teeth and launches into just one more fight for survival!
The opening blow is Dragon's! His charging fist collides with Spawn's exposed face -- sending him reeling with a thin spray of green ectoplasm from the mouth. First blood, by any other name.
Dragon presses his advantage, bringing his powerful fists smashing down upon Spawn like two brutal sledge hammers! He drives his knee into the hellspawn's mid-section, then rains down with more ground pounding punches!
Caught between the rocky floor of Hell and Dragon -- Spawn lashes out!
He snaps with a back-handed fist that viciously slams his spiked gauntlet against Dragon's chin. The explosive strike launches him across the field!
Spawn burns with necroplasmic energy and grim determination. Like a living freight train he charges at his opponent -- callously smashing through the crowd on his unrelenting path to destroy the Dragon!
Spawn burns with necroplasmic energy and grim determination. Like a living freight train he charges at his opponent -- callously smashing through the crowd on his unrelenting path to destroy the Dragon!
Spawn's fists smolder with raw power as he looms over his naked and battered opponent. Dragon is hunched on the ground, struggling to hold himself out of a smoking impact crater as blood pours from his face.
Through a blood stained grin, Dragon lets out a tiny laugh. It's drowned out by the stampeding mob incensed by his defeat. Battle has proven him a false prophet. Spawn is their victor. Spawn is their savior.
Through a blood stained grin, Dragon lets out a tiny laugh. It's drowned out by the stampeding mob incensed by his defeat. Battle has proven him a false prophet. Spawn is their victor. Spawn is their savior.
The Hammer...
The angry mob seizes upon their defeated prophet, further pummeling him for daring to incite hope. He's tied to a stick and carried away. Despite the brutal beating, still giggling as he's taken to be ceremonially befouled, fed, and doused in urine. Light preparations for crucifixion and a stoning death.
Spawn attempts to use his newfound status as savior to help Dragon, but soon finds himself sharing the same fate. No savior would ever preach mercy!
The two heroes are rescued from their crosses at the very last moment when Malebolgia teleports them away. His torment of Spawn will continue elsewhere in Hell, while the denizens of the fifth layer continue to suffer their eternally unfulfilled faith. Only the devil knows their religion is based on a lie.
Spawn attempts to use his newfound status as savior to help Dragon, but soon finds himself sharing the same fate. No savior would ever preach mercy!
The two heroes are rescued from their crosses at the very last moment when Malebolgia teleports them away. His torment of Spawn will continue elsewhere in Hell, while the denizens of the fifth layer continue to suffer their eternally unfulfilled faith. Only the devil knows their religion is based on a lie.
The Spawn/Dragon team-up carries into Savage Dragon #30, where Dragon persists in defiantly insisting his predicament is little more than a bad trip. This treats fans to Erik Larsen's good natured ribbing of the grim melodrama found in Spawn, while also bringing back classic SD villains The Fiend, and Overlord.
Speaking of Erik Larsen: How about that image of Dragon slugging Spawn?
The long bulky muscles, and Kirby-inspired composition that extends toward the reader, looks an awful lot like an Erik Larsen panel! It's a nice touch from artist Greg Capullo, who is otherwise vivid in his own renderings of this world.
Capullo is a great Spawn artist. He seems to smooth out some of the stylistic quirks of McFarlane's art, using more conventional layouts to tell a consistent story. Blocks of prose still litter pages, but the flow of panels feels a bit easier to digest than some of McFarlane's singularly designed pages.
I don't know if Larsen had any hand in this particular issue's finished art. He's been known to ink and contribute to a number of books. Todd McFarlane shares inking credits with Danny Miki on this one. I'd imagine seeing a character in another artist's style is as much the fun for the creators as it is the reader, so it might just be a character-driven homage. I dig it.
I'm pleased to finally be paying homage to Spawn #52. It's been on the docket many times over the years, but never quite seemed to get through. That's left Spawn to be one of the glaring omissions in our rankings. It just seemed wrong for one of the biggest (and most violent) independent comics icons to sit it out!
Image Comics weren't quite the lightning rod of excitement they'd been for other readers in the early nineties, but a fascination with Todd McFarlane's operatic designs, and the grim existential crisis of Spawn, was undeniable.
The taboo of demons and Hell didn't seem all that dangerous in the nineties, particularly outside of America, but it probably made the series a little tougher to find. This wasn't a comic I could always pick up on a whim from the newsagent's rack. This particular issue arrived at my door through a mail giveaway offered with the purchase of VHS copies of the HBO animated series.
The cartoon had its upside, but the preoccupation with sex and violence always played more like a distracting gimmick. It was a mature rated show, but there was often more sophisticated storytelling during after school hours on Batman.
The comics allow for much more indulgence and bombastic thrills, but one thing they can never match is the velvet lined pocket full of stones that is the voice of Keith David. What an actor. What a voice!
He recently returned to the role of Al Simmons for Spawn's inclusion in Mortal Kombat 11. That was as good a reason as any to finally take a closer look at the comics. At some point we'll return again to talk more Spawn battles.
If you'd like to get your own hands on today's featured issue, you can find it collected in Spawn Origins Volume 9. Use the Amazon link provided to get your self a good deal and support the site at no extra cost to you!
If you like what Secret Wars on Infinite Earths is all about and want to see more of your favourite characters you can support and interact with the project via Patreon. Patrons have access to schedule updates, bonus voting polls, options for special articles, and featured fight selections.
You can find hundreds of more featured fights for free by diving into the Secret Index for a complete archive organized by publisher, series, and issue number. You can discover even more by following links throughout this post, or by subscribing on Twitter and Facebook to get daily links to battles inspired by the topics of the day!
Winner: Spawn
#334 (new) Spawn (Al Simmons)
#394 (-9) Dragon
If you like what Secret Wars on Infinite Earths is all about and want to see more of your favourite characters you can support and interact with the project via Patreon. Patrons have access to schedule updates, bonus voting polls, options for special articles, and featured fight selections.
You can find hundreds of more featured fights for free by diving into the Secret Index for a complete archive organized by publisher, series, and issue number. You can discover even more by following links throughout this post, or by subscribing on Twitter and Facebook to get daily links to battles inspired by the topics of the day!
Winner: Spawn
#334 (new) Spawn (Al Simmons)
#394 (-9) Dragon
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