1997
I was a big Todd McFarlane fan, I’d loved his Spider-Man work and I enjoyed Spawn. Not only did I like his art, I thought what he was doing with Image comics was a commendable endeavour. I went to see Spawn at the cinema and, while it was certainly a watered down version of the comics, it filled my craving to see comic book heroes translated to the big screen. With the exception of Batman and Superman few had made the transition and, with no new Superman film for 10 years and Batman on a downward spiral (1997 was the year of Batman and Robin), anything new was cause for excitement.
2008
Just over 10 years later much has changed. McFarlane has been revealed for the money grabbing executive he is, Image no longer publish anything of interest (apart from Fell) and these’s now an abundance of superhero action on the big screen.
With films like Spider-Man, X-Men and Batman Begins showing how to make a comic based film that will appeal to more than just the geek audience, the dark days of 1997 seem a long time ago. Re-watching Spawn now shows what a poor film it really was. The effects look truly awful (hard to believe ILM had a hand in this) and it’s amazing they had the balls to put so much in the finished film.
