Spawnometer

Spawnometer 0-0-0-1

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Spawn #1 & Youngblood Battlezone

Listener Discretion Advised

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Spawn #1 by Todd McFarlane

“Questions,” Part 1
Dedicated To: Jack Kirby

I want to die… again.

1987: Services were held today for Lt. Colonel Al Simmons at Arlington Cemetery in Virginia.

1992: I remember there was someone… to love. Someone to hate. And I was something. Something special.

Youngblood Battlezone (1993) by Rob Liefeld

The government has a department for almost everything. In 1984, our heads of state decided that they needed a powerful public force; a force that could represent the government to the people. They also needed an edge to put our nation ahead of other world powers; an edge that they could control and the people could trust. By the end of the year, YOUNGBLOOD was underway.

Image is Everything

Spawning Ground

Published by rolledspine

4 thoughts on “Spawnometer 0-0-0-1”

  2. It took me a full week to listen to this episode, in part because it’s been a busy damn week, and also because I was fifty percent sure this was a belated April Fools gag. The reason for that is I’ve never heard of the Spawnometer before you explained it on this show.

    To my recollection I owned SPAWN issues #6, #7, and #8. I *might* have read them, but not closely, and I have no memory of the Spawnometer countdown appearing in any panels. I’ve also listened to Nathaniel Wayne and Michael Bailey review early issues of this series if they ever mentioned this Spawnometer I have no memory of that either. All of that is to explain why, when you guys first announced this new podcast on Twitter, my first reaction was to cock my head to one side like a dog or a cat and silently wonder “what the fuck is this show going to be about?”

    Now, having listened to the first episode and understanding what this countdown clock is, at least conceptually if not functionally, I really dig it. I was at the ground floor of Image Comics, but while most of my friends were jumping in the elevators marked SPAWN and YOUNGBLOOD, I waved them by, saying, “I’ll get the next one,” and that’s why I followed Lee’s WILDC.A.T.S and Silvestri’s CYBER FORCE, and the long, loooong delayed Portacio’s WETWORKS.

    As noted, I only read (maybe) three issues of SPAWN, and I don’t think I ever read YOUNGBLOOD, though I did collect the three-issue BRIGADE miniseries. Seahawk and Coldsnap were the bomb, yo! until one or both of them died (maybe).

    Anyway, all of that is to say that while I’m not a fan of either McFarlane or Liefeld’s art, I’m also not versed in the material that you’re looking to cover. And if this was nothing but a bitch session, which it sounds like it might turn out to be down the road, I might ignore it, but for the time being while you’re giving these stories an honest shake, I’ll come along for the ride and listen to what you guys have to say.

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  3. The original plan was to launch the show on April Fool’s Day, because Frank’s idea for the best prank is to do something 100% legit in the midst of everyone else’s shenanigans. However, the closer we got to the date, the less happy he was with the premiere episode, and also Saturday felt like a particularly soft launch day. It soon seemed more preferable to launch exactly on Image Comics’ 25th anniversary of publication date, when Youngblood #1 hit the street. In fact, the first version of the debut episode was only a half-hour, with eight minutes of Frank info-dumping on Youngblood. Once we moved the launch date, that felt like too tepid a response to the specific anniversary, and the non-Spawn part of the show was radically altered to create a more Image-inclusive format.

    The current schedule for the series is Spawn #2/Youngblood Vol. 1, Spawn #3/Savage Dragon mini-series, Spawn #4/WildC.A.T.s mini-series, Spawn #5/Brigade m.s., Spawn #6/Shadowhawk m.s., Spawn #7/Cyberforce m.s., Spawn #8/Supreme, Spawn #9/PITT, and so on. Ideally, we’ll just follow along from Image’s launch chronologically, usually with one episode per initial title. The Youngblood sphere proved so sprawling that we needed to expand coverage to two episodes, and that may happen with other releases as well. The Spawn indexing is the common thread, but really, this is a show about all of Image Comics.

    Rest assured that this is a serious endeavor. In fact, it’s the only show Frank is enjoying editing right now. Everything else podcast related currently feels like a slog for various reasons.

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