VIOLATOR #2 - June 1994

The World- Part Two

Credits: Alan Moore (story), Bart Sears (pencils), Mark Penington (inks), Tom Orzechowski (letters), Steve Oliff & Olyoptics (colors)

Summary: The Phlebiac Brothers create a forcefield around the area surrounding the mall. Their plan to kill Violator is interrupted when the Admonisher resurfaces and attacks. Violator hides from the violence and tells his life story to his new friend, the decapitated head stuck to his arm. Vaporizer swallows Admonisher, but he rips through the demon’s body. Violator gets an idea and leaves the mall. In the alleys nearby, he finds Spawn and asks for help.

Spawntinuity: Violator explains to his “friend” that he was born in 1589, after Dr. John Dee conjured his father, a Cthulu-style monster. Violator’s human mother died during childbirth, as did the mothers of all of his brothers. After Violator killed his father, he began working for Malebolgia. If Medieval Spawn lived 800 years ago, as we learned in Spawn #9, this origin makes Violator too young to have interacted with him. (However, I guess time and space are meaningless to Hell.) Another questionable plot element has Spawn’s alleys just a few blocks away from a clean, heavily populated shopping mall.

Review: More gross out humor and insane violence. I’ve always thought this mini was funny, but I really found it hilarious when I was fourteen, which is probably the audience Moore is going for. Violator is cast as the abusive older brother of the Phlebiac clan, allowing Moore to use Leave It to Beaver humor as the basis for jokes about Violator eating the human heads his brothers were using to play baseball. My favorite moment is Violator suddenly declaring that the disembodied head is his new best friend. He then has a back-and-forth conversation with the head, before the head reminds him that he’s a “terrible, rotten person who deserves everything he gets!” Violator responds by bashing it repeatedly against the ground, breaking his hand and turning the head into partial, bloody mush. This is also the first issue that allows Bart Sears to draw the Phlebiac Brothers for the entire story. McFarlane was wise to hire him, since Sears is probably the only artist outside of McFarlane who seems to get so much out of drawing the twisted anatomy, horns, teeth, scales, and tentacles of demons.

VIOLATOR #1 - May 1994

The World

Credits: Alan Moore (story), Bart Sears (pencils), Mark Penington (inks), Tom Orzechowski (letters), Steve Oliff & Olyoptics (colors)

Summary: From Hell, the Phelbiac Brothers spy on Violator. Tony Twist’s men are attempting to kill Violator, but he escapes after a bloody fight. During the fight, a mobster’s head becomes attached to Violator’s arm. Violator heads to a local mall to find a saw to remove the decapitated head. There, he’s confronted by the Admonisher, a hitman contracted by Tony Twist. Fearing a human could kill their brother and embarrass the family, the Phelbiac Brothers arrive on Earth to kill Violator personally.

Spawntinuity: The rest of Violator’s brothers are introduced. The Phelbiac Brothers include Vaporizer, Vacillator, Vindicator, and Vandalizer.

Review: According to the ads McFarlane later ran that year, this was the highest-selling comic of 1994. I’m glad an Alan Moore comic could be number one, but it amuses me that a book filled with guts, gore, and decapitations was the most mainstream product released in 1994. At this point, I’m not sure how seriously McFarlane expected people to take the gory elements of Spawn. He obviously wasn’t shy about blood-stained walls, dangling organs, or dismembered corpses, but was this supposed to be dark and scary or absurdly amusing? McFarlane later decides he’s doing serious gothic horror, but Moore knows how ridiculous all of this is. The Phelbiac Brothers spy on Earth by using human blood as an oracle, Violator punches through a man’s mouth and gets the head stuck on his wrist, Admonisher casually blows the heads off of Twist’s men, and a few of the bystanders to the carnage puke all over themselves. On the bottom of most pages, Violator is contorting his body “YMCA” style to match the page number. The Admonisher, clearly inspired by a certain Marvel vigilante and his legion of clones, wants to give his targets a “good talking to.” There’s a demon named “the Vacillator” who can never make up his mind. This isn’t supposed to be taken seriously. Moore’s later Image work is also pretty comedic, but I don’t think he ever matched the ridiculousness of this miniseries. Bart Sears’ extremely detailed art is appropriate for the blood bath, as he seems to enjoy drawing every tiny speck of gore. Moore also seems to have kept Tom Orzechowski in mind, since all of the Phelbiac Brothers have their own distinctive word balloons, and he’s going for the big, dramatic sound effects this time. It’s gross-out humor with great production values and Alan Moore jokes, which is really the best you could hope for in a Violator miniseries.