Spawn #164— “Homecoming”
David Hine- words
Phillip Tan- pencils
Danny Miki, Ryan Winn- Inks
Grade- B+
SPOILERS BELOW-----
Previous (#163) Summary- “Mom” (mother nature?) gives God and Satan their wish to endlessly battle on another plane of existence, never to bother Earth again. Spawn uses the new god-like powers he has to recreate Earth and everything on it. He then uses the remainder of those powers to become Al Simmons again, and plans on returning home to the love of his life, Wanda..
I gotta be real- I haven’t read Spawn in several years. Since maybe ’99 I’ve only skimmed issues here and there. Around that time the narrative seemed to just meander, and though Greg Capullo and Angel Medina were good artists, it wasn’t enough to keep me from jumping ship. In the meanwhile, Spawn ringmaster Todd McFarlane seemed to keep making cryptic comments about moving the title away from its superhero trappings and into something along the lines of horror-noir, which didn’t really enthuse me. From what I could tell, it seemed like Todd Mac wanted the series to be a quasi-anthology, with stories mostly revolving around other characters (Sam & Twitch, etc.), and Spawn would be a ‘boogeyman’ figure, only fleetingly seen. Meanwhile, the initial ‘endgame’ of a final showdown with Malebolgia and/or the Heavenly Hosts never seemed to manifest. Until now. Apparently, the most recent story arc, ‘Armageddon’, did just that—wiping out everything in existence on Earth except for Spawn himself (hmm- a good way of getting rid of characters lost to lawsuits like Angela, Cogliostro, etc.). Then, apparently, Spawn inherits enough cosmic power to recreate everything on Earth as he chooses. Apparently, instead of a utopian world, he recreates it more or less as it is now—with the addition of himself back in human form. Or so he thinks.
On his way back to Terry/Wanda’s place, Al is stopped by ‘Mom’—and transformed into a spirit form, to observe a heated argument between Wanda and Terry, the latter of whom is at his wits end with Wanda’s seemingly protracted pining for Al. He’s had enough of competing with a dead man. Then Wanda drops a bomb Terry didn’t expect. Apparently, Al was occasionally abusive—physically. He was obsessively driven with his job as a government assassin. Most damning of all, she reveals that when she told Al that she was pregnant—a shock to both of them, and shortly before Al’s fatal “final” mission—Al calculatingly embraces her, then punches her in the stomach—a trained killer knows weak spots—effectively causing Wanda to miscarry. The disembodied Al observes this tale with horror, as he has apparently forgotten this up until now. ‘Mom’ then reveals that this is why he was never able to really come back to life and reunite with Wanda. That his own guilt prevented him from doing so, and is what compelled him to accept Malebolgia’s corrupt offer to begin with—as a form of self-punishment.
Dejected, Al drifts away to a nondescript alley, where he re-forms back into Spawn. He is told that he cannot even reach an afterlife until he completes his ‘penance’.
The epilogue involves the aftermath of the apparent destruction/recreation of Earth, which apparently was not wiped from people's memory, and called the "white light phenomenon".. "no murders, rapes, bombings", etc. have been reported for the past day or so.. until a young man in an apartment apparently commits a casual murder..
