The death of one shall lead to a rebirth.
Creative Staff:
Story: Liam McCormack Sharp
Art: Liam McCormack Sharp
Colors: Liam McCormack Sharp
Letterer: Andworld Design
What They Say:
War surrounds Aurelianus on all sides. His people, dying on the battlefield or in plague-infested villages. But the Devil Spawn has come to offer a solution.
The Review: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Having not read much, if any, Spawn material since the first dozen or so issues when they came out, I’ll admit trying out this title that a friend picked up was not on my list of things to do. I had nothing against the property as a whole, and impressed it’s still running as a mainline title, but it just never drew me in. This being a six-issue series from Liam McCormack Sharp proved to be a bit of a bite for me since it’s a compact piece, and separate from the main ongoing. I got introduced to Sharp back in the 90s during my exit years from comics, having enjoyed his Death’s Head work. I saw a good bit of their work in the years since, and this property feels like a passion project since they’re doing everything with it, which interests me in it even more.
With this penultimate issue, it’s heavy on the dialogue once again but just comes across in a way that does not work. The seeming death of Danunnos has sent Aurelianus to anger, as to be expected, and seeing Atilius arrive in blood and bandage has him thinking he’s the killer. To his credit, Atilius makes clear he wasn’t, but understands and also makes clear that he did not stop Kerington from doing the deed, so he shares some guilt. Atilius goes into a pretty lengthy bit of dialogue about this with how he was basically set up, his guilt, and his intention to serve Aurelianus as best as he can, but there’s a clarity when Aurelianus just pushes his sword right through Atilius’ chest. There’s a layer of complication to it because of what happened, but the simplicity of action is certainly strong.
More problematic for Aurelianus is when Erlking arrives and finds her dead, and feels that the whole pact between them is void. Which he feels even more because their two peoples are fighting again and Erlking’s are dying quite a lot. The two are quick to anger, as expected, but it’s the arrival of the old blind man that provides a sliver of hope. That Danunnos isn’t fully dead is apparently a thing, no surprise there, and that she’s done this with purpose. Neither of them can understand this, but they’ll also do whatever they can to save her based on the old man’s words. Which certainly aren’t reliable in some senses at this point, but both are distraught (in manly ways) and going their best to do whatever they can to save her.
In Summary:
Visually, it’s all striking and well done, but so much of it feels like a stage play from the 1960s with the dialogue and presentation that it’s hard to take seriously. I really like the designs, the layouts are solid, and the color work is fantastic at creating a mood. It feels rich and deep in that regard, which is very appealing. But the story still feels both weirdly complicated, coming in without much foundation, and superficial at the same time in what it’s getting across. Sometimes I feel like I’m watching an opera in spoken word form in another language that I barely understand because of how little setup there was to connect new readers to these characters and period. It’s beautifully empty.
Grade: B-
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Image Comics
Release Date: April 22nd, 2026
MSRP: $3.99
Chris Beveridge
http://www.fandompost.com
Chris has been writing about anime, manga, movies and comics for well on twenty years now. He began AnimeOnDVD.com back in 1998 and has covered nearly every anime release that’s come out in the US ever since.
He likes to write a lot, as you can see.
