The artistic success of these latter two films can be traced to the approach of the filmmakers. Joe Johnston turned Dave Stevens' inherently retro Rocketeer comic into a paean to wholesome Americana, while Darkman creator Sam Raimi gave his somewhat campy original character a perverse splash of neurotic mania. The zippy adventure yarn and the heroic tragedy--the MPAA rated one film PG and the other R, but they could just as easily have labeled them DC and Marvel.

DC and Marvel, of course, are the two comic-book companies that have dominated the market since the '60s--the former with clean-cut heroes like Superman and Wonder Woman, the latter with conflicted, haunted heroes like Spider-Man and The Hulk. The two companies and their house styles monopolized sales until the early '90s, when a handful of popular Marvel artists broke off and formed their own company, Image. Image's most successful title, Todd McFarlane's Spawn, often outsells every other comic on the stands.

Now Image has made the leap into the mainstream popular consciousness with a feature-film version of Spawn, directed by Mark A.Z. Dipp and starring Michael Jai White as the titular hero. Does Image's house style make it onto the big screen as faithfully as its competitors' have? Lamentably, yes. Spawn the movie is every bit as violent, ugly, and stupid as Spawn the comic.

The story is ridiculous, even by superhero standards. Covert operative Al Simmons (White) is murdered by his boss (played by Martin Sheen) and sent to hell, where he makes a deal with Satan--he'll lead hell's army against earth and heaven if Satan will grant him passage back home so he can see his wife again. Meanwhile, another emissary of hell--an obese, flatulent midget named Clown (John Leguizamo)--is orchestrating a convoluted plan to get the reborn Simmons, now dubbed Spawn, to kill his old boss and inadvertently trigger the release of a deadly virus that will wipe out the earth's population.

Some questions must be asked. Why doesn't Clown--who can mutate into a powerful demonic giant named Violator--release the virus himself? Why doesn't Spawn--who can use his unearthly armor to do just about anything--knock off Clown early and spare us all the trouble? And where's God in all of this? There doesn't seem to be any angelic presence to offer a threat to Satan's dominance; there are just varying degrees of evil.

More importantly, who convinced Martin Sheen to make fool of himself in a scenery-chewing villain role? He actually emits an evil laugh at one point. ("Anyone who refuses to join my consortium won't be around to argue...HA HA HA!") And who thought it would be entertaining to hear Leguizamo make dated pop-culture references and mumble about his indigestion for two hours? His hideous visage is in almost every frame of the movie, repulsing the audience at every turn with cracked blue makeup, yellowed teeth, and stale, gross jokes.

Hell to pay John Leguizamo and Martin Sheen, trying to figure out just how they ended up acting in Spleen. Photo by Peter Lovino.

This take on the superhero is borrowed from the "breakthrough" comics of the mid-'80s, Alan Moore's Watchmen and Frank Miller's Dark Knight Returns. Unfortunately, as good as those two books were, their influence on the genre has been devastating. Ninety percent of today's superhero comics have "grim 'n' gritty" protagonists who swear, kill, and brood.