 If you enjoy this video, be sure to give us a like, then go ahead and subscribe for more content. Make sure you also head over to our Facebook page and give us a like there as well. Links are in the description. Hi everyone, it's Shannon. Today, I wanted to kind of combine recommended reading with comic-ed and board. And to do that, I thought I'd go over Spawn Volume 1, the original trademark collection, which contains issues 1 through 8, 11, and 12. Or for those of you who are more interested in Spawn Origins' trade paper packs, it's Spawn Volume 1 contains Spawn Origins' Volumes 1 and most of Volume 2. The story revolves around former Lieutenant Colonel Al Simmons of the United States Marine Corps, United States Secret Service, CIA, and finally the U.S. Security Group, which is an elite task force of top secret covert ops division of the CIA with jurisdiction in all domestic and foreign situations. Volume 1 opens with Spawn atop a church brooding over the city of New York's alleyways. In the beginning, Spawn knew he made a deal with the devil to return from the dead, but he doesn't quite remember what the deal was for, or why, or who he even is. All he knows was there was someone to love, someone to hate, and that he was something proud and special. He then recalls someone turned on him and he died. He remembered the person he loved, a woman so beautiful he needed to get back to her. All he could think of was her. He traded his soul and promised to join Hell's Army if the devil would send him back to her. The devil accepted the deal under his terms, his rules, his way. The devil sent him back with no memories five years after his death. The devil gave him power and a living costume which would later be revealed to be made of the souls of all innocent people Al Simmons had killed while alive. The first act of heroism Spawn performs is saving a woman from being gang raped, but in the process receives a flash of memory from his life. A fragment. His mind explodes with pain. He remembers the woman he loved, the reason he made the deal, but not her name or who she was, just her face and the image of his funeral. He snaps back to reality and the arms of the woman he saved, holding him and telling him he's alright, and that it's all over now. We follow Spawn as he stumbles down a nearby alley, pulling his costume off to discover his flesh is horribly grotesque and appears to be rotting. It's at this point that he doesn't quite know what he is exactly. Throughout the story we follow two detectives, Sam Burke, single, gruff, heavy-handed ex-militaire officer, dedicated to finding the truth who is extremely overweight. And Twitch Williams, a sharp-shooting, cool-headed, college-educated family man who is completely loyal to Burke. And he even refers to him constantly as Sir, despite his many flaws. The two detectives are on the trail of a serial killer throughout the story. A killer who seems to be targeting notable members of the mob and kills them by cutting out their hearts. What they don't realize is the killer is actually a demon known as the violator. Normally, the violator appears in human form as a short-fat clown who seems to be quite the slop and constantly brags about his accomplishments to anyone who will listen, even if it's just an alley cat. We eventually return to Spawn, once again brooding over the city, while standing at the head of a cross atop a church. He's still uncertain why he's drawn to this church or who he was, but he uses his hell-born powers to transform him to make himself appear as he used to look. Something goes wrong. His necroplasmic body changes to a more human look, but it's not right. He realizes he was a black man, but his power has transformed him into a blonde-haired, blue-eyed, white man. It would be revealed later on that the man he would transform into was actually in a coma and would become the next Spawn after Al Simmons banished himself to prototype. Spawn would receive another flashback. This time the memory was of his former boss, Jason Wind. At first, he was like a brother to Spawn, but they soon fell out and eventually Al Simmons, in his living form, would finally say enough was enough because he knew Wind had sent him to kill innocent people. Wind had killed him. It would soon be revealed that Spawn was Al Simmons. He would remember his wife, Wanda Blake, and would discover that his wife had remarried. Wanda's new husband was Al's best friend, Terry Fitzgerald. Terry and Wanda had a daughter together named Cyan. It would also be revealed that the Devil Al made the deal with was not the Devil, but a Devil who ruled over the Eighth Sphere of Hell as the Malibulgia. Spawn becomes involved in many battles during Volume 1. He battles a violator in his demon form who rips Spawn's heart out. They both cut off each other's arms and in and draw before the Malibulgia stops them, like a father ending the feud between his two children. Many other image characters are mentioned and make cameos throughout the book, including members of Youngblood, who Spawn is constantly being mistaken for Savage Dragon and Shadow Hawk. Spawn later encounters child murderer Billy Kincaid shortly after he's released from a mental institution, and proclaims same. Kincaid would kill children by posing as an ice cream man and keep a finger from each child as a souvenir. Most prominently, he's accused of killing a former senator's daughter. Spawn goes after Kincaid in order to make sure he didn't make his way to Cyan as a target. Spawn leaves Kincaid hanging by chains in the office of Sam and Twitch with ice cream scoops and popsicles stabbed into him with a note the red boys screamed and girls screamed. So I made him scream and scream and scream. The two detectives are then placed on desk duty while internal affairs investigates. Mob Boss Tony Twist hires Russian cyborg Hitman Overkill to kill Spawn, who twist and everyone else thinks it is a killer removing hearts from the members of the mob. Spawn manages to destroy the cyborg by using anti-cyborg weaponry he acquired from the CIA. It's later revealed that Kincaid's soul goes to hell where he also gets chosen to join the army of Hell Spawns. While Volume 1 contains quite a bit of action and backstory, something it doesn't contain are issues 9 and 10 due to containing the first appearances of Neil Gaiman characters Angela, Cogliastro, and Medieval Spawn in issues number 9 and the meeting of another image character, Seribus the Ardvark created by Dave Sim in issue number 10. Volume 1 contains issues 1 through 8, 11, and 12. It's revealed in the final page of issue 12 in volume 1 that the reason Spawn is so attracted to the church in which he broods above is not because it's a church. It's not because he was married there like he often thought but it's a reference to the man who actually killed him. It wasn't that it was a church at all. Spawn was attracted to it because it was a chapel and the man who killed him was his former friend and member of Youngblood known as Chapel. This concludes volume 1 of Spawn by Todd Mitfarls. I really enjoyed this. I got into Spawn way back in the 90s when Spawn first came out. I think it had been out for maybe a year or two before I finally got into it. But rereading this, I really understood why I enjoyed it so much and why so many other people enjoy it so much. Coming up next on reading recommendation, I'll be going over Spawn volume 2 which continues the story of Al Simmons' return from the dead.