Episode #16 - Hunter's Moon
Original Airdate - May 26th, 1999
A vampire, Lilly, is sent to kill the Hellspawn. Though Spawn befriends
her at first, once Lilly turns on Spawn and attempts to kill him, he
wastes no time in frying her with sunlight. Lisa Wu, aka Jade, now
revealed to Spawn as a hunter sent by Heaven to kill Hellspawn,
confronts Spawn but allows him to go re-heal himself after he was badly
wounded in his fight with Lilly.
Media and Review by Bird Boy |
Credits
Written by John Leekley
Directed by Jennifer Yuh
Music by J. Peter Robinson
Animation by MOOK Co., LTD.
Voices
Keith David as Spawn
Richard Dysart as Cogliostro
Jennifer Jason Leigh as Lilly
Ming-Na Wen as Lisa Wu/Jade
Dominique Jennings as Wanda Blake
James Keane as Sam Burke
Michael McShane as Twitch Williams
Khandi Alexander as Lakesha/Nurse
John DiMaggio as Bone/Cop #2/Slezeball
Carlos Ferro as Jesus/Cop #1
Victor Brandt as Chief Banks
Greg Eagles as Charles
Julia Demita as Additional Voice
|
Review: This episode is full of bad ass
visuals. I honestly had a hard time not keeping all of the images I
took; true, most of them went into biographies, but others were just
thrown away all together. The best, of course, did stay; most of my
favorites are from the church and the fight between Lilly and Spawn.
There is some magnificent lighting in these scenes and it’s just so
awesome to look at. The shot of Lilly’s burning corpse and the fire
lighting Spawn’s mask, actually showing off the white markings (first
time since season one, I think!)…I could go on and on about it all. Oh
and that final shot of Spawn on the steeple? The pan out on that shot
was great and it just screamed “money shot!” What I wouldn’t give to
have the animation cel of that one.
Despite my gushing above, this episode wasn’t all just pretty images.
It’s the first time and only time we see Lilly, the vampire hunter. By
“vampire hunter’, I mean she’s a vampire and a hunter and when you throw
those two together you get one manipulative and feisty woman to go up
against.
This episode also showed the first time Twitch is out of bed after being
shot in the head. Naturally it’s a bit soon for him to be walking, but
whether it was done for stories sake or Twitch actually gained some kind
of sixth sense, he could see where the recent alley murders happened.
These murders were the result of Lilly feeding off of a few unlucky (but
deserving) men who were “escorting” her to the YWCA.
Animation in this episode was stellar. Again, the scenes in the church
were a particular delight to behold. In addition, this episode showed
off Jade in her hunter garb, which also occurred in the church. After
Spawn torched Lilly’s corpse with sunlight, Jade had a perfect
opportunity to kill Spawn. But there was no honor in killing a wounded
victim, so she allowed Spawn to heal himself.
Speaking of healing himself, Spawn is shown killing Lilly with morning
sunlight but healing himself at his grave site with the bugs of the
earth at night. I realize it was done for dramatic aspects, but unless
it took Spawn all of the day to drag himself to his grave, I don’t know
how that would have worked realistically. Stylistically, however, it
works beautifully and since it did work so well, I’m willing to overlook
a little time discrepancy in favor of enjoying the episode more.
|
[ Back to Episode Reviews ]
|
