Vengeance vs Forgiveness: The Conversation Within The Work of Sean Lewis

Everything is split down the middle and you must pick a side in everything. Either or. No in-between. And if you’re even remotely familiar with comic books then chances are one of your favorites is a character sworn to vengeance.

Hey, I get it. I love Spawn because he’s in control or at least he tries to take control of the situation. But what’s the other side of vengeance?

I discovered the work of Sean Lewis through his outstanding run on King Spawn (issues 1 through 24) and subsequently I’ve read nearly everything he’s written in comics. In doing so, a pattern revealed itself to me. The books seem to be in conversation with each other and the characters are debating vengeance and forgiveness.

Some of the books are easily recognizable as where they stand, ABOVE SNAKES is a western about a man who is after the man who killed his family. BLISS is about a father with a sick child who falls in with the strange gods who control a fantasy city and it explores the father and son relationship that exists afterwards. KING SPAWN is a modern retelling of the character’s origins while also moving things forward in new and interesting ways. THE FEW is a dystopian tale of a woman trying to run from her past and struggling to find her place in the world. At first read, especially after THE FEW, I became fascinated with how these books seem to inhabit either forgiveness or vengeance.

Take for example the opening page of BLISS where the narrator very nearly explains the whole book up front but at the last second before revelation they sidestep away from it.

“My dad always used to point at the stars that were furthest away and say, ‘See, Perry, even something that burns across the cosmos is just a blip in the grand scheme of things.’

“I think it took the pressure off of me, to be seen like that, a blip.”

I’d argue that the message the character’s father was trying to instill was not about being inconsequential but one of forgiveness. It’s just a blip so let it go. And I think, in the case of BLISS, the character knows this but cannot say it. Even at the end of the story, he’s hoping for things to be kinder. The lesson of forgiveness is present even if it’s not stated outright. This approach to storytelling has a long history. It’s there in the Wizard of Oz. The message of that film is not “There’s no place like home” but something more along the lines of “You may already have what you’re searching for.” Dorothy learns the lesson and articulates it as “There’s no place like home.” And who can argue with a phrase like that?

Throughout King Spawn, Lewis puts Al Simmons through the ringer, not only tempting him with the potential return of his dead wife but also bringing up past sins. We see the big return of Sam and Twitch, the NY cops that sometimes get roped in with Spawn’s adventures but also the man Wanda married after Al’s death: his best friend Terry. It’s very much a celebration of Spawn’s rich past but one could argue it’s Lewis putting a mirror up to Al and asking “Has it all been worth it?”

It’s a concept I think many people can relate to because if the pandemic did one thing for everyone it’s slow things down and really let us all look at who we are. You can see it in how the workforce has been disrupted or even halted in many industries.

In the case of Spawn, like many of these longtime characters in comics, they are stranded in one space and that doesn’t seem like the kind of stories Lewis likes to tell. He can put the mirror up to Al but he can’t really have the character fully address it. Spawn can’t turn his back on vengeance.

Often a creator’s work, the ones they do outside of larger licensed work are more personal, so let’s take a look at ABOVE SNAKES which on one hand is this brilliant western about westerns. There’s this network of bars where all the gunslingers out for vengeance stop to get a bite and a drink. They all know each other and it’s a great memorable moment in the comic but is it not a comment on vengeance? The protagonist even says in narration, that the folks in the bar have been searching for revenge forever.

The protagonist of ABOVE SNAKES, a man called Dirt, is pestered by an imaginary vulture throughout. There’s a literal voice in his head telling him to kill, to enact vengeance. Is this a celebration or a condemnation? Is it both?

At first I did consider BLISS and ABOVE SNAKES to be opposite takes because any writer worth their salt should be able to write characters from different angles and honestly that’s what this article was going to be about because that idea is fascinating to me but as I looked at the books closer and closer I realized the books are saying the same thing. Because I don’t think a writer inhabiting vengeance would write that scene in the bar in ABOVE SNAKES. You don’t write that if you believe in vengeance. You write that if you believe in forgiveness.

Then there’s THE FEW which alone is an early work by a team of creators figuring themselves and each other out. It’s a book that by the end I could tell these creators were lockstep and it must be true because they’ve gone on to make several books together. And I think there’s arguments to be made throughout that book about forgiveness. I do not want to spoil it because it’s moving and I’d argue it’s Lewis’s finest work but he’s really been out there putting his whole heart into stunning book after stunning book.

I think THE FEW is a very interesting book because it’s not at all concerned with telling you what the world is or what the overall struggle is about. It’s a familiar dystopian tale, chances are you’ve read something like it before so why retread the same ground? Instead, the book goes deep into how the people of this world react to the conflict. There’s plenty of action and stunning sequences that jump off the page. (Have you seen Hayden Sherman’s art? They are incredible and versatile and they haven’t put out a bad book either. Go read DARK SPACES WILDFIRE, it might be Scott Snyder’s best work.) THE FEW could easily be just a romp through familiar spaces instead it’s focused and cutting. It’s fascinating to read a book that is very aware of where it sits and it feels alive and tells you to feel okay within its pages because you’ve been here before and then when you’re feeling comfortable it tears the rug out from under you. Then the book smiles as you close it and sit back in your chair, as if the thing is proud of itself.

I don’t think it’s a spoiler to say that often these types of stories try to offer some sort of redemption through death. In THE FEW, the protagonist is haunted by ghosts of her past and there’s a version of this that could end with her accepting her mistakes and dying in the final pages. These sorts of endings I find offer a weak, sort of resolution, in that what am I supposed to take from it? Life always ends in death so I have to wait until my final moments to find peace? THE FEW doesn’t fall in line with those kinds of resolutions, instead it does something incredible and just thinking about it now brings tears to my eyes. Lewis and Sherman created a book that completely enraptured me but also they made a book that made me take a look at my life and ask myself “What am I holding onto that I can let go?”

Right now, these books are sitting in a pile on my desk as I write this and I’m just impressed by the sheer quality of them. From the stunning character work Caitlin Yarsky did in BLISS (seriously, she’s a brilliant artist that deserves way more recognition), to the staggering versatility of Hayden Sherman (Hayden is a chameleon and has quickly become one my all time favorites), the unbelievable trading of art duties on KING SPAWN between Javier Fernandez and Thomas Nachlik (one could argue a Spawn book has never looked better and that’s saying A LOT), and then all the way back to the depths of Sean Lewis’s writing. I literally could praise these books and these people all day.

My hope is that if you’re reading this that you’ll go out and buy these books. There’s a lot to love here and I hope you can find something that makes you feel alive. And I hope that the beautiful people that made these books know that the work they did was noticed and appreciated.

And if you’re already a fan of Sean Lewis, make sure you preorder his next book called BEAR PIRATE VIKING QUEEN, launching later this year from Image Comics.