Grimlock ♥ Ultra Magnus

Of course, I'm not sure a 'Spawn befriending a child' story could be done without being only so-so (because there's a child involved and Spawn is very much not child friendly) or being disturbing (such as the storylines where Cyan gets kidnapped by a psycho clown from Hell.)

That being said, this chose to go to the softening it up because child route.   There are threats of violence, but no real violence.   And it gets pretty bizarre: Spawn's suit is not under his control, so the threat of violence distresses him.   (This is actually the least bizarre part of this story; the suit targets children who are bullies, but still children.   And Al Simmons would be distressed by violence against children.)

But the whole 'it's not his fault, it's powers beyond his control' is not only bizarre, it's disturbing.  Mostly because I've seen this in real life.   "It's not my fault I'm this one, some a-holes made me this way.   They made me do this."   Bullshit.   You make your own choices.   

In the end, I decided the suit was more akin to a physical or mental illness; those illnesses want things that are detrimental to us, and sometimes we have no say in how our bodies and minds react.   We can, however, learn ways to cope, or try to make things better.  To Spawn's credit, he does try, but it's a losing battle at this point.   (I still take issue with the child he befriends telling him to stop and the suit does.   It's a bizarre move because it's not explained, or even hinted at, why the suit would suddenly respond to Simmons.)

Not horrible, but not great.

ETA: wrong edition last time, and I didn't really notice.   Removed that book from my shelf and reposting.