Spawntember returns and this one is special.
2022 marks the 30th anniversary of Al Simmons' adventures in Hell.
And Todd McFarlane is no stranger to paying homage to the works of other artists (or even
himself), so the series has a ton of Spawnified classic covers, as well as a few tributes
back to Spawn by other artists... and McFarlane himself.
So let's dive right in and go back to where it all started.
This is Cover 2 Cover, where I cover people making covers of classic comic covers.
1992's Spawn #1 has seen homages for Issue 50 in 1996
Spawn Origins Volume 1 in 2009
the 25th anniversary Director's Cut
and Spawn #220, which had two variants.
It has also been homaged by Lethargic Comics Weakly #11
Defective Comics
Fred A Scare's Creature Collection
Radioactive Man #1000
Lady Death Revelations: Nightcrawler Edition
Ash vs the Army of Darkness #2
Monstress #10
Eule's Vision #1
Ninety Four #1
Mighty Morphin Power Rangers #43
The Sav #1
The American Dischord Covers Project Addendum, Hell Witch: Sacrilegious #1
Red Room #4
and parodied in Splitting Image #1 and Spoon #1.
Spawn #8 was parodied by Psycho Duck #4.
2017's Hardlee Thinn #1 payed homage to Spawn #9 for one of its variants.
Spawn #10 was homaged by Lethargic Comics #1.
Spawn #19 was homaged by #287, and Mortal Kombat 11.
In 1994, Spawn #25 was homaged Cyberforce Vol. 2 #8, the former being drawn by Marc
Silvestri and the latter by Todd McFarlane.
Spawn #200 received a sequel of sorts 20 issues later for the 20th anniversary.
Spawn #230 was an homage to Batman #423
The Lady Death Echoes tribute to this cover drew more from the Spawn version than the
Batman one.
Lady Death #1 25th Anniversary Edition had an homage to Spawn #300's J. Scott Campbell
variant.
Spawn #313 was homaged by Tiggomverse #1.
Do You Pooh, a Deadpool parody comic, had a bunch of Spawn homage variant covers:
#1
the #1 pull-out poster
#2
#7
#19
#23
#88
#230
#280
#285
#289
#296
#300
#300!
#309
#313
#316
#320
Batman/Spawn
Batman/Spawn: Inner Demons
and Batman/Spawn: War Devil.
Batman/Spawn has been homaged by 1994's Lethargic Comics #7
and 2020's Killing Red Sonja #2.
And now that homages to Spawn are out of the way, let's move on to the main presentation:
Spawn homaging other covers.
1992's Spawn #1 has seen homages for Issue 50 in 1996
Spawn Origins Volume 1 in 2009
and Spawn #200, which had one used and one unused version.
And there's also...
To celebrate Spawn's 20th anniversary in 2012, the series began a lengthy series of tributes
and homages to classic covers starting with #220.
There are tributes to fellow Image icons, Youngblood #1 and Savage Dragon #1.
The Batman #615 tribute was even done by its original artist, Jim Lee.
But McFarlane isn't afraid to pay homage to himself, with a cute homage to Spawn #1
and a sequel to the then-fairly recent Spawn #200.
#221 drew on Spider-Man's iconic debut issue that even launched this show, Amazing Fantasy
#15.
#222 cleverly payed homage to McFarlane's own Amazing Spider-Man #316, with Tremor in
Venom's place.
#320 also payed tribute to this one, only with the Soul Crusher in Venom's place.
#222 also saw a modern Image tribute with The Walking Dead #1.
For #224, we got a chunky Spawn in the style of 1986's Batman: The Dark Knight Returns
#2.
#225 was a Spawnified take on the button from Watchmen #1.
And it had minor variants based around the results of the 2012 US presidential election,
which would've been way cooler if it was Obama or Romney in the Spawn suit, just saying.
#226 saw Violator take on Wolverine's iconic pose from The Incredible Hulk #340, another
McFarlane joint.
Another such cover was #227's The Amazing Spider-Man #300 tribute.
#228 went all the way back to Superman's debut in Action Comics #1.
#229 again saw Spawn take Hulk's place from Incredible Hulk Special #1.
#230 finally gave Spawn's cape some love by cribbing from Batman #423.
#231 received another Spider-Man tribute, this one being Spider-Man #1, also by McFarlane.
A decade later, #327 returned to this piece, only with Haunt taking centre stage this time.
For the 25th anniversary in 2017, Spawn #1 Directors Cut featured a tribute to Ultimate
Spider-Man #1 for its cover.
Spawn #279 was another Walking Dead Tribute - #115, in this case.
Spawn/Batman saw McFarlane pay homage to the crossover's writer, Frank Miller, with a cover
inspired by The Dark Knight Returns #1.
In 2019, Spawn Kills Everyone Too #3 capitalised on the hype surround Avengers: Infinity War
with an homage to Infinity Gauntlet #1.
I just love the implication that there's a Spawn Gem.
Spawn #298 was yet another McFarlane Spidey homage - Amazing Spider-Man #298, in this
case.
It's a fitting choice, since that was McFarlane's first work on Spider-Man.
#299, likewise, drew on Amazing Spider-Man #299 for its cover.
And since he already homaged #300 seven years earlier, he reworked it into more of an '80's
style, and then reused it for #301 to finish the set, sadly missing the chance to use a
different costume to reflect Spidey's costume change.
Following Chadwick Boseman's death in 2020, Spawn #311 payed homage to the man by depicting
Boseman-looking Al Simmons in a pose and costume variant inspired by Boseman's take on Black
Panther.
Mortal Kombat 11 payed homage with an outro coming from Spawn #250, one from a piece of
artwork I can't identify, and an intro borrowing from SoulCalibur II's intro.
And finally, for the Scorched miniseries in 2022, MacFarlane made the covers of Issues
3-6 a tribute to the iconic mural of variants from 1991's X-Men Vol. 2 #1.
Also, it's not official, but this Batman #608 tribute I found on Artstation is just awesome.
And those are, I believe, all the Spawn covers that are homages or have been homaged.
There are probably more out there and you KNOW there'll be plenty more in the future.
Personally, I'd love to see Todd take a shot at Scorpion's Revenge or the Netherrealm Logo,
because Spawn and Scorpion are too similar not to pay homage to one another.
If you do it before January, you'll be doing more to celebrate MK's 30th anniversary than
its owners, Todd.
Think about it...
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Today's recommended video is Konami’s Spawn Video Game by Diego Rivera.
As of this writing, the video has 666 views, and I think that alone makes it worth shilling.