In 1992, seven of the hottest artists in comics left Marvel to form Image Comics, and before
long, one of those artists had a hit on their hands.
Todd McFarlane’s Spawn quickly became a phenomenon.
The story of a black ops soldier killed in action and resurrected as a supernatural warrior
meant to serve the will of Hell, Spawn has turned into a media empire, with almost 300
issues of his own comic, numerous spin-offs, video games, an HBO animated series, a live-action
movie, and more.
"Welcome to my world!
From Todd McFarlane's Spawn, She-Spawn!"
From the fairly public legal battles to the character’s surprising secret origin, here
are the stories about Spawn that you won’t find on the comic page.
Sweet Sixteen
When Image launched with all-new characters, McFarlane didn't have to think long to figure
out what he wanted to do.
He’d been waiting since 1977 to tell the story of Spawn, a character he created when
he was 16 years old, and the dawn of Image Comics gave him the opportunity to bring him
to life… or undeath, depending on how you look at it.
To back up his claims of creating Spawn as a teenager, McFarlane took to Facebook in
October of 2017 to post what he said was one of his first drawings of the character.
He’s not quite the version we know today, with a different color scheme and what appears
to be a cartoony sidekick, but it’s clearly a prototype version of Al Simmons’ hell-spawned
alter-ego.
The big difference?
McFarlane said he originally envisioned Spawn as being from space rather than the underworld.
"I dub three SPAWN!
General of hell's army!"
So many powers
If you don't know much about Spawn, your first instinct might be to ask, "What powers does
he have?"
It’s a simple question, and even for an infamously powerful character like Superman,
you can rattle off a list of all of his major abilities pretty quickly.
With Spawn, however, we could be here all day.
He's got the standard-issue enhanced strength and durability that you’d expect from a
superhero, but that’s barely scratching the surface.
As of Spawn #4, he was blasting glowing “necroplasm” out of his hands, and surviving the violent
loss of limbs and major organs.
In later stories, he’s seen teleporting, resurrecting the dead, breathing fire, stopping
time, animating chains, and plenty of other wild displays of power.
It’s enough to make you wonder if he could ever be threatened enough to keep readers
interested, but with the comic still going strong after 25 years, it doesn't seem his
Swiss Army knife collection of powers has hurt his appeal.
A landmark in diversity
Before his death and resurrection, Spawn was Al Simmons, a black man.
You wouldn’t know that from looking at his full-body costume, or even the rotted corpse
underneath, but that’s also on purpose.
McFarlane has said on numerous occasions that his choice to make Simmons African-American
was in part because of a story he never got to tell while he was working on Spider-Man.
The hypothetical scene would have Spider-Man save a white man from a black criminal, only
to have the man he saved use a racial slur to describe the crook.
“Because he's covered from head to toe, unlike Batman, he's covered from head to toe,
and go, 'what color do you think I am under this mask?'"
The 1997 Spawn movie may not have been met with critical acclaim for obvious reasons…
"Easy with that face, I'm eating.
Opps, a wet one."
...or even record-breaking ticket sales, but McFarlane’s choice did lead to a landmark
for superhero movies: Michael Jai White wound up being the first African-American actor
to play a major comic book superhero, though just barely: Spawn's theatrical release preceded
the release of Steel, starring Shaquille O'Neal, by only 14 days.
"With a will of iron, a heart of gold, and a body of steel…"
"It's hammer time."
Spawn goes digital
By leaving Marvel at the height of his popularity, co-founding a successful independent publisher,
and using a single character’s success to launch a cross-media empire, it’s easy to
argue Todd McFarlane spent a lot of time on the bleeding edge of the comics industry.
That’s why it's so surprising that when it came to digital publishing, he was one
of the last creators to get on board.
McFarlane told the Washington Post that holding off from digital publishing was his way of
staying loyal to brick-and-mortar comic book shops by keeping Spawn on the shelves and
off the tablets.
Eventually, though, the convenience of digital won out.
At the release of Spawn #250 in 2015, the entire library became available online.
The unreleased crossover
With his overwhelming popularity in the ‘90s, it’s not surprising that Spawn starred in
plenty of crossovers, including two notable stories where he teamed up with Batman.
The first was drawn by McFarlane with a script by Dark Knight Returns creator Frank Miller,
which actually left literal scars on Spawn that carried over to his own comic.
The second was Batman/Spawn: War Devil, and in 2015, McFarlane revealed that there were
originally plans to complete a Batman/Spawn trilogy that never came to pass.
McFarlane signed on to write and ink while artist Greg Capullo, who got his start on
Spawn before moving to an epic five-year run on Batman, would have drawn.
McFarlane didn't say precisely why the crossover died on the vine, only that it was for a variety
of reasons which he claimed most of the responsibility for.
The war over Angela
During the first year of Spawn, McFarlane invited a number of well-known comic book
writers to write issues of the series, including notable writer Neil Gaiman.
In Spawn #9, Gaiman introduced an angelic warrior named Angela and the Medieval Spawn,
who would wind up being very important as Spawn’s saga went on.
Gaiman felt he deserved more compensation for his contributions, and after a failed
negotiation involving the rights to another character, Gaiman filed suit against McFarlane
in 2002.
Ten years later, the two creators finally settled.
The details weren’t released to the public, but Gaiman was granted ownership of Angela.
In 2013, in a move that surprised many readers, he brought her into the Marvel Universe, where
she was eventually revealed to be Thor’s sister.
McFarlane's diplomatic response to the news was that "Whatever Neil chooses to do with
something that he owns is at his complete and utter discretion."
Taking back the reins
Over 20 years after his first film, Spawn is returning to the big screen in a live-action
reboot scheduled for production in 2018, and this time, McFarlane will be writing and directing.
He’s made it clear he doesn't intend for it to be anything like the 1997 movie, and
even claims that it won’t be a superhero film either.
Instead, he frequently compares it to Steven Spielberg’s Jaws, with Spawn in the role
of the shark.
The story will be told through the eyes of the normal people around him, and will skip
over the origin story completely.
As McFarlane says, "Did they tell me why the shark was so damn big?
No!
Did it matter to me?
No!”
Will it be as ridiculous as the first?
"Noooo!"
"Oh come on, you scream like a girl!"
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