Spawn is a
Comic Book telling the story of commando
Al Simmons, who is betrayed by CIA spook
Jason Wynn and murdered by
his friend and teammate Chapel (later
retconned as Priest, a
Distaff Counterpart of Chapel). The character first appeared in
Malibu Sun #13 (May 1992), created by Todd McFarlane.
After his death, Al meets a devil named Malebolgia, and his
Dragon Violator (who goes disguised as a clown in the mortal realm). He makes a
Deal with the Devil in an attempt to go back to his "loving" wife Wanda. He comes back as a
Nineties Anti-Hero with a living costume and Green Goo powers, powerful but finite, and must use those powers to increase the army of Hell and train as one of its lieutenants, called (Hell')Spawns, as Malebolgia,
Mammon, and
Satan prepare for the Apocalypse. He finds a
Mentor named Cogliostro,
a retired Spawn who fills the role of
The Obi-Wan and
All-Powerful Bystander.
Spawn befriends some bums in an alley, and becomes a urban-based vigilante. He fights
Angela, an angel trained to slay Spawns, who he later befriends as she becomes a
Defector from Decadence. He also interacts with his former best friend and Wanda's current husband Terry. After receiving antagonism from Violator (who is determined to see him keep to his obligations with Malebolgia), using his Green Goo powers to save Terry's life by curing his cancer, and presenting Wanda's daughter Cyan with a cursed shoelace, he goes back to the
Bonus Level Of Hell and re-visits his former foes. Malebolgia also mentions that his memories may be fake.
Unsure of his past life and having trouble with his costume changing and becoming wild all the time, Spawn starts to interact with former cops
Sam and Twitch, and finds out Mammon sent
Ab and Zab to release a soul-destroying demon that makes its enemies
Deader Than Dead. After turning it into
Sealed Evil in a Can, Spawn
handwaves his way back to Hell and, with the help of Angela, kills Malebolgia (
Angela actually performs a Heroic Sacrifice).
It turns him into the lord of (that piece) of Hell, but he refuses to take Malebolgia's mantle and goes on fighting evil on Earth, with little success. His position is eventually robbed by
Cogliostro, who performs a Face Heel Turn and reveals himself to be Cain.Suddenly, the whole story suffers a
Snap Back and Spawn is revealed to be
not just Al Simmons, but actually a mix of thousands of souls that died at the same time Al had. Spawn fights both Heaven and Hell as an independent warrior during the Apocalypse, and at the last minute, he manages to re-create the world. But in doing so, he discovers that, as Al, he
intentionally caused his pregnant wife's miscarriage by punching her in the chest. Additionally, she was planning to finally leave before he died. It turns out that
his amnesia and current form were actually subconsciously caused by his unresolved guilt, not by Malebolgia. He then retreats to the alleys to live out the rest of his life as The Atoner, having saved everyone but himself. Since then, his universe has evolved into more of an Gothic Punk-focused Crapsack World. Al Simmons himself
seemingly commits suicide, and the mantle of Spawn is passed on to a man named Jim Downing while Simmons makes another Deal with the Devil and becomes Omega Spawn.While
Spawn was really popular during the
Dark Age, holding the title of best-selling independent comic for 15 years, the writing was full of
Retcons and
SnapBacks. Spawn's Power Counter that informed the reader of how much Green Goo energy he had left before he had to return to Hell was also abandoned after a few issues, angering many fans. It's definitely gotten
much better over the years. There were definite cases of
Schedule Slip, but far less so that most of the initial Image Comics (as of January 2010, 196 issues will have been released in 211 months, missing only 15).
Furthermore, the heavily-publicized idea of creator rights surrounding
Image in the early
nineties was, unfortunately, abandoned when creator Todd McFarlane stopped writing and drawing the comic himself, and even had legal problems for using characters created by
Neil Gaiman (Angela and Cogliostro). However, he has since announced his intention to return to the main series, and is in the credits as co-writer and inks for the next few currently-unreleased issues.
Spawn is also
The Merch, as McFarlane Toys became popular for being skillfully detailed (and, according to some people, for using higher-quality material) and made the creator a fortune selling hundreds of toys, costumes, clothing, related comics, tatoos, Spawnmobiles (actually, those are just for show) and bumper stickers, amongst others. Additionally, the Spawn toyline had a massive impact on the toy industry, starting the careers of the Four Horsemen and other sculptors who introduced greater detail and articulation into mainstream superhero toys (even though the Spawn toys were notoriously unarticulated).
It later had an
Animated Adaptation for
HBO that viciously battered the
Animation Age Ghetto, and is often seen as being of
higher quality than the comic.
The Movie (1997) placed
Michael Jai White in the lead role,
Theresa Randle as his wife,
Martin Sheen as Wynn and
John Leguizamo as arch-foe Clown/Violator. The film was somewhat cartoonish, but it is said the sequel, still in
Development Hell, will have a high
Mind Screw level.
Tropes this character is famous for:
- Anti-Hero: Type III or Type IV, Depending on the Writer.
- The Atoner
- Badass Biker
- Badass Cape: Forget about all the others. Spawn has the cape.
- Batman Gambit: In the HBO Animated Series. During the final season, it's revealed that Malebolgia never intended to use Al Simmons to lead hells army on earth, but as a sperm donor to impregnate Wanda with a demon seed. He knew Al Simmons would give into temptation and find a way to mate with his ex-wife. He does so by making himself look like Terry, Wanda's current husband.
- Black and Grey Morality: Spawn's morality is questionable, but clearly better than Hell. Word Of God says that heaven was made intentionally ambiguous. Their final agenda is good, but they recognize that to stand up to the forces of hell they have to recruit people capable of being just as ruthless. In the audio commentary of the TV show Todd McFarlane compared the ideal heaven and hell going to war as consisting of Atilla the Hun fighting church bingo ladies. The comic, paralleling this, confirmed that heaven had successfully recruited Atilla at some point (mostly to keep Hell from getting him).
- Bullying a Dragon
- Butt Monkey: Clown is Spawn's Butt Monkey in the early parts of the HBO series. Then he turns into Violator.
- Cast From Lifespan: His powers have a price - After X use, he goes straight back to Hell.
- Chain Pain: Has chains that pop out of his cloak and are under his control; most often seen in the HBO Animated Series.
- Cheerful Child: Cyan.
- Color Me Black: On one occasion Spawn used his power to turn a Klan leader black, leaving him to be lynched by his own men.
- Contract on the Hitman: Rebelling against Hell will have this effect.
- The Cowl: Probably the best example other than Batman himself.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Spawn.
- Darker and Edgier: The Hellspawn run was this to the main series.
- Dead Guy Puppet: The spinoff The Violator features a disturbing series of scenes in which The Violator uses the corpse of a former Cosa Nostra member as a puppet.
- Deadpan Snarker: Twitch.
- Dead to Begin With
- Deal with the Devil
- Doom Magnet: Well, that's a given.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: Clown/Violator can be seen as something of this. His job is to incite Spawn into committing evil, violent acts in the name of Hell, and he's willing to endanger Wanda and her new family, devise criminal schemes with Wynn and do various other things that torment and anger Spawn.
- Eat Me: "EAT THIS!" *SHINK*
- Enlightenment Superpowers
- Evil All Along: Cogliostro is actually Cain and wants to rule hell, so he trains Spawn to defeat Malebolgia.
- Evil Versus Evil: God Vs Satan
- Evil Twin: Inverted, Heaven creates a good-infused anti-Spawn with The Redeemer.
- Expy: Venom (another McFarlane creation) with Ghost Rider's chains and a big scary cape.
- Even though McFarlane has claimed to be Venom's creator in the past, the character was the result of many writers, editors, and at least one other artist (Mike Zeck, the designer of the black costume that Venom would later wear). MacFarlane's influence was limited to Venom's famous grin and the name only. Interestingly enough, the third incarnation of Venom, Mac Gargan, was drawn as having glowing green eyes inside the symbiote's white eye-patches, making him an expy of Spawn.
- Sam is pretty similar to Harvey Bullock.
- Faux Affably Evil: Clown
- Female Angel, Male Demon
- Filk Song: Iced Earth's Dark Saga album. McFarlane even did the album artwork for them.
- Five-Bad Band: Violator and his brothers, prior to Violator's banishent anyway.
- God Is A Jerkass
- God and Satan Are Both Jerks
- Gothic Punk
- Glowing Eyes of Doom: Most demons have red eyes, Spawn has green eyes as a way of differentiating between demons and hellspawn.
- Green Lantern Ring: There is almost no limit to what Spawn is capable of, but bigger supernatural feats expend more power.
- Healing Factor
- Heartbroken Badass: BIG TIME. Poor Spawn.
- Hell Invades Heaven: This is Hell's grand plan, with Hellspawn in charge of gathering souls for Hell's army.
- Hero Stole My Bike: In the film, Spawn rides off on a bike as the owner runs out of a bar running angrily after him.
- Heroic Host
- He Who Fights Monsters: According to the tv series, Heaven is pretty much this.
"And what are we left with? Monsters killing monsters?"
- Horrifying Hero: Spawn is a Humanoid Abomination. What did you expect.
- I Have Many Names: Mother of Existence (also known as Man of Miracles, Jesus Christ, Gaia, God, to name a few)
- Ironic Nickname: Twitch. Because he doesn't. Ever.
- Knee-capping: Twitch shoots Spawn in the knee to stop him from escaping. He is rather shaken when Al doesn't even slow down.
- Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Subverted, and got McFarlane into deep shit later on.
- To elaborate, one of Spawn's primary antagonists was a Mafia boss named Tony Twist, whom McFarlane named after a real-life NHL player. The player was not amused.
- Licked by the Dog: His wife and best friend don't recognize Al, but his dog does.
- Light Is Not Good: The demons of Hell are Obviously Evil, but God and the angels aren't exactly nice guys, either.
- Jason Wynn as the Redeemer. It's guaranteed that this will happen when you give holy powers to The Sociopath.
- Like a Badass out of Hell: All the fricken time!
- Love Makes You Evil: It's the reason Al strikes a Deal with the Devil.
- Meaningful Name: Malebolgia. Named after the circle of fraud in Dante's Inferno. Fitting considering how well it turns out to make a deal with him.
- Mind Screw: The many Retcons and Snap Backs.
- Monster Clown: Clown/Violator
- Morality Pet: The homeless kid in the movie.
- More Dakka
- More Teeth Than The Osmond Family: If it's from Hell, chances are it has these. Spawn himself has engaged in this when his mask splits open to reveal his mouth.
- Mythology Gag: In both the movie and the HBO series, someone sees Spawn's face and comments that they've seen far worse due to working for/being related to a mortician.
- Also, note the Clown's costume in the movie: the Smiley Face badge on his jacket mirrors the viewing galleries of a mud-wrestling establishment where Spawn murders a drug-dealer in cold blood early on in the series. The symbolism really kicks in when you realize that this killing was one of the first that showed Spawn that the world is not as simple as he initially believed and that letting his anger control him blinded him to the truth. *
Spawn saw the man forcing a child to buy his drugs. Cogliostro reveals later on that the child was an experienced criminal who sold drugs and guns himself and was complicit in multiple murders but got away with it due to his age. Furhermore, the child was simply trying a new range from the dealer who suffered Spawn's wrath.
- All Myths Are True: Spawn's taken on everything from vampires to rampaging deities to God and Satan themselves.
- Names to Run Away From Really Fast: Violator, and most names here.
- Nineties Anti-Hero: Actually played with. Spawn is an asshole, yeah, but he's a fair bit more complex than that, especially in the latter part of the comics and the HBO series. A lot of the latter's beginning is devoted to establishing why he's an asshole, as a matter of fact.
- The Obi-Wan: Cogliostro. Lampshaded: "All right, Yoda."
- Oh Crap
- One-Winged Angel: Clown transforms into the huge, demonic Violator for physical fights with Spawn.
- Our Angels Are Different
- Our Demons Are Different
- Pædo Hunt: In the animated and comic book series, Wanda and the police are on the trail of a child killer who happens to be Senator McMillan's illegitimate son whom he covered up in order to not ruin his career or send his son to jail, and it reaches its climax when Cyan is kidnapped.
- Queen Of All Cosmos: Mother of Existence.
- Race Lift: Terry in the movie. Todd McFarlane has gone on record as saying that this was done by the studio to avoid having too many black leads. They were worried that would create a perception the film was aimed at just a black target audience.
- Resurrected for a Job
- Scary Black Man: Doubly Subverted. Al Simmons is viewed by the public as a handsome war hero who died sacrificing himself for his country. But in reality, Al was a paid assassin guilty of not just multiple murders but violently and horrifically beating his wife. Al was arguably scarier (and definitely far crueler) when he was alive than he is now that he's comeback as an undead monster. In fact that's why he came back looking like such a monster.
- Shout Out: Early in the comics, Spawn is hanging out with two homeless men in an alley, one's named Frank, the other Alan. Frank's drinking Miller brand beer, and Alan's drinking Moore brand beer. Alan also has an epic beard, like someone we know.
- Many of the more recent covers are shout-outs to other classic superhero comic covers, including Spider-Man and Superman.
- The effects of the war mask, at least in the HBO series, are possibly a reference to JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, where a similar mask results in vampires.
- Skull for a Head: There's really not much left of Al under the symbiote.
- Spikes of Villainy: Spawn can project them at will from his body, and so can many other characters. Jim Downing took this Up to Eleven earlier in his run by eschewing the cape for a carapace of thorns.
- Spotlight-Stealing Squad: In the film Clown, played with scenery-chewing gusto by John Leguizamo, steals the show.
- The Symbiote: Spawn's outfit. It acts on its own to save Spawn several times. And boy is it pissed when Spawn tries to get rid of it due to having been convinced it's killing people vampire-style while he's asleep.
- Ugly Guy, Hot Wife: Twitch and his wife Helen is a very straightforward example. Not that the difference in appearances seems to ever have put a damper on their passion - They have seven children.
- Variable Length Chain: One of Spawn's main means of offence.
- You Taste Delicious: In the movie, Clown/Violator licks Wanda's face with his demon tongue, exclaiming that she Tastes Like Chicken.
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