Todd McFarlane's Spawn

The series revolves around the story of former Marine Force Recon Lieutenant Colonel Al Simmons, who worked as a government assassin in covert black ops. He was betrayed and killed by a man whom he believed to be his close friend (the man, later to be revealed as Chapel, burned him alive with a flamethrower during a mission). Upon his death, Simmons vowed revenge on Chapel and hoped that he would one day return to his beloved wife Wanda. Because of his life as an assassin, Simmons' soul goes to Hell. In order to accomplish his vow, he makes a pact with the devil Malebolgia (who was the overlord on the eighth plane of Hell). The pact was a simple one: Simmons would become a soldier in Malebolgia's army (known as a "Hellspawn" or "Spawn" for short) in return for the ability to walk the earth once again in order to see Wanda. However, Simmons was tricked by Malebolgia: his body was not returned to him and he is returned to Earth five years after his death. He had been given a different body which was a festering, pungently cadaverous, maggot-ridden walking corpse that had a massive living red cape attached to it. Because his new body had been rotten for some time and was in an advanced state of decay, his face had become heavily malformed, to the point that he barely appeared human, which led to Simmons donning a mask in order to cover its grotesque appearance. Upon his return to "life", Spawn seeks out Wanda, who had apparently got over the grief of having lost Al and married another man, Al's best friend Terry Fitzgerald with whom she had had a daughter, Cyan. Terry, a respectable man, works as an analyst for a man named Jason Wynn. Wynn is a powerbroker in the CIA and secretly a black market arms dealer, amongst other things (such as the head of secret government organizations within the NSA and National Security Council). Wynn is revealed to be the man responsible for the death of Al Simmons due to a disagreement that the two had between each other concerning their "work". Jason's actions would also prove dangerous to the lives of Terry, Wanda, and their daughter as well. Realizing that he is no longer the man in Wanda's life, Al swears to protect her and her new family. The series depicts Spawn nesting in the dark alleyways, killing any who invade his newfound territory. Rejecting these actions as unworthy of Spawn's time and power, Malebolgia then dispatches another of his minions (a demonic creature known as the Violator that assumes the form of a short, overweight clown) to try to persuade Spawn to commit acts of violence and savagery in the name of Hell. Spawn struggles to fight the lure of evil, as well as seeking to escape being hunted by not only the forces of Hell, but by assailants from Heaven, who have a need to destroy the Hellspawns in order to cripple the forces of Hell so that they do not gain an edge in the escalating war between the two spiritual hosts. As the war intensifies, the line between the forces of good and evil become increasingly blurry. Spawn finds help along the way in the form of a disheveled old man named Cogliostro who was once a Hellspawn that overcame the demonic powers resting within, amongst a number of other characters. In the last episodes of the series, Spawn learns how to shapeshift and, appearing as Terry, makes love to Wanda, impregnating her. It is revealed that there is a prophecy that the child of a Hellspawn will play the deciding factor in Armageddon, and may be the real reason Spawn was allowed to return to Earth. ==Episodes==

''Todd McFarlane's Spawn'' ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn 2'' ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn 3: The Ultimate Battle'' ==Voice cast==

Early development When HBO first approached McFarlane to do an animated series, he had already had several discussions with networks. These other networks were interested in doing a Spawn animated series since they had seen that Spawn was the number one comic book series in the United States at that time. McFarlane was more direct in his meeting with HBO since he was tired of having the same types of conversations with network executives. He further remarked in 1997 that, "people have such a stereotype about animation — they immediately think cartoons and Disney. They're not used to seeing Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather and Seven all in one cartoon, but that's what they're getting." The series was the first project of HBO Animation, a newly created division of HBO which was intended to focus on adult animation during its first few years, before eventually branching out into more family-friendly entertainment. According to McFarlane, one of his objectives was to break away from the traditional mold of American animation, and to bring sensibilities from other countries, including not just Japanese anime, but also European animation. Radomski had served as an executive producer on Batman: The Animated Series, despite also being an animator, and he would continue to serve this duel role on Spawn. At that time, it was uncommon for animators to have creative influence over the shows they were working on. Kincaid ends up kidnapping Spawn's four-year-old daughter towards the end of the first season, and there is a scene which depicts her tied up and blindfolded in a dark room with candles. The first kidnapping didn't show any scenes of the murdered girl being held in Kincaid's house, unlike with when Kincaid kidnapped Spawn's daughter. While Kincaid only appeared in a single issue of the comics before being killed, in the animated series his story arc figures prominently throughout the first season. Kincaid was given a larger role than in the comics by being re-written as the son of a senator, with the senator using his political clout to cover up the crimes. McFarlane said a reason they used Kincaid for the animated series was since he fit with its theme of having Spawn mainly surrounded by urban, non-supernatural characters. The first season aired at a 12am midnight slot on HBO, following Dennis Miller Live. However, Spicy City would end up premiering on HBO in July 1997, after Spawn's first season had already completed airing. It was cancelled after only a month on the air. Comparisons between the 1997 live-action film At the beginning of August 1997, a live-action Spawn film was released to theaters. It was a co-production between Todd McFarlane Entertainment and New Line Cinema, which coincidentally was owned by Time Warner, the same parent company of HBO. The live-action film was noted for having a more mainstream tone than the animated series, as McFarlane and the producers had to do it as a PG-13 rated film (although a slightly different R rated cut would eventually be released on home video as well). The film omits several characters from the comics who were present in the first season of the animated series, including Billy Kincaid, Overkill and Tony Twist. Another change was the race of Terry Fitzgerald, who is depicted as black in the comics and animated series. He was revised to being white in the film, since New Line didn't want there to be too many African American characters; they thought this would lead to it being perceived as a film primarily aimed at that demographic. The film also replaced the black male assassin character Chapel, who appeared in the comics and all three seasons of the animated series. He was replaced with a white female assassin character named Jessica Priest, that was created specifically for the film. The villainous character Clown from the comics is included in both the film and the three seasons of the animated series. He has more sexually perverse dialogue in the animated series, and at one point in the first season is masturbating in front of Spawn while talking about his wife Wanda. In both the film and the first season of the animated series, he has a battle with Spawn after transforming into his demonic Violator form. However, in the animated version of this scene, the transformation is much more graphic, with his skin tearing open and blood seeping out as he transforms. Alan B. McElroy was simultaneously working as the head writer on the first season and as one of the writers on the film. He said, "often when people come up to me and say they weren't happy with the movie, I tell them to check out season one of Spawn: The Animated Series." While the second season was in production, McFarlane got hired to direct the animated music video for the song "Do the Evolution", from Pearl Jam's fifth album Yield. The video was done in the same style as the Spawn animated series, and McFarlane was contacted to work on it by the band's lead singer Eddie Vedder, who saw the show on HBO in 1997. Vedder had recorded some of the episodes onto a VHS, and later used the Avid video editing software to put the music of "Do the Evolution" onto scenes from Spawn. He sent this tape to McFarlane as a way of showing him what he wanted the "Do the Evolution" video to be like. Like with the first season of Spawn, the final stage of animation for "Do the Evolution" was done in South Korea. When the second season of Spawn shifted to having animation done in Japan with Madhouse, it took on more of an anime-influenced look. In 2017, CBR described Leekley's made-for-TV movie background as giving the second season a "strange tone". Twist initially heard about this character through his mother, and then viewed the show. He stated, "I'm in pink thong underwear, smoking a cigar, ordering the kidnapping of a child while two women are naked on the couch making love to each other. I obviously didn't want any part of that. Even if I was a good guy I wouldn't have participated. You've got kids being kidnapped, you've got nudity, you've got police raping women. It's nothing I want to be affiliated with." As a result of the lawsuit, Twist's character was never used past the first season of the animated series, and when early issues of the Spawn comics were reprinted, the name of Tony Twist's character was changed to "Vito Gravano". However, no changes were made to the episodes of Spawn where Twist appeared. A female warrior character named Angela was also the subject of a lawsuit between McFarlane and comic writer Neil Gaiman, who wrote her original issue of Spawn in 1993. This lawsuit eventually prevented McFarlane from using the character. She only had a brief appearance in the fourth episode of the first season, but when the show was in production there were not any legal issues over the rights to this character, and the writers were considering having her come back to the show, before it got cancelled. With the third season, there was another shift with how the animation was being done. Madhouse was no longer involved with the overseas animation during this season, and director Frank Paur and his crew also got hired to do pre-overseas animation work. Radomski said he had worked on the third season, but that he took his name off the credits since he was unhappy with HBO. He said that going into the third season, there were internal disagreements regarding how Spawn should be made, and that some at the company were trying to "dismantle" the previous processes that were in place for the show. The third season is often viewed as the weakest of the series, and the animation started getting rushed as it progressed. After getting hired by McFarlane in the second season, John Leekley had continued to serve as a head writer and showrunner for the third season. Radomski said that with the third season, the show was starting to veer too heavily into fantasy elements, such as by frequently using heaven and hell as the settings for stories. The series ended in May 1999 following the conclusion of the third season on HBO. A fourth season was originally planned, but never came to fruition. Leekley later revealed some of the ideas for a scrapped fourth season. These involved the return of Angela looking to avenge the death of Jade who was her previous lover, several one time characters returning to have larger roles, a gang war spiraling out of control led by the ruthless Barrabas, Spawn befriending a runaway teenage girl named Kristen with a case of pyrophobia, a now disfigured Wynn looking for redemption, Chapel breaking out of an asylum and winding up a pawn for Angela, Merrick having to team up with Twitch to save her daughter, and most of the characters coming to the realization of Spawn's identity. Radomski claimed if the series had entered into a fourth season, it likely would have continued to focus heavily on fantasy elements and "individual hero vs. villain scenarios", in contrast to the first two seasons. ==Reception==

Some critics believe that the series was overshadowed by the poorly received film adaptation of Spawn, which also debuted in the summer of 1997, and had more of a promotional push behind it. It has achieved a small but loyal cult following who praise the animation, writing, voice acting, music, and dark tone, whereas the graphic violence and intentional unresolved cliffhanger has attracted criticism. Variety stated in July 1997 that "It's as dark and complex as anything HBO has attempted in the live-action arena. And visually, it's quite the stunner. HBO wanted different, and it surely got it." A more mixed review came from The Dallas Morning News in June 1997, who questioned why anyone would "want to subject themselves to such a relentlessly grim, gruesome dehumanizing experience." The Tampa Bay Times remarked in 1997 that the first three episodes "unfold in a disjointed, abstract style that owes as much to the animated movie Heavy Metal as the Batman trilogy." In his 1997 review of the pilot episode, Charles Simon of the Los Angeles Times said the show was similar to violent anime, and labelled a scene where Spawn wrestles his rotting corpse as "gross". He added that, "media watchdog groups are going to have conniptions when they get a load of the show's extreme violence — not to mention the scenes of smoking, drinking, profanity, nudity, sex and urination." In July 1997, CMJ described it as a more adult version of Batman: The Animated Series, and wrote "97 is the summer of Spawn. A live-action, big screen version of the mega-selling comic will be hitting theaters in August, but it's HBO's animated ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn'' that has 'cult classic' written all over it." They added that, "it's violent, making sense isn't always a priority and women are basically sexual currency, but Spawn is a dark, twisted ride you'll want to take more than once." In September 1997, Martha Day of Animation World Network compared it to other mature cable cartoons from that year, including Spicy City and South Park, writing "cable's version of animation for adults just keeps getting stranger and stranger." In December 1997, Gary Susman of The Boston Phoenix described 1997 as being a year where "animation grows up", writing that "Fox's King of the Hill, Comedy Central's South Park, HBO's Spawn and Spicy City, and even MTV's Daria were clearly not for the tots." Retrospective response In his 2008 book The Encyclopedia of Superheroes on Film and Television, John Kenneth Muir said it and shows like Batman: The Animated Series were part of a "new generation" of superhero shows in the 1990s. He said these shows proved that "adults would stay tuned [to cartoons] if the writing was good enough", but noted that Spawn was more "squarely aimed at adults, with the sex and violence quotient raised considerably." In a 2022 article on the 25th anniversary of the live-action film, Inverse reflected that, "HBO's Spawn animated series, which also launched in 1997, proved to be a far better adaptation overall. It's a bonafide classic, whereas the live-action film was relegated to cult classic status." DVDTalk similarly wrote in 2007 that the movie was "decidedly watered down to make it to a mainstream audience", adding that the show contained "the kind of edge that the live action movie was unable to present". Horror website Bloody Disgusting stated in 2018 that it was "still the character's best incarnation." In 2017, CBR praised the show's music, stating "[Shirley] Walker's work on Spawn takes the gothic elements of her Batman: The Animated Series compositions to an even darker place" and that "some of the more 'adult' elements of the series were dismissed as juvenile attempts at maturity, but the score isn't one of them. It's moody beyond belief, the perfect musical companion for the bleakness of the series." Legacy ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn'' was ranked 5th on IGN's list of "The Greatest Comic Book Cartoons of All Time", and 23rd on IGN's list of "Top 25 Primetime Animated Series of All Time" (despite the fact the show was aired at midnight on HBO). IGN also placed it 65th on a list of the "Top 100 Animated Series". In 2011, Complex ranked it 8th on their list of "The 25 Most Underrated Animated TV Shows of All Time". Gamesradar placed it 22nd on their list of "The 32 Greatest Animated TV Shows of All Time" in 2024. Series producer Eric Radomski reflected in a retrospective interview that "Spawn TAS was a personal triumph for me. Very rarely do artists get the opportunity to have as much uncensored creative freedom as I did at HBO on Spawn." In 2023, Todd McFarlane said he was pleased with Keith David's voice work as Spawn in the series, and has "trouble hearing anyone else in the role". A sequel series titled Spawn: The Animation was in development in 2004 and was set to be released in 2007 with Keith David reprising his role, but due to McFarlane wanting to push the animation further, the project ended up in production limbo until it was quietly cancelled. Keith David would go on to reprise Spawn as a guest character for Mortal Kombat 11 in 2019. ==Home media==

During the 1990s and early 2000s, all three seasons were released separately on DVD and VHS. These releases edited the seasons into three two-hour long movies, under the titles ''Todd McFarlane's Spawn, Todd McFarlane's Spawn 2, and Todd McFarlane's Spawn 3: The Ultimate Battle''. Around this time, the episodic HBO broadcast version was also released on VHS; however these releases only included two episodes per VHS. The two-hour movie version of the first season was first released to VHS in August 1997. During the initial month of release, there were issues with the shipments, with one retail outlet still having 75% of their stock stuck in a UPS warehouse during that month. In September 1997 and September 1998, the first two seasons were released on LaserDisc in the two-hour movie format. The LaserDisc release of the first two seasons included bonus features created specifically for that release, such as an audio commentary track with Todd McFarlane and a "making of" feature with Eric Radomski. The third season was never released on LaserDisc, presumably due to the waning popularity of the format, which was discontinued in the United States in 2000. When the show's first and second seasons were released on VHS they were came in two differently rated formats. The first format was called the "Uncut Collector's Edition", which is the version that was shown on TV and held a TV-MA rating, and the other was an edited version called the "Special Edited Edition" which held a PG-13 rating by toning down the violence and sexual content. In 2005, the first season movie was released in the UMD format for Sony's PSP handheld video game system, but the other two movies were not. On July 24, 2007, HBO Video released a 4-disc 10th-anniversary signature collector's edition on DVD with all 18 episodes and multiple new bonus features. On July 5, 2016, HBO added all three seasons to its streaming services, HBO GO and HBO NOW. It's also available on HBO Max as of March 2026. The version on streaming services is the episodic broadcast version with McFarlane's live-action intros. ==See also==