The idea of expanding Image's superhero universe isn't unique to McFarlane; just yesterday, the publisher announced that the Free Comic Book Day title coming out in May would be North Force 0, a reworked version of an upcoming issue of Savage Dragon that shines a spotlight on a number of other Image superheroes owned and written by Erik Larsen.
The goal is to create possibilities. And the possibilities aren't going to come unless you've got the characters and you've got the foundation All of it adds up to other companies and corporations, and eyeballs and fans looking at this brand and saying, 'What else you got? McFarlane has always had a big, complex world around Spawn -- heck, most of those variant Spawn characters are beings that launched out of the first couple of years of Spawn , along with dozens of others set in various different centuries throughout history.
The idea here is to take all of that to the next level. And within years, I'm hoping each one of those books multiplies into hundreds of new characters too. McFarlane notes, though, that the expansion of the universe -- and the expansion of the publishing line -- is something entirely new in a way that fans might not immediately realize, considering how expansive he has tried to make it feel in the past. But there's a difference between doing Medieval Spawn and Gunslinger Spawn What I haven't done in 28 years, almost three decades now, is a second monthly book," McFarlane said.
But now, I'm not talking about a second monthly book, I'm talking about a third and a fourth. So that by the end of this year, there will be four of them, four monthlies. You can come in every week, if you want to get your Spawn fix, and I don't mean Spawn himself. In a weird way, Spawn may become a generic term, because it's just the guy who became the catalyst to start this play that hopefully will be littered with thousands of characters, of which only about a small fraction will have anything to do with Spawn.
Because otherwise, why do I want to keep repeating the same idea? Even though he's looking to Marvel and DC's interconnected, shared universes to inspire what he's trying to do, McFarlane says one thing he doesn't want to do is create the elaborate and sometimes baffling webs of continuity that those publishers struggle with. You and I and every other fan that's ever collected for any period of time, we understand in shared universes, things are going on in different books, and we don't need to be hit over the head with it.
Sometimes it doesn't even have to be aggressive continuity. It just has to be sometimes a wink. McFarlane said that he hates the idea of talking about "event books," but it's kind of a necessary evil when talking about the Spawn's Universe one-shot. He calls the book a "table-setter," not unlike DC Universe: Rebirth 1 or something in that vein.
It will set the stage for what's next, and help fans get introduced to the characters. Spawn was adapted into a feature film , an HBO animated series lasting from until and a series of action figures whose unprecedented detail made McFarlane Toys a toy industry giant. Still, the monthly series continues, becoming, along with Savage Dragon , one of the two original Image titles still published. Spawn 2 , art by Todd McFarlane.
Spawn enjoyed a considerable amount of popularity in the s, which was a notable feat for a non DC and non Marvel character. From on Spawn was very popular, and part of this was possibly due to the widespread popularity of McFarlane Toys, which expanded beyond specialty stores, and the toys were sold in major department stores as well as Toys "R" Us and KB Toys. This gave the title a boost, and brought it to the attention of both younger audiences and older toy collectors who were exposed to the toys.
When this popularity ended is impossible to place, at least in regards to any one date. In general, Spawn's popularity peaked with the Spawn feature film. The character's popularity began to slowly decline after this, until he largely dropped off the "mainstream" radar in The comic book's sales have been in steady decline, though it continues to be published today. Still, figures produced by McFarlane Toys continue to remain very popular, mostly due to their tremendous detailing.
Most recently, the hype around Spawn allowed the issue to sell-out very quickly as a new creative team was brought on board and fan interest in the book has again picked up, but the book is still critically panned in most circles. All three characters continued to be featured prominently in the series after Gaiman's involvement, and had many tie-ins with McFarlane's toy company.
Cogliostro had a prominent role in the live-action movie in McFarlane had agreed that Gaiman was a co-creator of the characters and paid him royalties for reprints, graphic novels and action figures. After a few years he ceased the payment of royalties and gave Gaiman notice that he owned all rights to the characters, citing the copyright notice from Issue 9 and claimed that Gaiman's work had been work-for-hire and that McFarlane was the sole owner. In , Gaiman filed suit against McFarlane and in response Todd counter-sued.
The main goal was to determine the issue of ownership for another character Gaiman felt he had a stake in, Miracleman, which at the time McFarlane was believed to hold a sizeable stake in after his buyout of the assets of Eclipse Comics. This issue was thrown out. Author David Hine takes over when McFarlane steps away, and the run begins with a big heaping of backstory recap and status quo reset.
Issues — Want to jump into the the highly-energized run that returned Spawn to the top of the sales charts? This pair of issues are a complete history of the story so far or, at least, the bits that still matter with annotations to explain where the plot beats originally unfurled. Marc Silvestri pencils 25 as part of Image X-Month, though McFarlane still scripts given the density of the series continuity by that point. Dwayne Turner pencils Angel Medina takes over art duties with and continues through Issue 10 was written by Dave Sims and is frequently omitted from collected editions because it depicts Marvel and DC characters in cameo.
Alan Moore co-writes issue 8 and later co-writes 37 , introducing Vindicator. Neil Gaiman writes issue 9 and later co-writes 26 , which introduces Angela and Medieval Spawn. Issue 11 was written by Frank Miller. Grant Morrison writes the arc from , and Andrew Grossberg Julia Simmons co-writes A four-volume slipcased line collecting issues A volume oversize hardcover line collecting issues Please be careful to purchase english language editions of this series, as a similarly named series with similar covers was released in German.
A volume paperback line collecting issues A giant, phone-book-lengthed affordable paperback collection reproducing artwork in black and white. This original trade paperback line ran with painted covers starting with volume four and with reprints of the first three editions to appeal to the Sandman-oriented bookstore audience.
Originally, the six imprints of the Image universe were much more closely tied together. Simmons cameos here in this origin of Chapel. Spawn-Batman One-Shot A.
Violator Not collected in English. Written by Alan Moore. Spawn: Fan Edition Not collected. Written by Beau Smith with pencils by C. Bradford Gorby. While this may fit earlier in chronology it features a Norse version of Spawn , it relates to the Violator series and makes the most sense to read adjacent to that. Angela See Angela eventually.
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