Todd McFarlane’s 50-Year-Old Spawn Concept Is Finally Turned Into a Comic
Spawn creator Todd McFarlane is going back to his high-school years to settle some unfinished business with the hellion anti-hero that made him an industry titan. He and Image Comics are launching Spawn 77, a new miniseries that transforms his original concept sketches drawn during his teens into a fully realized comic for the first time.
“Spawn 77 takes its name from the year McFarlane first created the original Spawn design as a 16-year-old,” the official press release notes. Back then, he was an aspiring cartoonist playing around with unrefined pages that bore little resemblance to the flagship character that put Image on the map in 1992.
“Going back to my roots of when I first developed Spawn as a high school kid, when I was just beginning to feel deeply passionate about collecting comics, and being able to use some of those ideas now 50 years later is really a personal treat for me,” McFarlane remarked. He added that collaborating with artist Mark Spears on the project makes it even more meaningful, praising Spears’ “sophisticated artwork” as a major draw for fans.
Long before Al Simmons was betrayed and sent to Hell, McFarlane’s teenage daydreams were fixed on outer space, and a costume that took a little inspiration from Spider-Man – years before he would redefine the Webhead and his rogues. This unused 1977 design traded the iconic and oh-so familiar massive, flowing cape, heavy chains, and gothic spikes we all know and love for a sleek, bright blue-and-red color scheme.
The pivot to the darker, grittier aesthetic didn’t happen in a vacuum. By the early ’90s, the comic marketplace shifted heavily toward grim, deconstructed anti-heroes, prompting McFarlane to adjust his vision. Co-creating Venom and witnessing the massive popularity of the alien symbiote made the creative choice even easier. It happened to align perfectly with the exaggerated proportions and heavy shadows that became his trademark style.
Spawn 77 ties this retro design into the ever-expanding modern mythology of the Spawn Universe, which has grown from a simple Faustian tragedy into an intergalactic lore. To explain the suit’s sleek, tech-based look, the story introduces it as an early, space-faring iteration of the necroplasmic parasite. It serves as one more cosmic mantle within a Hellspawn army that now spans dimensions, historical eras, and distant planets.
The three-issue miniseries is co-written by McFarlane and Spears, featuring fully painted interior art by Spears. Issue #1 debuts this September as a special, extra-length 64-page comic retailing for $6.99. It will be available at local comic shops and across major digital platforms, including Amazon Kindle, Apple Books, and Google Play.
The release will feature a stacked lineup of covers, including main art by Spears, a collaborative variant by Spears and McFarlane, and a third cover showcasing an updated take on the original 1977 design by McFarlane himself. Variants by Emma Rios, a blank-sketch edition, and multiple high-tier incentive foil variants (ranging up to 1:500 and signed by both creators) round out the launch.
