50 Greatest Super Heroes In Comic Book History

34. Spawn

(Write-up by Nick Tylwalk, Bam Smack Pow Editor)

It’s definitely possible to create your own super hero from scratch, set up shop somewhere other than Marvel or DC and find success. Building an entire multi-media empire around that character? That’s a lot tougher, which makes what Todd McFarlane did with Spawn that much more impressive.

Of course, McFarlane had a pretty sizable advantage over anyone trying to do the same thing when he first helped found Image Comics, and that’s his already established superstardom as an artist. He was arguably the hottest penciller in the world when he created Spawn, which meant the character itself didn’t necessarily have to be the best for it to sell a lot of comics.

Is that a slam on Spawn, the super hero? Not exactly, as there were some fun concepts involved. The idea of being given powers from Hell but trying to use them for good wasn’t a completely original one, but it still worked. One of my favorite parts was the timer on his powers that decreased every time he used them, though that was later dropped. As for those abilities … well, if you can tell me exactly what they were without looking them up, you’re a bigger Spawn fan than I am.

That’s not really the point anyway. The visual appeal of Spawn was undeniable, both in terms of McFarlane’s art (and later, Greg Capullo’s, as well) and that costume, which was very much 90s but managed to transcend its time and become something that was easily recognizable. It also can’t be argued that the character was popular enough to spin off into movies, animation, toys, video games, and pretty much everything you can put a super hero into. For a creator-owned super hero property, that’s an amazing accomplishment, and Spawn is still kicking around in comics to this day.

Next: No. 35: The ageless secret agent