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Comic Books
 Spawn is a US comic book published by Image comics and produced by Todd McFarlane Productions (TMP). Premiering in 1992, Spawn was one of the first titles published by Image Comics and was created by one of Image’s founders – Todd McFarlane. McFarlane had become a comic superstar working at Marvel comics, primarily for his work on Spider-Man.
When McFarlane and a number of other creators broke away from Marvel Comics to form Image, they each contributed a comic of their own creation. In the beginning, Todd penciled, inked and wrote Spawn and it quickly became a top seller.
The Story
 Originally, and for most of its history, Spawn has followed the afterlife of a man named Al Simmons. Al was a government secret military operative who was murdered. After death, he made a deal for his soul in order to return to Earth and be with his beloved wife Wanda once again.
Unfortunately, Al’s deal was not a fair trade and he quickly discovered his misfortune. He was returned to earth in a bizarre, living costume capable of acting independently and changing form. He possessed great powers that seemed to be limited only by his imagination. Underneath, however, Al was hideously scarred and left with most of his memories removed.
Hell had made Al into a hellspawn (or Spawn) – an officer in training for its eventual war against heaven. As Al became more and more aware of his situation, he fought back more and more against his masters. Along the way, he has encountered a wide variety of friends and foes. Spawn has quite a roster of supporting characters.
Key characters include:
- Al Simmons (The Spawn introduced in Spawn issue #1)
- Wanda Blake (Al Simmons’ former wife)
- Terry Fitzgerald (Wanda’s current husband)
- Cyan (Wanda and Terry’s daughter)
- Sam Burke and Twitch Williams (two police detectives and friends of Spawn)
- Violator (A demon sent by Hell to keep tabs on Spawn)
- Malebolgia (The demon who made a deal for Al Simmons’ soul)
- Cogliostro (A mysterious and wise old man that serves as a tutor for Spawn)
- Angela (A warrior angel who becomes an unlikely ally of Spawn)
- Mammon (A mysterious agent of Hell plotting against Spawn)
- Redeemer (Heaven’s version of a Spawn, or an anti-spawn)
Of course there are hundreds of other characters as well. More information on any character can be found in the SpawnWorld Encyclopedia. Info on any issue of Spawn can be found in the SpawnWorld Books Library.
Toys
 In addition to the regular Spawn comic, there are spin-off comics, action figures, and all sorts of Spawn related merchandise. Most popular are the Spawn action figures, produced by McFarlane Toys. Todd created McFarlane toys in 1994 to produce his own figures. The company later grew to produce a wide variety of other products as well.
The core property though, Spawn, is produced in series consisting of about 5-7 figures each. Typically, there are also “repaints” made of each series – identical figures re-released with different paint schemes. Additionally, changes during mid-production result in figures with slight variations (or “variants”) that can become sought after to collectors.
Information on all Spawn toys, including repaints and variations, can be found in the SpawnWorld Toys Directory.
Merchandise
 As for other Spawn merchandise, Spawn has been licensed to a large number of other companies for everything from key chains to arcade games. Information on the plethora of spawn stuff (or swag) will eventually be found in the SpawnWorld Stuff Guide.
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