Todd McFarlane created the character of Spawn in 1977, when he was 16 years old, and now he’s bringing that original version to comics for the first time in the three-issue miniseries Spawn ’77, co-written by McFarlane and Mark Spears with fully painted interior art by Spears. Image Comics will launch the series in September 2026 with a 64-page first issue with an MSRP of $6.99. The comic will have an array of covers, with a main cover by Spears, a variant by Spears and McFarlane, a 1977 update variant by McFarlane, another variant by Emma Rios, and multiple retailer incentive covers, including 1:25, 1:50, and 1:100 variants by McFarlane, a 1:250 foil variant signed by McFarlane, and a 1:500 foil variant by Spears and McFarlane that is signed by both.
“I created Spawn when I was 16,” McFarlane said at the ICv2 Insider Talks at New York Comic Con in 2025 (see “Todd McFarlane on the Creator as Brand”). “I could have given it to Marvel and DC dozens of times over. I chose not to, not only that character, but others. Why? There wasn’t a system, I thought, that was equitable and fair for me to pull it out and give it to them.” Instead, he developed the character on his own, and when he launched it, the first issue sold 1.7 million copies, a record for an independent comic. In 2021, he announced he was expanding the franchise (see “Todd McFarlane Plans Comic Universe Around Spawn“), and since then he has overseen numerous spinoffs based on the series.
“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 said in a statement accompanying the announcement.
Spears, the creator of the best-selling Mark Spears Monsters series, broke into comics in 2023 when he did four Spawn Universe covers for McFarlane (see “ICv2 Interview: Mark Spears“).
Click Gallery below for cover and interiors!
Source: ICV2
