Cogliostro is perhaps the most important addition, providing Simmons with a much-needed mentor figure to explain his powers as Spawn. Angela is an antagonist who further fleshes out this world’s version of Heaven, structured like a high-powered corporation where angels and other divine beings wage a “cold war” with the forces of Hell on Earth. Medieval Spawn gives the character a legacy and history, informing readers that there were Spawns before Simmons. The three characters Gaiman co-created with McFarlane introduced here do a lot to fill in the details of Spawn’s world. On his own as a writer/artist, McFarlane added intriguing pieces here and there, but it was all vague and under-explained.

With this single issue, Neil Gaiman builds a world that had been missing from the Spawn comics. Each writer took their own approach to McFarlane’s signature character, but it was Gaiman’s in particular that provided the Spawn universe with an overarching mythology that the series previously lacked. This was how the likes of Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave Sim and Frank Miller came to each write an issue of Spawn. Deciding to take what the critics were saying about the writing to heart, Todd McFarlane hired what many considered to be the best writers working in comics at the time. Spawn was no exception, as the initial issues threw in a lot of half-formed ideas that struggled to come together into a cohesive whole. When Gaiman came in for a single issue he introduced a handful of characters and changing Spawn’s world forever after.Īlthough the Image Comics titles like Spawn broke sales records, critics weren’t impressed when it came to the actual stories the comics told. Todd McFarlane’s Spawn #1 debuted in 1992, but it wasn’t until eight issues later when the character’s mythology truly began to take shape thanks to acclaimed writer Neil Gaiman.

Todd mcfarlane's spawn angela