The comic book character Spawn is no stranger to appearing in a variety of different properties, whether it be crossover comics, video games, or more. According to creator Todd McFarlane, there’s a handful of reasons why.
Speaking to ComingSoon, McFarlane credited the longevity of Spawn as one of the biggest reasons why crossovers happen. With the character having been around for three decades, McFarlane said that there’s value in the character.
“I think a couple things. One: I’ve had the good fortune of Spawn been around for 30 years,” said McFarlane. “When a brand that has decades long legacies behind them, your value now is through attrition, right? I know a lot about the Kardashians and I don’t even read about them. [Laughs]. And somehow they’re in my head.”
Spawn has guest starred in multiple video games
As for comic book crossovers with the worlds of Marvel and DC and video game crossovers — Spawn has appeared in games like Soulcalibur II, Mortal Kombat 11, and even Call of Duty — McFarlane said that Spawn’s background as a military character and his availability as someone to do crossovers with makes it very easy to do.
“On the comic book front, you can’t really get your hands on a lot of the Marvel and DC characters because they’re owned by Disney and Warner Brothers,” McFarlane said. “So I think he’s by far the number one option once you go outside those two. He’s got, as I mentioned before, the military thing in there, and I’m not a public company and I can give a lot of flexibility to the developers and the art teams to basically have as much fun as possible so that they’re not having to follow my rules. If anything, my rule is that there are no rules, and I say it out loud as much as possible in every meeting, to keep pushing and pushing and pushing to let them have as much fun as they can.
“To me, we’ve got to do something that works for the video game, period. Don’t let a tail wag a do, and the comic books and the toys and the movies and animation — those are tales. Just do the video game upright. Do the character upright as a Call of Duty character, even forgetting that he’d been in any other video games prior. Just focus on that. What’s the best iteration of Spawn in Call of Duty? That’s the goal. Go.”
