User reviews

Spawn was way ahead of it's time. I remember watching the original in the 90's on HBO and loving it. Here we are in 2014 and I'm rewatching it and just loving it...just loving it. Adult all the way, Spawn isn't for the kids. It's, of course, a Faustian tale and a superhero title but at it's core this is horror. The cartoon is very dark, chilling, and gritty. It's ultra-violent, suspenseful, animated beautifully, the voice-acting is precise and quietly subdued. It's as if all it's characters are speaking as shadows. Brilliant stuff here that outshines anything DC is doing currently and DC is the only one really doing anything worth a crud for American comic-book animation. Love Marvel but their animation is pathetic. If you're over 18 and want a good super-hero animation that lives and breathes in the dark...go buy Spawn. Mr. McFarland....please bring this back!

Mercenary Al Simmons (Keith David) returns to earth five years after his death having made a deal with one of the lords of Hell, Malebolgia (who never appears on screen). Under the conditions of his deal his mind is broken into fragments with missing memories and his form is rotten and burned beneath his garb as Malebolgia's Spawn. Now Al wanders skid row tormented by the knowledge his wife is now married to his best friend, and now finds himself at the center of power struggles of Heaven, Hell, the criminal, underworld, and his former superiors.

During the late 90s HBO experimented with original animated programming with three original series under their short lived HBO animation label. The experiment's results were mixed. Austin Powers: The Animated Series was cancelled before production could be completed on a single episode due to Mike Myers' prima donna behavior that disillusioned HBO with the project, and while Ralph Bakshi's Spicy City gain enough viewership to greenlight a second season, HBO's desire to replace Bakshi's writing staff lead to creative clashes that ultimately lead to the series' cancellation. Spawn was the most successful of the three, lasting a respectable three seasons and tapping into the cultural zeitgeist that made Spawn so prolific in the 90s. The series was certainly groundbreaking for the time and its influence can be felt in projects that followed despite the series being rather rough around the edges.

The first season of Spawn is the strongest as it follows Al's adjustment to a world that has passed him by and he no longer belongs to. As he lives in the abandoned areas of squalor with the cities homeless becoming their reluctant protector, we see him tempted by hell's emissary Clown/Violator who's basically an amalgam of everything wretched with humanity. He delights in tormenting Al with flashes of his death inter cut with scenes of his wife having sex with his best friend and and while Clown is certainly a source of macabre humor throughout the show, there's also a threatening element to him that makes him an effective antagonist especially throughout the first season.

The first season also ties into a season long arc involving child murderer Billy Kincaid who is being manipulated by Clown to drive Al to a point where he'll be forced to use his demonic powers and descend into a dark path. The scenes with Billy are effectively disturbing, and the show doesn't hold back from diving into the ugliness. But despite the show's willingness to plunge into the darkest depths of humanity, there are lights trying to fight back against the darkness. Sam and Twitch are easily my favorite of the supporting cast as they're two of the only honest cops in the city willing to take on the city's criminal element as well as the hellish minions who exert their control. Sam's brashness and muscle are well balanced out by Twitch's intellect and calm collectiveness making them an endearing set of side characters who keep the series from becoming overbearingly dark.

The show unfortunately becomes less focused in later seasons as it struggles to balance new elements with the ones established in the first season. New plot threads involving emissaries of Heaven, Al's former boss Jason Wynn working deals with Hell, and police corruption in Sam and Twitch's department are all vying for attention and Al doesn't evolve much beyond the first season until the end of the third season in what's establishment for a fourth season that never happened. The second and third season are still compelling and have individual moments of greatness to them, but unlike the first season there's no central plot thread tying them together like the Billy Kincaid plot that kept the show moving.

Spawn is a flawed series, but it does have a lot going for it. From its beautiful and stylishly dark animation that brings life to the dilapidated streets and hellish artwork, to the unapologetically intense material that isn't afraid to be dark and sleazy Spawn was a groundbreaking series especially in an era when animation for adults consisted of Simpsons and South Park. The series has trouble finding its footing and doesn't know how to effectively balance competing plot threads (especially after its first season) but it's a respectable attempt an animated adult series that tries to go against established formula.

Having been a big fan of Spawn back in the day, and have been reading the comic book since the first issue was published and up well into issue 100-something, I must say that it was nice to actually sit down and watch this animated series based on Todd McFarlane's Spawn comic book.

Oddly enough, then I only made it through the first season back in the time when it was all new and just came out. But I drifted away from the series, only to return in 2021 and complete it. And turns out that I had been missing out on a great viewing experience indeed.

If you have read the comic books, then you will definitely feel right at home here, because this animated series does a good job at capturing the essence of Spawn and the whole universe that McFarlane created. Just a shame, though, that the series only ran for three seasons, as there was a lot, a whole lot, more to tell in this series.

"Spawn" is an animated series for the adults, as it does contain a good dose of explicit violence, nudity, foul language, substance abuse and such. So you might not want to introduce a younger audience to this series.

I think that by hiring Keith David for voicing the Spawn character, they really made a wise and excellent choice. His voice is just so unique and characteristic and really brought a lot of flavor to the Spawn character.

The art style they used in the series was very true to the art style seen in the comic books, lots of dark imagery and nice use of contract colors. It was visually a treat to sit through the three seasons of "Spawn", no doubt about that.

Something that I didn't like about the series was that every episode was kicked off by having creator Todd McFarlane sit or stand around with words of wisdom to share, and trying to be all enigmatic and gloomy. Yeah, yeah, we know that you created Spawn, and we know what you look like. But having him be around to host and start off each episode was just not something I enjoyed. It just came off as a bit too 'look at me, I'm famous'.

One thing that was missing from the three seasons was more of Angela. Sure, she was there, but way too briefly. She was definitely one of the more interesting characters in the comic books.

Whether or not you have read the comic books or am familiar with the Spawn franchise, then this animated series that ran from 1997 to 1999 is definitely something I would and will recommend that you sit down to watch, if you haven't already done so, and if you have the chance. This is top notch animated entertainment for an adult audience. And let's just be frank about it, Spawn totally wipes Batman off the charts here.

My rating of this animated series lands on a well-deserved nine out of ten stars.

Spawn has, for quite some time, being the grounding stone of Image Comics. Image is the third largest retailer in the US and UK. Marvel, the leader, has names such as Spiderman, X-Men, Capt America, Hulk and a never-ending list of other heroes. D.C., the second, has Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman and a whole load more. And Image has Spawn. There are a few others, but most would not have heard of them. This is just a brief glimpse at the popularity of this single character whose sales in comics alone support the mammoth of a company that Image is.

The animation runs over three seasons (also referred to as three feature-length movies) and each season is split into six twenty-five minute episodes. On DVD, the seasons run as individual films. This is a total running time of a little over seven hours, as each film is about two and a half hours. And within these seven hours, is everything one could possibly want from Spawn. Without giving away essential plot points, it is safe to say that the basic, original story of Spawn which is covered over the first couple of dozen comics and the not-so-well-received movie, is covered in the first season. The second and third seasons are also true to the comics, but are a deeper insight into the legend of Spawn.

The animations are slightly in manga style (only very slightly, taking the few better elements of manga and mixing it with conventional western cartoons), but are also western enough so as to keep the gritty feel that the original comics generated. There is an abundance of blood (I would say gore, but it is all spurting blood and little guts), plenty of swearing and a whole load of nudity. Now, I am a fan of Justice League which is pure and innocent enough to be shown on day time TV. But if I'm going to go out of my way to watch an evening adult show, I do appreciate it when the makers go all out to MAKE it an adult show. It is not for the pathetic, faint of heart. It is brutal, it is hard core, and I love it to bits.

Spawn is voiced by Keith David who had the most brilliant, atmospheric deep voice which captures the purest essences of what Spawn should sound like, and likewise the rest of the voice-casting is outstanding at worst. The voice overs are half what make a show like this, and when they are so precision perfect and so fantastically scripted it's no wonder that watching the film like this draws you deep into the world.

And animation is well above par. Not the best I've ever seen, but that is rare and often a sure-fire sign that too much time and money has gone into too specific an aspect of the overall project. The colouring/inking and shadow work are perfect for Spawn. Most of the time the majority of the characters are cast half in shadow, and the more mysterious a character, the less you see. This applies to Spawn too, but we see plenty of him so it's fine.

All in all, I can only wish there are more programs like this out there. I do believe that the audience they aim for is quite small considering all the people out there who would rather watch feel-good daytime talk shows and shopping channels than a brilliantly conceived film-noir style animation. So if this is your thing, I cannot recommend it more strongly. And if you are a fan of Spawn, lock yourself in a room with plenty of food and water for a day, because you will not be able to tear yourself away.

"Spawn: The animated series" is one of the best adaptations of one comic into animation, just like "The Maxx". The animation is excellent, full of details and with a dark and mysterious atmosphere, and the story is dark as well. While in the movie the characters are plain and uninteresting, in this show, all those characters are much better developed, and the story was interesting and well written.

the whole series was put together fabulously, and it is superior in every single detail in the movie. It stayed true to Spawns roots, it was dark, it was emotional, it was violent, it had a sick sense of humor. "Spawn" is one of the best animated series ever made.

I agree with what many reviewers said and I wont rehash the story line anymore - many folks have done so already.

What I'd like to add is that HBO Cable Networks did a wonderful thing in showing this as a weekly series. I was glued to the television weekly at midnight - not just me but all of my friends as well. I don't care what I was doing, I HAD to watch this. We all loved this animated working of Spawn. The animation was crisp, the storytelling was adult and intelligent, the vocal casting was superb. This is what adult animation and comic book adaptation was about. The first season was better than the second one to me but both were groundbreaking.

What I disliked more than anything -- was the feature film of "Spawn". It did not hold a candle to this series and just ruined what was already done. Sad thing, HBO hasn't re-shown repeats of this and they should. And HBO hasn't produced & adapted other comics, which it should be doing along these lines. There are many production lessons here as well as a great adaptation lesson.

Todd MacFarlane's creation is the best here. I hope they show it again, release a DVD if so, do not miss this. Be forewarned - adult themes run through this version. The first season is NOT for the kiddies or a PG-13 oriented. It is dark, it is wonderful and it is the world of Spawn as it should be seen and interpreted.

During the year when the live-action adaptation of, "Spawn", was released, HBO released an animated series based on the comic-book series that ran from 1997 to 1999. This is one of the greatest animated series ever made.

The animation is excellent it make's the series look dark and edgy, the characters were great including Detectives Sam and Twitch, and the voice acting was good especially having Keith David provide the voice of the main character.

Overall, if you didn't like the live-action movie or looking for a good show to watch, "Spawn: The Animated Series", is really worth watching.

The comic books are rich in character backgrounds and, elevate rapidly through masterful story lines. Since when has a comic book character brought so much pain and adversity to our screens. Since when has a comic book character been adapted into an animated series and still creates an aura of harshness and entertainment. Maybe the Batman series of the early 90's reflected the true depiction of it's character; Bob Kane intended Gotham City to be a dark and disturbing reality. A world like David Fincher or Tim Burton. Spawn does indeed thrive in this blend of nightmarish fantasy, which still portrays a world that does exists. Maybe the thought of a soldier sent from Hell, inhabiting the streets dressed in a red cloak and a rubber costume, while ridding the slums of criminals seems far fetched, it is still entertaining. The fact that Todd Mcfarlane has worked on comic books such as Spiderman shows that he knows how intricate characters are to be depicted. So he knew fine well that for this series to work an in depth, complex and intriguing storyline had to prevail. Spawn the animated series is just that and if you take time to appreciate each character and their personalities you should find Spawn to be highly watchable. Moving away from this the animation is just sublime; playing with the shadows of Rat Alley, and blending the hatred of Spawn with his undying love for Wanda, we are led into a paradoxical imagination of two untouchable forces colliding - Heaven and Hell. Watch Spawn and if you can read the comics, they are of a very good quality.

As of June 2023 I have just finished watching this for the first time and while it obviously is very dated it is still better than most comic adaptions, including both animated and live action of the past 20 years.

Tl:dr I read a quote comparing it to batman TAS and that is fair. Obviously made around the same time they share an aesthetic but at times spawn is willing to delve into darker subject matter that is off limits to batman. Seasons 1 and 3 still hold up as some of the best animated adaptions we have season 2 is basically just dead air, entire episodes go by with nothing at all happening, literally no story progression, character or world building, just bloat.

Ramble:

I admit I have not read spawn so I don't know how accurate this is and how much was changed or tweaked to better translate to the screen, since Todd McFarlane worked directly I am going to assume there were no drastic changes, but maybe due to the process translating from page to screen the story telling is a bit wierd, a bit poorly paced in places, I won't give specific spoilers but there are times where spawn contradicts himself within 2 minutes of screen time,there are also episodes where really nothing happens and others that play out like a 90's action movie, there are times where he makes choices that make literally zero sense and are guaranteed to come back to bite him later.

One thing I will say is that the voices take more getting use to than the dated animations. Keith David as spawn is fine but for some reason 98% of the other characters in this show whisper like they were early adopters of asmr. I am not quite sure why they have literal beings of hell like violator whispering but it does come across very strange, a violent, gory, lore centred around hell and a soul bargain and for some reason humans and hellish nightmares alike refuse to raise their voice above a barely audible whisper and can threaten each other, talk about murder and torture but the whole time talk as if they are trying not to wake a nearby baby but at the same time having shoot outs, rocket launcher battles, grenades hurled around the place and one particular location becoming a small scale warzone on an hourly basis and that's all just standard procedure.

This is something that was lost on me, throughout the watch I failed to understand why the voice actors were given that direction or how at no point over 3 seasons did anyone find it odd, but I guess it is just a stylistic choice that is lost on me.

The movie was one of the worst I had seen in my life. I did not have high hope for the animated series but I was very much surprised. The dialogue and, bizarrely enough, the acting are a hundred times as good as the film and the plot and characters are also much more intriguing.

Sadly production ended before the 4th season of Spawn and it just seemed to be getting darker and darker. But the one thing I can be sure of from this is that it's going to have one hell of a send-off when the entire story finally climaxes (if HBO ever bring it back, which they should!!!)

I'd start watching this if I were you. But be prepared. The violence is quite graphic.

Flat, colorless dialogue and characters just as one dimensional. The NYPD in Spawn is criminally stupid. One character, Twitch is the only one who approaches interesting. It's nice to see a strong black female character in Wanda Blake, but she only switches between that simple formulation and a few other clichés. The main saving qualities of this series are the animation quality, overall plot and concept (not the execution thereof, however), and the nostalgia factor.

Todd McFarlane's intros are absolutely stupid. They give an idea of how much he wants to force a narrative tone ("And now, Spawn. So turn out the lights.) rather than create one. The effect is a melodrama whose painfully cliché dialogue wastes Keith David's incredible skills. The show does little to improve upon the source material or explore new dimensions of the Spawn universe and fails to create a product that fits into HBO's family of top-notch programming.

McFarlane wasted an opportunity to tell a quality story that could attract a new audience, which was probably his intent, but he missed his mark so severely, ignores the potential of subtlety so thoroughly, that the end result is merely fan service in an attractive package.

Spawn was an animated series based on Todd McFarlane's comic book series.The first season of the show and the movie version both came out in 1997.The movie was PG-13 rated and while it was not the worst movie ever, it was nowhere near as good as the comics or this animated series.This series is great.It's dark, disturbing, violent, gory etc.Definitely not for the kids.The show is about a man who is left for dead by his old boss.He now comes back as a hellspawn and exacts his revenge while trying to see his ex-wife Wanda who has re-married to his friend.The show has Spawn living in an alley with other homeless people, as well as one who was once a hellspawn earlier.He basically saves them from all the gangs and the mafia who come and attack them as well, while trying to exact revenge on his old boss.Season 1 was the best season in my opinion, season 3 was great as well.Season 2 was good but a bit disappointing in comparison to the other ones.Overall a great series! The show was released on 3 DVD's originally where they combine all the episodes of a season to make a movie.Now they have a 4 disk tin case box set.Worth watching!

I thought the movie could have used some work, this show did some things better than said movie, however, it too could have used some work. Suffice to say, it is almost all talk and no action with some pointless nudity thrown in probably to draw a person in. I love nudity, but not really in the context this show used it in. The story is somewhat similar to that of the movie only there is no real conclusion through the episodes I saw of this show. I saw what was the equivalent of the first two seasons, and quite frankly the first two seasons were all set up with very little payoff. I am just afraid that Todd Macfarlene is just a guy who is to full of himself and who tries way to hard to make this particular comic hero more than what he is, but adding unnecessary depth where a few more awesome fight scenes might liven up the program a bit. I can see from the score here I am in the minority in this thinking, but Spawn is not all that popular in the mainstream because it is at times boring to read and watch. However, he has his fans so I will not say to much about it, this show had some potential and is better than the movie which seemed to take an opposite course of becoming to action oriented and lame.

Every episode of this cartoon starts with creator Todd McFarlane yapping away about the story. He thinks he is Rod Serling from The Twilight Zone, but he falls short. The McFarlane intro is usually boring.

The cartoon finally starts, usually close to four minutes into the 23 minutes of cartoon. Spawn does nothing except more yapping about how much he wants his wife Wanda, who married another man and had a kid in the five years since Spawn/ Al Simmons died. Yap, yap, yap, and no action.

Most of the time, Spawn lets all the innocent people get killed, and then at the end he might kill a couple of villains. End of another boring episode of Spawn. The cast of supporting characters is totally unoriginal. You might as well add the Spawn character to an episode of Kojak. It is all the same dialogue. Pretty boring stuff.

This is the ultimate expression of the Spawn character, engaging plots, amazing artwork and a propensity to the excellent. The voice casting is perfect, and a good job was done trimming the crap out of the comic book, and improving and streamlining the storyboards, it beats the ever living crap out of the movie and is the sort of thing that creates fanatics out of people.

Unbelievably good better than I could ever expect! Todd McFarlane is legendary, I'm glad someone recommended me this show. Lots of wild adult and adult stuff occurs for an animated show I love that! Shocked there's only 18 episodes thats easy to get through.

Spawn was a 3-season long HBO animated series from 1997-1999.I was not there to watch it during it's original run, but I caught maybe one episode on Teletoon years ago.I watched the entire series on youtube about a year ago and I bought the Season 1 DVD.This review is for the third season? Why does it have it's own separate IMDb page? Well apparently, the seasons were combined and made into films for the older DVD's.I am not sure if they make it separate episodes for the new tin-case box-set DVD's.Season 1 was simply amazing, I loved it! Then Season 2 in my opinion was a disappointment.It was good just nowhere near as good as the first.Season 3 improved from Season 2 and came close to being as good as the first season.The series ended in a sort of cliffhanger and never came back, though there is talks for a continuation.You can either by the tin-case DVD set with all three seasons, or you can buy the 3 DVD's which are more like movies.At $6.00 a DVD, it's definitely worth it.The DVD for this season(the old one) has an interview with Todd McFarlane & the cast talking about the show, plus two music videos.One is "Bawbitaba" by Kid Rock and the other is "Play Around" by Lil Cease & Lil Kim.These are kinda random, they have nothing to do with Spawn.The songs are both decent in my opinion, but not great.

I can't get enough of this series, like at all. I always enjoy watching the show over and over again, and NO I don't get tired of it. Keith David deserves a round of applause, he was that level of good. This series was dark and spectacular, and I loved every single second of it. Spawn is in fact my favorite Anti-Hero, only sad and disappointed it didn't continue. 10/10 Love it

Great insights brought together in imagery and story that reach crescendos of wrenching intensity. We are creatures born of carnality of many sorts. These of themselves lead us to terrible evil and yet also may be the source of or are opposed by transcendent good. Spawn explores this metaphorical brew of opposites at its most elemental and archtypal. We rolled on the floor when Todd (the originator of the series) narrated after the second season that some wanted to purchase rights for Saturday morning kiddie viewing because it was in a comic book format. This is mature audience animation at is very finest. As it aged (second and third season)like a fine wine it gained depth, bouquet, and mystery. It needs a fourth season to be complete. There are so many things still dangling.

The animation is really dark, so it is hard to enjoy or appreciate the art. The skinny characters all look exactly the same. The fat guys all look the same. Most of the faces are always in shadows, so it is kind of lame animation.

Spawn is walking around most of the time, or dropping down from a tree or a balcony, so there is nothing amazing about his animation. When Spawn's face is shown in gory detail, that is pretty good. The bloodshed and shootings are also well done. The nude women are OK, but it is not a porno, so why bother?

The dialogue is OK. I never read Spawn comic books, so all I can say is that the cartoon series is a lot better than the horrible movie. This series would have been better without the cheesy two minute introduction by Todd McFarlane in every episode. I would have preferred an extra two or three minutes of Spawn.

I can enjoy each episode as a stand alone experience. However, now that I've finished the series and can consider the series as a whole, I'm pretty disappointed.

It seems as if there was no plan for this story. Characters and plot points are introduced and then never mentioned again. Others are insufficiently developed.

The conclusion felt rushed and unsatisfying.

It feels as if another season, at least, was required to tie this series together.

...does that make it good? I do find Spawn the animated series interesting. The characters are fairly well-developed, I suppose the gore is an accurate representation of what's going on. But...the thing drags. And it drags further because HBO only seems to air the show in 6-8 episode batches, once a year. Just when things get interesting, it's Whoosh! off the air for 6-8 months. There also seems to be a lot of unnecessary padding (more in the second year), and Cogliostro is just downright annoying, both as narrator and in his conversations with Spawn. Keith David's voice work is excellent as always, though. Generally, though, this doesn't inspire me to go out and read the comic books. It's one of those shows you like to watch, but don't inspire you to watch devotedly every week. And Todd McFarlane as the intro Serling-like host? Sheesh.