Todd McFarlane’s Spawn is a 1997 animated television series created by Todd McFarlane, including voices by Keith David, Michael Nicolosi, James Hanes, Dominique Jennings, Victor Love, Michael McShane, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Kath Soucie. After being betrayed and murdered by his employer, a government trained assassin named, Al Simmons, is resurrected as a Hellspawn and is forced to become the reluctant leader of Hell’s army.

Plot: The story overall is deep and complex diving into some pretty dark concepts but the cohesive storyline is compelling to the soul. Spawn’s journey goes into some scary places with his presence revealing the nightmares that lurk in the dark. But what’s great is that the episodes focus on the intricacies of its human characters as well. There’s plenty of intrigue and conspiracies involving greedy businessmen, mobsters and hitmen, and plenty of innocents caught in the crossfire. There are some episodes (more specifically during the second season) that tend to feel episodic in nature and it does take away from the overall story of the show.  Still, the story’s good enough to be invested in. (3 out of 5)

Characters:  The characters are great and well-developed, and they have a lot of interesting points to them. Spawn is the main protagonist of the series, a government assassin killed by his agency and sent back to Earth as part of a deal with the devil-like Malebolgia. But despite his initial hostile and serious personality, we learn that Spawn has many levels which we see with his relationships with others. The series also fleshes out Terry and Wanda, Al’s former best friend and his spouse. They are as important to the story as they are to the development of Spawn. Along with Spawn’s supporting cast of homeless people, they do a great job of bringing humanity to the character. One of the series’ main antagonist is Spawn’s nemesis the Violator. He’s probably one of the most awesome comic book villains. I love his dark humor and how much he pushes the our antihero and the events of the episodes. There’s just a large and awesome cast of great characters both human and otherworldly, both good and bad; all who give great context and depth to the story and setting. (4 out of 5)

Cast: The voice performances are just done terrifically.  Keith David completely owns the role of Spawn, just gives him that deep, edgy voice yet his performance captures the character perfectly. But David isn’t the only great performance. James Hanes,
Dominique Jennings, James Keane, John Rafter Lee, Victor Love, Michael McShane, Michael Nicolosi, and Kath Soucie. (4 out of 5)

Animation Style: The series features a great animation style that has a strong focus on darkness and shadows similar to the animation of Batman: The Animated Series. It’s Gothic theme is strong and provides a heavy atmosphere for the dark themes and hardcore violence. It’s artistic in its presentation yet maintains the quality of its comic book source material. Now, as a pretty serious and dark cartoon series there are some issues here with the detailing and coloring choices. They can be noticeable at times adding to some of its inconsistencies.  The look of characters like Spawn and the Violator have good detail(3 out of 5)

Score: The series features a really good score. Shirley Walker’s composition does a great job of conveying the dark mood of the series, especially the feeling of pain and isolation felt by our protagonist. Suspense and action is maintained in an artistic yet subtle way, and emotion is carried smoothly. (3 out of 5)

Writing:  I was very appreciative of the writing of the series and how diverse it is.  It was suspenseful, it was intelligent, and centered on some pretty strong themes.  There’s plenty of violence, blood and gore, swearing, and nudity that adds to the intensity and dark tone.  The Gothic style atmosphere definitely works for how gritty, dark, and edgy the direction is each season bringing something different to the series though some elements could’ve been done a bit better. The dialogue is handled well enough to sound serious without sounding cartoonish (that’s to cast’s great delivery). The first season features the most immersive stories that becomes less focused on good centralized storytelling making the writing feel like it’s degraded to some degree by the end of the series. There’s no doubt that the series is designated for adults and its appreciation for the source material makes that apparent though it differs in many ways from it.  (3 out of 5)

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The Verdict:  In the end, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn is a great series and does a good job giving us a Spawn that’s both compelling and entertaining.  It isn’t perfect by any means. The color themes falter from time to time, and the story and writing loses its steam later on in the series. However, there’s a lot to love about it.  There are good characters, the animation isn’t bad, the voice performances are good, the score’s great, the story is interesting, and the atmosphere is dark.  Todd McFarlane’s Spawn gets 3 out of 5.