In 1992, Todd McFarlane brought a new antihero named Spawn to the world after he helped found Image Comics, and that is the character who remains that company’s most enduring and popular star. In that original series, Al Simmons was a government assassin who was killed and ended up going to Hell for the various sins he committed over his life. However, when he reached Hell, he made a deal with the demon Malebolgia to return to Earth as a Hellspawn so he could see his wife Wanda again. However, when he returns, it has been five years; he is unrecognizable, and his new job is to prepare for Hell’s eventual war against Heaven.
While Spawn became incredibly popular, with Al Simmons attempting to atone for all his past sins and also rebelling against his creator, there have been several other versions of Spawn that appeared in Image Comics, many of whom rival the power of Simmons.
It has been 30 years since Image Comics released the series Curse of the Spawn (1996) by Alan McElroy and Dwayne Turner, which took place 400 years in the future after Al Simmons’ death. The story opens up on the eve of a future Armageddon, and this Spawn’s origin is even darker than that of Al Simmons. Daniel was one of two kids whose father abused them, so Daniel finally took revenge and killed his father. Five years after his death, he was reborn as the new Hellspawn.
The first thing Daniel saw when he was reborn was a woman and her son being attacked by Desiccator, so Daniel immediately destroyed the creature. Throughout the spin-off series, Daniel is haunted by fragmented memories of an abusive, murderous childhood as he struggles to grasp his new Hellspawn identity. The world is a dystopian landscape, and Daniel is likely more powerful than Al because his powers were needed in an end-of-times storyline.
Medieval Spawn debuted in Spawn #9 (1993) by Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane. This was the same issue that debuted Angela and Cogliostro. Later named Sir John of York, Medieval Spawn was previously a knight who fought in an English civil war, and he became a Hellspawn after he died and made a deal with the demon lord Malebolgia. He returned to Earth in symbiotic medieval armor.
The Spawn live-action movie had Cogliostro as Sir John, but this wasn’t the comic book version of the character, which was different. In his debut appearance, he is hunted by Angela, who kills him quickly with her Dimensional Lance. This was the moment that Spawn showed that Hellspawn were prey for Heaven’s agents. Medieval Spawn has the same powers as Al Simmons, but both antiheroes are held back by the same finite power limitations. This is not so much a power upgrade as it is a variant of the same antihero.
After Al Simmons reached his breaking point and died by suicide with a gunshot to the head, Jim Downing was revived as the new Hellspawn, replacing Simmons in the role. Jim’s first appearance was in Spawn #185 (2008) by Todd McFarlane, Brian Holguin, and Whilce Portacio. Jim was the first person to be Spawn after Al Simmons and held the role for around 65 issues before Al returned.
Unlike Al, Jim didn’t deplete his necroplasm, and his reserves always rose instead of falling. This means he didn’t have the finite-power weakness that Hellspawn like Al and Medieval Spawn faced. This gave him greater raw power than Al Simmons. It was later revealed that Simmons and Downing were linked because Al tried to use his powers to fix his face, and a different one showed up, which was retconned to be Jim’s face. The same retcon that showed Al creating Jim’s face revealed that Jim had been trapped within Spawn since the moment Al became the antihero.
Jessica Priest made her debut in Spawn #61 (1997) by Todd McFarlane and Greg Capullo. In the comics, she was retconned to be the government assassin who killed Al Simmons, acting on orders from Jason Wynn. This means that she was directly responsible for Al becoming Spawn in the first place. She was also established to be Wynn’s second-best assassin, behind only Simmons. Interestingly, she was introduced in the live-action Spawn movie as a different character before being added to the comics.
As for her role as Spawn, this happened decades later when she became She-Spawn in Spawn #300 (2019) by Todd McFarlane, Scott Snyder, and J. Scott Campbell. Jessica was only the second-ever She-Spawn, following Nyx, and she was named the lead of The Scorched, McFarlane’s Spawn-universe super-team. She adds her tremendous assassin skills to her control of the Hellspawn abilities, and since she is the one who originally killed Al Simmons, that counts for something.
Cogliostro debuted in Spawn #9 (1993) by Neil Gaiman and Todd McFarlane, the same issue that introduced Angela and Medieval Spawn. It was shown that his real identity was the biblical character Cain, the first murderer in existence, and in Spawn lore, the first person ever called forth as a Hellspawn. In his first appearances, he was a homeless man who understood Spawn better than anyone and taught him about necroplasm.
He is also the one who admits to Al that the power has a limit since it calls on a finite energy source, and if he uses it all up, he will be condemned to eternal torment. As for Cogliostro, the first-ever Hellspawn is immortal, has superhuman physical abilities, a healing factor, and at least a little bit of necroplasm left. What makes him more powerful than Al is that, while he can’t use his necroplasm anymore, he won by redeeming his soul, so he no longer serves Malebolgia. He is the being that gave Al hope that he could find freedom.
