Legendary comic book creator Spawn titles at New York Comic Con in October 2024, all of which would be hitting shelves in 2025. While the character of Al Simmons first appeared in May 1992, McFarlane had actually conceived of him long before, as a teenager in 1977. Thus, the idea of exploring a pre-Al period of the lore was birthed, and Spawn Universe Editor-in-Chief Thomas Healy is writing Spawn '77, with issue #1 arriving in April 2025.

With the Spawn on the big screen still over the horizon, McFarlane continues expanding the stories told on paper. Some other new titles from Image Comics this year include: Bloodletter (written by Joseph P. Illidge and Tim Seeley with art by Christian Rosado), about the former CIA agent Al failed to kill; She-Spawn #1 (written by Gail Simone with art by Ig Guara), an origin story for Jessica Priest; and The Freak (written by McFarlane himself with art by Jason Shawn Alexander), about one of Spawn's creepiest supervillains.

ScreenRant interviewed the great Todd McFarlane, previewing some of his exciting Spawn titles in 2025 and offering some of his hot takes of the state of the Joker: Folie à Deux and before James Gunn's Superman. Finally, the comic book creator explained why the long-awaited Spawn reboot movie has not yet gone into production.

Thomas Healy Explores Pre-Al Simmons Times In Spawn ‘77

“It’s like somebody in a Halloween costume trying to be that person.”

ScreenRant: I do want to dive into the comic stuff because there have been some cool things going on. We get to explore Spawn before Al Simmons in Spawn ‘77. What inspired you to tell that story and how does this prequel contribute to the overall lore of the Spawn universe?

Todd McFarlane: The easy catalyst was that I created Spawn as a kid in 1977, so that's just fact. When I spoke to Mark Spears and Thomas Healy, we were just throwing around some ideas. One of them was, “Hey, that silly drawing you did when you were 16?” It has since been cleaned up and modified to become the modern one, but it’s still not drastically different. We even did a toy that was based on my original drawings when I was 16. We were just chit-chatting and going, “Wouldn’t it be cool to do something that was based on that?” Mark had a couple of cool ideas, and we just went from there.

I was thinking of trying to do a French Connection kind of story. I didn't want it to be a true hellspawn because that's only 20 years from the time that Al comes along, and I'm trying to say that these things are kind of rare. I didn't want it to be that every 10 minutes, there's a new one. I think that diminishes it, while the story is more about somebody that has learned about the folklore of hellspawns previously.

Spawn '77, written bt Thomas Healy with art by Mark Spears, releases in April 2025.

At this point, there would be no Al Simmons because he's still a decade and a half away from existing in the comic book. So, it would just be like somebody doing their homework. It would be like somebody in a world with Batman wanting to be a knockoff Batman, when you'll never be as good. You'll never be as great, but you'll still be a character. There are some people walking the earth that will go, “What’s Batman doing here? He's my mortal enemy, I better go get him without asking whether it's actually Bruce Wayne’s Batman.”

In this case, they think that Hell maybe brought another hellspawn back. I don't want to say it's that simple, but it’s like somebody in a Halloween costume trying to be that person. There are way more complications and details to it, but that's how we get there.

What To Expect From Jason Shawn Alexander’s Art For The Freak

“If you're doing pages that you show your wife, and she's repulsed? Then you're doing a good job.”

ScreenRant: Jason Shawn Alexander is back for The Freak, one of Spawn’s creepiest characters, in a twisted new story. What can you say about your collaboration with Jason, and what makes this Freak story distinct from previous narratives?

Todd McFarlane: This one will be the origin story, so you'll get a backstory as you're seeing what he's doing in the present time. I've got a mechanism that shows how he became a Freak, and it's a detailed long story. I wanted to spread the origin snippets throughout the story, but I don't know how many issues we will get. When you get the story, that's it. That's the last issue.

Jason's been doing some cool Freak stuff in the Swan comic book, but he'd been away from him for a while, so it took him a while to get warmed up. But once he got warmed up, if anybody is familiar with his art style, it's already odd and creepy. You could only get one of a handful of people to do a Freak book, and he's one of them. He's starting to figure out that not only can he have fun with the creepy pages, but he can have fun when it's not that dramatic because the character is just odd. You can start playing with body language and stuff like that.

The Freak, written by Todd McFarlane with art by Jason Shawn Alexander, has not yet announced its exact release date in 2025.

I keep saying, “Hey, if you're doing pages that you show your wife, and she's repulsed? Then you're doing a good job.” He's saying that his wife's not overly impressed right now, so that means he's doing a great job. He sends me the pages, and some of them are just crazy. I only do plots; I don't do the entire script, but I needed a page of him freaking out. That was all the sentence was: “He's in a room by himself, so he's just throwing a tantrum that nobody can see.” Jason did this page, and a couple of people at the office said, “Man, that is so cool.” I just gave him one sentence, and he did that on his own!

To me, there's this switch in him sometimes. Arguably, it’s road rage, and we all have it. I'm just taking everything I think people have anyway and blowing it up slightly more.

Gail Simone’s She-Spawn Will Find Jessica Priest Undergoing Silent Torment

“Being a hero should be challenging from the very get-go.”

ScreenRant: Can we talk about She-Spawn #1? I'm a big Gail Simone fan, and we'll be getting that in 2025. What's in store for Jessica Priest, and how does she shake up the Spawn universe?

Todd McFarlane: Well, some of them are not meant to be impactful on the universe necessarily. Some of them are intended to be impactful for that character personally, so they may do the story and go through it, and nobody knows that they went through that pain and suffering. Gail's going to show a little bit of that, like we're doing in The Freak, of how this character got there.

There's a little bit of origin in there, but then she will come down in many moments just to go, “This is the torment of being a hero.” I've always been a big believer that being a hero should be challenging from the very get-go. Not only should it not be easy, but it should come at a price.

She-Spawn #1 by Gail Simone and Ig Guara will release in June 2025.

If you think about big celebrities, while this may be a weird sort of comparison, everyone would like to make their money – but Lady Gaga or whoever can't walk down the street and go into 7-11 and grab a soda. You get one thing, which is cool and brilliant, but you must sacrifice so much more. What celebrities sacrifice is a normal life. Or any big athlete, you're on the road half the time. You're not around, and your relationships suffer. Being rich and famous to me is not necessarily all it's cracked up to be, so be careful what you wish for.

I think being a superhero is the same thing. You have to put your body at risk. People in the military do it all the time, but you know that you might not ever come home. How do you square all of that given that you're protecting a bigger cause, but you might be losing what's near and dear to you? And at times, you almost have to trade off and go for the betterment of your conscience. There was a movie years ago called The Insider, where a whistleblower knew that maybe he would lose his wife and family and everything he held dear. The unicorns of the world are the ones that say, “Even though I'm going to lose all that, my community, my friends – potentially my family, my wife, my house, my job – if I don't do what I have to do, I will never sleep soundly for the rest of my life. I will never have a clear conscience.”

That's a long-winded way of saying that Gail has figured out a way to introduce some of those elements to She-Spawn. She didn't ask to be the hero to start with; it just happened to her. She's still trying to get her footing when it comes to what that means and what sacrifices she must make.

Todd McFarlane Comments On Joker: Folie à Deux & Venom: The Last Dance

“I can understand some of the criticism as I watched it, but…”

ScreenRant: What did you think of Venom: The Last Dance, and what have you thought of Tom Hardy's portrayal as Venom? I feel like it's the end of an era because I love Tom's Venom.

Todd McFarlane: Yeah, actually I haven't seen it. I was just there for the premiere and then I had to jet out. I had to get back home. Unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to actually get my eyeballs on it, but Tom obviously has been dedicated to it. Kelly [Marcel], the director on it, was there too.

It is sort of weird that we'd never crossed paths before. I was at the first premiere, but Tom came a little bit late, so I was already inside the theater and never caught up to him after that. I just thought, “Okay, I'll get him next time.” But those meetings are few and far between, as you know.

ScreenRant: You being brought in was such a cool surprise for everybody.

Todd McFarlane: Yeah, I think somewhere along the line, they were the same way. Like, “Man, how come we never met either Todd or David [Michelinie]? And they're on their third movie – if it was me, I'd want to meet the person who did the original stuff. But they were quite kind and generous.

ScreenRant: Have you seen Joker 2 yet? What were your thoughts on it? I know that a lot of people were divided on it, to say the least.

Todd McFarlane: Yeah, I thought it was interesting. I spend time with Scott Silver, one of the guys who wrote it. I was out lunch with him, and he's like, “Have you seen it?” I was like, “No, but I should.” So, my wife and I went and saw it. I liked it more than she did.

I can understand some of the criticism as I watched it, but just from filmmaking and acting and whatever else, there were parts of it that I was just going, “Wow, wow, wow.” Interestingly, I got to the point where I go, “Oh, I see.” And with my ego - I'm going to put my ego out there – I go, “Give me all the film, put me in a room for three days, and let me edit it.” I think there's a hybrid in there that would work for what it was.

Again, I'm being completely biased and egotistic here of what it was that I thought it was going to be in my head, but when I went in there with the insanity of the music, I think there's a way to crazy it up more. But that's just me. Some people saw it and they weren't fans of it, and other people loved it. I think it elicits an opinion no matter who sees it.

ScreenRant: What do you think James Gunn needs to do to make a successful Superman movie?

Todd McFarlane: I have no insight into any of their conversations, but if I was sitting at the table, the thing that would be the hardest to do – and the thing that I think needs to be done, even though I have no idea how you'd do it – is how do you take a character that's been around so long… So long that not only does your mom know about it, but your grandparents know about it, and make a character that your grandparents used to know relevant today? That's hard because there's a stigma of like, “That's Mom and Dad stuff. We’ve got cool hip stuff over here.” How do you make Mickey Mouse relevant to kids today when you have Buzz Lightyear?

I don't know what the answer is, right? There's new, sexier characters that come along. Superman is this classic boy scout, perfect superhero. What do you have to modify to get a 20-year-old today who wasn't even born in the 1900s – they were born this century – That's it. If you can do that, then that Big S in that word Superman is going to appeal to all of us that were born in the 1900s. That's it. That would be the goal I would give. I’d go, “Okay, James, now do that,” and hope that they come back and give you some great ideas behind it. So, we'll see.

The Spawn Reboot Movie Holdup, Explained By Todd McFarlane

“Are we still pushing the boulder? Yes. Do I need to talk about what any of those details mean right now? No.”

ScreenRant: Is there any movement on the Spawn film, or any updates on if Jeremy Renner's still involved?

Todd McFarlane: Man, Hollywood is wearing me out. It's like the election; you get wore out eventually. Every day you get numb to it. We just had a big meeting about it the other day, but I've learned now that my wife has gotten exhausted with me talking about it. She goes, “Just tell them when the movie's coming, Todd. Otherwise, shut your mouth.”

So, are we still pushing the boulder? Yes. Do I need to talk about what any of those details mean right now? No, because I keep seeing that developing movies is sort of its own unique experiment. Then you layer it on top of a city right now that is in a consternation; that doesn't have any direction right now. The pandemic came at the beginning of 2020 and, in a couple months, we're going to be in 2025. We are five years from the time of the pandemic to today. It's not like I talked to all the big shots, but the people I talk to in Hollywood - and I talk to a steady stream of them – there is not a single person that I talk to that is talking like the glass is half full. Even those that have half-full personalities, so I know it's bad.

Because in the first couple of years, those people were like, “Don't worry about it, Todd. We're going to bounce back.” Now, when I have that conversation, I can hear it in their voice. And it's not despair; it's that everybody's looking for the light at the end of the tunnel, and nobody is seeing it yet. What that tells me is that there's no clarity. Even once they do find the clarity of, “There’s the pinhole. I see the light,” it will take years to then move towards that opening so that the light gets big. Most cycles last five or six years, but I think Hollywood's still got another minimum of three more years of pain before they start finding any kind of North Star.