Todd McFarlane Shares One of the Earliest Sketches of Spawn and a Surprising Revelation About His Origins

For those of you who aren't familiar with #ToddMcFarlane, he's the man responsible for creating Spawn, both as a writer and as the first artist of the antihero. And while McFarlane's artwork of Spawn is widely known among comic book fans, an image recently posted to McFarlane's Facebook page depicts one of the original sketches of Spawn, which appears to draw a far line away from the character we've all come to know. Check out the image posted to McFarlane's Facebook page below:

In addition to the sketch shared by McFarlane, he added some interesting details about Spawn's origins in the corresponding caption. Apparently #Spawn, whom McFarlane first conceived of in high school, was intended to have sci-fi origins planted firmly in space, reflected in the blue highlights of the color scheme. But that all years later when McFarlane updated his old character to launch Spawn and put Image Comics on the map:

SPAWN'S EVOLUTION!

Spawn didn't always start out as a character from Hell.

When I first created Spawn as a kid, it was more of a sci-fi story. To me...sci-fi means space. Space is cold. Cold is BLUE.

Many years later, when I pulled out my portfolio, I decided to make Spawn from the pit of HELL!

Hell is HOT so I played around with the colors and ended up with the Spawn you see today.

Imaging what the story would've looked like if Spawn looked to the stars or CAME from them....

Be good.

TODD

McFarlane's comments being noted, the notion of Spawn being a sci-fi story comes as a quite a surprise. When Spawn's origins have depicted him as a hellspawn, it's difficult to see the character as a space-faring adventurer. Having the story take place in space would have also changed the entire story and arguably decreased fan appeal to the series, mainly due to the fact that Spawn has become so widely known for its unique plot and character. It was likely a smart decision to give Spawn his occult roots in Hell rather than sci-fi origins.

With a Spawn reboot in the works, it's interesting to see what McFarlane's childhood vision was for the character. The plans are to make it a hard "R" movie that will skirt the edge of horror, just as the comics do. Just goes to show that some of the best ideas can stick inside a creator's mind for years and go through multiple iterations until seeing the light of day.