Todd McFarlane Picks a Hilarious Spawn/Batman Fight With Greg Capullo

Years before Greg Capullo was a name widely associated with Batman, Spawn creator Todd McFarlane wanted the artist to draw Spawn/Batman II, a follow-up to the crossover McFarlane had done with Bat-legend Frank Miller.

So it’s maybe not a huge surprise that McFarlane crashed the DC Metal panel at MegaCon to see his old buddy…

…a little more surprising just what he did with the encounter, though.

“Could you tell everybody here in articulate detail, excruciating depth and length, why Spawn is stronger than Batman?” McFarlane asked, to a raucous crowd reaction, as documented by the Drunken Odyssey podcast (via Bleeding Cool).

You can see it around the 50-minute mark in the video above.

Offering that he admitted was a “politlcal answer,” Capullo offered that he used to draw a paycheck from McFarlane, but now DC’s Dan DiDio signs those checks.

“I think it’s one of those matches that you can’t really put in the same arena,” Capullo said. “Spawn is supernatural, so to me, that gives him the upper hand. But on the other hand, the guy who pays me…I love both of those characters so much, and I’m just glad to have had an opportunity. and I hope they’d get along because I love them both.”

Last year, ComicBook.com asked McFarlane about the abandoned Spawn/Batman follow-up, and the Image Comics co-founder admitted that he would still like to make it happen someday.

“We had the first one Frank Miller and I did, that did pretty well. Then years later we announced another one that I was going to do and Greg Capullo was going to draw,” McFarlane recalled. “Then Greg ends up being the pre-eminent Batman artist of the last few years, so we were sort of ahead of the curve. Maybe we’ll resurrect that when the time’s right. I think that both of the characters visually fit with each other, and I think that there’s enough character differences that it’s not just the same guy in a different suit. The story I pitched them was about how all the opposites — character flaws if you will. Hopefully someday I can find an opening there to do that myself.”

Time is always a factor for McFarlane, whose deadline troubles as an artist are well-documented and who has not only Image publishing but also his action figure, statue, and collectibles business to oversee as well. Still, he’s always found time for Spawn, the title that he launched when Image was founded 25 years ago.

While DC was pretty much out of the inter-company crossover game for a long while, recent years have seen them return to it, with high-profile projects like Star Trek/Legion of Super-Heroes, Justice League/Power Rangers, and Green Lantern on the Planet of the Apes.

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