Hell will get a new supreme leader in the pages of Spawn #350, out next month from Image Comics, and ComicBook.com has a first look inside the issue. Ever since Al Simmons killed Malebolgia in Spawn #100, nobody has managed to take permanent control of Hell yet. After 250 issues, that's set to change -- and it's going to chart a new course for the foreseeable future of the Spawn family of titles, from creator Todd McFarlane. The series, which holds the Guinness world record for the longest-running American comic book, is starting 2024 with some big things planned.
Spawn #350 hails from writers Rory McConville and Todd McFarlane, with artists Carlo Barberi and Brett Booth (Booth's inks provided by Adelso Corona). Jay David Ramos provides colors for the issue, with Tom Orzechowski on letters.
"I think it's going to be in keeping with what I've done in the past; you're going to get a thick issue," McFarlane told ComicBook.com. "You're going to get terrific artwork. Brett Booth is coming on, he's going to be the new artist on the book. Carlo Barberi, who's been giving me years of his life, he's going to do one of the chapters on that before moving over to [Gunslinger Spawn]. So, visually, it's going to be a hell of a book, right? And then there's going to be... I don't know if it's a true twist ending, but hopefully there'll be a surprise to the end of it that people will go, 'What? Okay, cool.' But that surprise then, although it's a weird one, that although the story sort of culminates this 250 issues of Hell's Throne being vacant finally being filled, right? That's the punchline of the story. It gets filled."
McFarlane promises that Spawn #351 will have a short time-jump, picking up about six months after this issue and giving fans a clearer idea of the new status quo for the world of Spawn. The throne has been vacant for literally decades, and now that it's filled, that's going to set some things in motion -- and probably make a lot of people (and demons) pretty upset.
"We're not just going to go, 'Oh, okay, somebody's on the throne,' and then status quo," McFarlane explained. " Not going to be that easy. We're just saying that there's a cause and effect of all of this. And so now you saw leading up to #350, and then #350, you saw the cause of it, and now moving forward, you're going to see some of the effect of it. So, again, I've said before, I don't want people to have to feel like they're obligated to buy all the books to make it all make sense. So, it's sort of big sort of overarching thing that happens that affects everybody."
The Final Order Cutoff for Spawn #350 is coming up on Monday, January 8. The issue itself will be available in stores and online on February 21.
You can see some of the issue's variant covers, and a handful of exclusive preview pages, below.