Spawn to Get New Powers After #300, McFarlane Says

Along with a modified look, Todd McFarlane's Spawn will get new powers just in time for his 301st issue, the one in which McFarlane's long-running Image Comics series officially eclipses Dave Sim's Cerebus as the longest-running creator-owned comic of all time. McFarlane, who co-founded Image Comics when he and the other partners were superstar artists at Marvel, told ComicBook.com recently that he would be coming back to provide interior art for Spawn #300 and #301 -- a rarity for him, as he mostly spends his time running his business, drawing recreationally, and working on the upcoming Spawn movie. And the changes to Spawn's character will go deeper than just his appearance in the coming months.

In recent months, Spawn has been able to call on his powers to do some pretty amazing things, and it sounds like the idea is to not only place some of those changes firmly into his established power set, but maybe also to explain how and why they got that way. That said, since Spawn's powers sometimes are linked to his costume, one has to wonder what role a change of look might play in the change of powers.

"The new powers will work with whatever costume he's wearing," McFarlane explained. "I also wanted to come up with a story that for those that have been paying attention there's what I would call the classic Spawn look, the costume from issue number one. There's the modern day one, which is a little more gnarly and a little more nasty looking that sort of began late in this run, and it just continued to morph with things like the teeth and cape and stuff like that. Then Greg [Capullo] and I are gonna show another crazy look I hope the people will enjoy."

McFarlane further noted that even without looking at the overall history and progression of hellspawns through the generations, the central character of his title will be able to shift his appearance (and powers?) somewhat more depending on the needs of the story.

"The gist of it is some of the setup is happening in #298, 299," McFarlane explained. "Some of the culmination, obviously, is going to hit in #300, 301. The big, over-arching chess game has been moving for the last 30, 40 issues. Anybody that's been around, that's been paying attention, the Easter eggs have been there. I could go back and start touching points where I go, 'Here, this is happening at this point,' and whatever else. To me it's just a culmination. #300 and 301 is now the culmination of something big that's been brewing for a bit, but it's just getting triggered really fast for anybody who jumps onto #298. Like I keep saying to people, if you read #296, 297, which is an overview of the 300 issues, then you're gonna be up to speed and you're good at #298 running, you're gonna then get the setup and then you're gonna get the big climax in #300-301."

What's next for Spawn? Well, before he can break any records, McFarlane will be releasing Spawn #298 and the Road to 300 on June 26.