Todd McFarlane Says Spawn’s New Suit Is Still Recognizably Spawn (Exclusive)

There will be a new suit in the landmark 350th issue of Spawn, but Todd McFarlane is reassuring fans that it’s still the same recognizable hero. A whole new era begins with Spawn #350, with the issue finally declaring a new ruler of Hell after the throne was left vacated 250 issues ago in Spawn #100. As the Guinness world record-holder for the longest-running American comic book, Spawn has undoubtedly spent lots of pages and comics setting up who this new ruler will be. Along with that revelation will also come an updated costume for Spawn, but fans can rest assured that it won’t be too far off from what they’re used to.

ComicBook.com spoke to Spawn creator Todd McFarlane about Issue #350 (in the video player above), where he was asked to tease the new suit. “Again, I hesitate to say new costume because I’ve done iterations throughout the 350 issues, so it’s recognizably Spawn,” McFarlane said. “It’s just that the part of what’s happening is Spawn gets closer to the throne, it starts to eat away at his powers. Part of being Spawn is his powers, and symbiote, and chains… the symbiote on him is alive. So all of that gets weakened and diminished. Then what happens to the costume is atrophy, to use a simple term. What does that mean? What does that look like? That will be part of what’s happening moving forward in #351. There’s gonna be repercussions of what happens in the climax of #350 moving forward.”

He added, “You’ll see a power structure shift that people you thought were weak are going to become stronger. And people who were strong may become weaker, so that some of the characters taking second-fiddle in the Spawn Universe are now going to become big shots because of what’s happening in the fallout of the storyline in #350.

What is Spawn #350 about?

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.”

Spawn #350 goes on sale February 21st from Image Comics.