Back in 1997, a comic book show that was decades ahead of its time debuted on HBO, and fans of the cult comic it was based on still deserve more from this criminally underrated series. Nowadays it seems tough to imagine an era when R-rated, mature superhero stories were a rarity. Although The Boys season 5 will soon end the raunchy, ribald superhero satire’s seven-year story, there is no shortage of other dark superhero media to replace the show for adult audiences. Even Prime Video’s second-biggest show of April 2026, Invincible, is another R-rated superhero series.
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The success of Invincible’s hyper-violent, unapologetically adult animated superhero story would have been almost unthinkable in the ‘90s. At that stage, adult animation was mostly limited to the success of The Simpsons and a handful of its imitators, and more serious animated efforts remained firmly outside the mainstream. It was in this cultural environment that Todd McFarlane‘s Spawn debuted on HBO on May 16, 19 97. One of the earliest adult animated shows on HBO, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn won an Emmy for Outstanding Animation Program (Longer Than One Hour) in 1999.
The First Episode of Todd McFarlane’s Spawn Originally Aired On May 16, 1997
Adapted from McFarlane’s Image Comics series of the same name that debuted in 1992, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn tells the story of Al Simmons, a CIA assassin who is sent to Hell for his sins when he is murdered. Simmons makes a deal with the devil, who promises Simmons can return to see his wife once more if he swears loyalty to him. Of course, like any deal with the devil, this turns out to be a trick, and Simmons returns to Earth as a monstrous Hellspawn, only to learn that five years have passed and his wife moved on regardless.
Stranded on Earth and cursed with hellish powers, Simmons finds a new purpose as he becomes the sadistic antihero Spawn. This backstory was covered in director Mark A.Z. Dippé’s 1997 live-action Spawn adaptation, a misguided flop that wasted a starry cast including Michael Jai White, John Leguizamo, and Martin Sheen. Although Spawn was a critical catastrophe and a box office failure, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn was something else entirely. From its killer score to its abstract art design and dark, brooding tone, the movie’s animated HBO spinoff series Todd McFarlane’s Spawn was an early predecessor of the R-rated superhero shows and movies that would become commonplace in the years that followed.
Spawn’s Animated Series Was Way Ahead of Its Time
Although 2009’s quirky Defendor and 2010’s early James Gunn black comedy Super were similarly prescient, it wasn’t until 2016’s Deadpool that mainstream audiences truly embraced the R-rated, adults-only superhero story. In the years that followed, comic book adaptations made up for lost time with a slew of shows and movies that fit this bill, from Logan, Deadpool 2, and Joker to shows like Harley Quinn, Legion, Titans, Invincible, HBO’s Watchmen, Gen V, and, of course, The Boys.
While all of these shows and movies found their audiences, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn was unfortunately about 20 years too early to cash in on this trend. In the years since the show ended, Todd McFarlane’s Spawn has been recognised as an influential cult classic, but the adaptation deserves a revival to truly do its legacy justice.
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