Spawn

This is the ultimate expression of the Spawn character, engaging plots, amazing artwork and a propensity to the excellent. The voice casting is perfect, and a good job was done trimming the crap out of the comic book, and improving and streamlining the storyboards, it beats the ever living crap out of the movie and is the sort of thing that creates fanatics out of people.

Having been a big fan of Spawn back in the day, and have been reading the comic book since the first issue was published and up well into issue 100-something, I must say that it was nice to actually sit down and watch this animated series based on Todd McFarlane's Spawn comic book.

Oddly enough, then I only made it through the first season back in the time when it was all new and just came out. But I drifted away from the series, only to return in 2021 and complete it. And turns out that I had been missing out on a great viewing experience indeed.

If you have read the comic books, then you will definitely feel right at home here, because this animated series does a good job at capturing the essence of Spawn and the whole universe that McFarlane created. Just a shame, though, that the series only ran for three seasons, as there was a lot, a whole lot, more to tell in this series.

"Spawn" is an animated series for the adults, as it does contain a good dose of explicit violence, nudity, foul language, substance abuse and such. So you might not want to introduce a younger audience to this series.

I think that by hiring Keith David for voicing the Spawn character, they really made a wise and excellent choice. His voice is just so unique and characteristic and really brought a lot of flavor to the Spawn character.

The art style they used in the series was very true to the art style seen in the comic books, lots of dark imagery and nice use of contract colors. It was visually a treat to sit through the three seasons of "Spawn", no doubt about that.

Something that I didn't like about the series was that every episode was kicked off by having creator Todd McFarlane sit or stand around with words of wisdom to share, and trying to be all enigmatic and gloomy. Yeah, yeah, we know that you created Spawn, and we know what you look like. But having him be around to host and start off each episode was just not something I enjoyed. It just came off as a bit too 'look at me, I'm famous'.

One thing that was missing from the three seasons was more of Angela. Sure, she was there, but way too briefly. She was definitely one of the more interesting characters in the comic books.

Whether or not you have read the comic books or am familiar with the Spawn franchise, then this animated series that ran from 1997 to 1999 is definitely something I would and will recommend that you sit down to watch, if you haven't already done so, and if you have the chance. This is top notch animated entertainment for an adult audience. And let's just be frank about it, Spawn totally wipes Batman off the charts here.

My rating of this animated series lands on a well-deserved nine out of ten stars.

Spawn was way ahead of it's time. I remember watching the original in the 90's on HBO and loving it. Here we are in 2014 and I'm rewatching it and just loving it...just loving it. Adult all the way, Spawn isn't for the kids. It's, of course, a Faustian tale and a superhero title but at it's core this is horror. The cartoon is very dark, chilling, and gritty. It's ultra-violent, suspenseful, animated beautifully, the voice-acting is precise and quietly subdued. It's as if all it's characters are speaking as shadows. Brilliant stuff here that outshines anything DC is doing currently and DC is the only one really doing anything worth a crud for American comic-book animation. Love Marvel but their animation is pathetic. If you're over 18 and want a good super-hero animation that lives and breathes in the dark...go buy Spawn. Mr. McFarland....please bring this back!

"Spawn: The animated series" is one of the best adaptations of one comic into animation, just like "The Maxx". The animation is excellent, full of details and with a dark and mysterious atmosphere, and the story is dark as well. While in the movie the characters are plain and uninteresting, in this show, all those characters are much better developed, and the story was interesting and well written.

the whole series was put together fabulously, and it is superior in every single detail in the movie. It stayed true to Spawns roots, it was dark, it was emotional, it was violent, it had a sick sense of humor. "Spawn" is one of the best animated series ever made.

...does that make it good? I do find Spawn the animated series interesting. The characters are fairly well-developed, I suppose the gore is an accurate representation of what's going on. But...the thing drags. And it drags further because HBO only seems to air the show in 6-8 episode batches, once a year. Just when things get interesting, it's Whoosh! off the air for 6-8 months. There also seems to be a lot of unnecessary padding (more in the second year), and Cogliostro is just downright annoying, both as narrator and in his conversations with Spawn. Keith David's voice work is excellent as always, though. Generally, though, this doesn't inspire me to go out and read the comic books. It's one of those shows you like to watch, but don't inspire you to watch devotedly every week. And Todd McFarlane as the intro Serling-like host? Sheesh.