Spawn

During the year when the live-action adaptation of, "Spawn", was released, HBO released an animated series based on the comic-book series that ran from 1997 to 1999. This is one of the greatest animated series ever made.

The animation is excellent it make's the series look dark and edgy, the characters were great including Detectives Sam and Twitch, and the voice acting was good especially having Keith David provide the voice of the main character.

Overall, if you didn't like the live-action movie or looking for a good show to watch, "Spawn: The Animated Series", is really worth watching.

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!

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.

I agree with what many reviewers said and I wont rehash the story line anymore - many folks have done so already.

What I'd like to add is that HBO Cable Networks did a wonderful thing in showing this as a weekly series. I was glued to the television weekly at midnight - not just me but all of my friends as well. I don't care what I was doing, I HAD to watch this. We all loved this animated working of Spawn. The animation was crisp, the storytelling was adult and intelligent, the vocal casting was superb. This is what adult animation and comic book adaptation was about. The first season was better than the second one to me but both were groundbreaking.

What I disliked more than anything -- was the feature film of "Spawn". It did not hold a candle to this series and just ruined what was already done. Sad thing, HBO hasn't re-shown repeats of this and they should. And HBO hasn't produced & adapted other comics, which it should be doing along these lines. There are many production lessons here as well as a great adaptation lesson.

Todd MacFarlane's creation is the best here. I hope they show it again, release a DVD if so, do not miss this. Be forewarned - adult themes run through this version. The first season is NOT for the kiddies or a PG-13 oriented. It is dark, it is wonderful and it is the world of Spawn as it should be seen and interpreted.

...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.