Unlike many of his contemporaries, Todd McFarlane was looking to do something bigger than just spin a monthly comic yarn. He had something to say, and we’re going to be shifting into just what that is, but it all began with these four issues. This is our first completed Spawn storyline, written by Todd McFarlane himself. It’s titled “Questions,” and it covers Spawn issues one through four.

Issue One: A Dead Man Wakes Up in New York

Spawn #1 takes place in the city of New York, of course, and it’s 1992. The story is of the titular character. He wakes up some years after his corporeal, physical body had died, with few memories. We see Spawn sort of struggle to recall things after returning. Returning from where? That’s what we wanted to find out. He catches fleeting glimmers of the life he left behind, but nothing he can really fully wrap his mind around yet.

So McFarlane does some trope-filled storytelling by giving us an exposition dump as told through the eyes of television reporters, commentators and personalities. The reports we see are based in 1987 and focus on the death of an American military operative. His name is Al Simmons. He’s a decorated veteran who saved the president’s life once. Mostly it comes through the speculation surrounding Al’s wife, Wanda, at the funeral, which has to do with her being seen with an unusual man. So some people are thinking things and whatnot. All this storytelling is eventually going to end up somewhere.

Spawn recalls being part of the CIA, specifically Jason Wynn, and his death. He wanted to return to someone, someone he loved. When he sees a vision of his wife, he recalls making a deal with a demon to return. Later on we find out this demon is known as the Malebolgia, and essentially he’s one of the various dukes of hell, but that’s how deep this story goes later. He curses the demon, as it was his terms, and now he can’t recall his past life. Spawn feels his new power surging through him and decides to go find his wife. Once he gets some answers, he’ll track down the demon who screwed him on the deal.

Meanwhile, elsewhere, as comic books will do, there’s a crime scene. Sam Burke asks another character, named Twitch Williams, about a mobster’s murder. Twitch explains several times to Burke that while the guy was thrown through a window, he died of his heart being removed from his chest. This is the first of these kinds of things, and ultimately it was removed from his chest and shoved into his mouth. It’s awesome. Burke shows little remorse, as several other major crime syndicate members had been killed recently in a very similar fashion. So clearly we now have some sort of a serial killer.

Nearby, on a rooftop, Spawn spots several men who are sexually assaulting a woman. He easily disposes of them. Like, super easy. Guy’s not a slouch. He uses a little bit of his energy and essentially blows them up. But somehow using the power does something, and it makes him experience a flashback way stronger than the first ones. He feels like he’s got to find this woman, who he now begins to identify as Wanda. Upon returning to his senses, he finds he’s weeping in the arms of the woman he just got finished saving.

Then we skip to some news reporters. It’s now 1992, so they’re up to date, and the news of the day is about the fourth gangland murder. There are also reports of someone spotting this vigilante, or whatever they think it might be. Youngblood, whatever. It’s Spawn, obviously. Spoilers.

Then we continue on, and Spawn is kind of wandering through the streets. He angrily pulls off his mask and he notices, oh my God, my hands feel rough, and my face isn’t… what’s going on? What am I? He’s upset. He doesn’t know what’s going on here.

We cut back to the police officers, Twitch and Sam. These two characters become real familiar as time goes on. They can’t believe the physical damage that Spawn caused several of the gang members with what we later on know to be necroplasm, which is just a real fancy way of saying a big green bomb.

Elsewhere, the demon we now know is the Malebolgia watches over Simmons, and he says out loud to himself that Simmons will have so many more problems coming his way, as he breaks into a maniacal laugh. That’s the Malebolgia. It’s all ha ha ha ha.

Issue Two: The Clown, the Church and the Wrong Face

Spawn #2 is “Questions, Part Two,” and it opens up with a character who calls himself the Violator. He’s kind of talking to a cat. He’s heartbroken and whatnot, he’s getting very much enamored with this cat, and essentially he’s talking about how he’s going to have to go and hurt Spawn.

Then we finally see Spawn, big full page. And the Violator actually calls him Spawn, which is interesting, because later on there’s a distinction Todd tries to make, which is that all Hellspawn are like Al Simmons. Big spoilers. But here he calls him Spawn like a proper noun. I don’t know what that means.

Spawn’s on top of this church, standing by a cross. I think it’s symbolic of something. I’m not really sure what yet. He’s reminiscing, he’s trying to remember. I died five years ago, I don’t know what’s going on. He’s really trying hard. The next few pages are literally just a series of very stylized panels as he’s talking to himself. Again, an exposition dump of thought. We’ve seen the same kind of thing before in Marvel comics, with Spider-Man and whatnot. But as he’s having this exposition dump, there’s somebody trying to get his attention. It’s this clown on the roof, the same clown we now know to be the guy who calls himself the Violator.

We skip ahead to a place called Don Corp. In this place there’s a mob guy who’s having his heart ripped out by a very rough looking demonic thing. So now we get the answer to the question of who’s ripping out people’s hearts. A security guard runs in, and the thing tells him, you know, your boss is unavailable, but he did say he wanted you to join him. Blah, blood. Then we get a full page view of this demon with a horn coming out of his back and two horns in the front and arms that are all weird shaped. Very much, hey, if demons can look like anything, why not look like this? So that’s what this guy is.

Then we get another news exposition dump. This is really where Todd started to kind of fall apart. The story is wonderful. The story doesn’t fall apart. How he tells it does, because you keep butting into these moments that stop you, and you’re like, oh well, I guess we have to. All right, I’m going to tell you guys more stuff. You’ve got all this background stuff.

But then we come back to Spawn on another church rooftop. This time he comes up with a clever idea to use his powers to restore his body. Shoot, I’ll just fix myself. Oh man, I feel good, what a jolt, this and that. He looks at his hands. He’s Caucasian. He’s a white guy. Clearly Spawn remembers himself, and he even says it: “This can’t be. I’m a black man.” I don’t know if this page is problematic or not. I love it. I’m here for it, whatever. But that was kind of interesting.

You get to see Twitch again and his partner, and the two of them are talking over what’s going on. I don’t know why we came back to them. I think this was just used as a transition to take us from Spawn having his realization. We see these two guys, and then we go back to Violator again. This time he’s killing some guy who’s playing a piano. And we come back yet again. Page after page, I think he’s going for the feel of a movie, cinematic storytelling, how you go from one scene to the next to the next.

This time there’s a big rush of energy, and he’s trying super hard and nothing’s working. So he restores himself back to his normal, not restored self, because he’s not going to live as a white guy. I just want to talk to my wife.

That’s around the time he gets another flashback, and he sees Jason Wynn again. This time you come to find out that Al had begun to learn that Jason Wynn was dirty. That’s where this flashback ends.

Spawn crashes down to the alleyway floor, and this time we see the same numbers, with a little Spawn logo instead of an hourglass, and the numbers are now much lower. They’ve gone from 9995 to 9432. Again, we don’t necessarily know if that’s hours, years, minutes, days or some combination thereof, but it’s definitely gone down significantly, which just goes to show you how much he was throwing his energy around. That’s that big splash page of all that power and energy happening.

Then we’re back to the Violator, and this time he’s ripping out more people’s hearts. That’s when we come back to the alley, and it’s a classic Todd McFarlane four-up panel with, of course, the Spawn logo dead center. This clown guy is talking to him and essentially threatens Spawn. I could take your spine out and use it as a whip, and play basketball with your spleen, the whole nine yards, snap your bones like brittle twigs, the whole bit. And then there’s a weird joke about a zipper being down. I don’t know.

Spawn’s like, look, I don’t got time for this. He turns his back on him, and you get this really corny but effective line, where you see the clown dude has transformed into that heart ripping demon guy. Of course he ends with “have a heart.”

Issue Three: Wanda Blake Moved On

We’re celebrating 30 years of Image Comics with everything from my pull list, and that brings us to the second book I was reading back in August of 1992.

Spawn #3 starts with a full-page close-up of Spawn himself as he suddenly recalls his ex-wife’s name is Wanda Blake. He decides to head to the headquarters of the CIA, his former employers. He’s going to dig up Wanda’s file in order to track her down. He thinks about how he used to think that’s an invasion of privacy, but now he just wants his old life back. His memories are slowly returning to him, and he knows the devil’s playing with him. He knows there are many unanswered questions he needs to solve, like who the clown was that he met in the alley.

Elsewhere, the Malebolgia laughs as he watches from his throne. He continues his plot to expand his army and use Spawn to aid in gathering the requisite soldiers. He’s glad he sent several other followers to check in on him, as no one from hell truly trusts each other.

Meanwhile Sam and Twitch, the officers we’ve met before, are poring over the casework that’s been piling up with the mob heart surgeon killings. Outside, Violator prowls the alleys, singing songs to himself about murder.

At CIA headquarters, Spawn breaks in to find Billy Miller sexually harassing his secretary, Linda, who’s already married. Spawn picks him up by the throat and warns him to keep it in his pants. He then takes the file on Wanda Blake and retreats into the night. Malebolgia laughs as Spawn uses violence, which he loves and yearns for.

On the rooftop, Spawn reads that she had started a fund in his name, and he maps the information to her current location. This is where the big guy realizes something is off. He can’t figure out why she would move, until further in the file he finds out Wanda is remarried.

Outside of Wanda’s house, Spawn uses his necroplasm energy to transform into a white guy yet again. He rings the doorbell and is beside himself with how beautiful she is. When a small child named Cyan comes to the door, he faints. Upon waking up, he finds out Wanda’s married Terry Fitzgerald, and together they had Cyan. He’s belittled, as he could not have children with Wanda, and he now understands the devil’s playing with him. He’s showing him that his wife has moved on, remarried and had children. Spawn leaves, wishing her happiness.

In a nearby alley, Spawn’s spell wears off and he loses his mind, raging against the devil, as the clown walks up and threatens him again. This time he transforms into his true form, the Violator, right in front of him. Spawn’s slightly surprised, and Violator takes advantage of the distraction and quickly plunges his hand into his chest, ripping out his heart. Spawn collapses on the ground, dead.

Violator struts away, shocked that Malebolgia’s favorite human is already dead. Then he hears, “Who said anything about being human?” from behind him, and turns. Don’t ask me why that came out in Batman’s voice in the video, by the way. I don’t know. Sorry. But he turns around to see Spawn rejuvenated, with green necroplasm healing his heart wound.

Issue Four: All Hell Literally Breaks Loose

So Violator showed up ready to whoop Spawn’s butt and ripped out his heart, only to have the biggest cape in the business get up. And believe me, Spawn was not happy.

Spawn #4 starts exactly where we left off, with Spawn facing Violator in the alley. That’s when all hell literally breaks loose. Seriously, this entire issue is basically one giant wall-to-wall fight, and I’m definitely here for it.

Violator and Spawn engage in a brutal showdown, Violator ripping his heart out, and each time Spawn regenerates it. Again and again they do this dance. Finally, in a massive assault, Spawn puts a huge hole in Violator’s side. The real fight starts then, with the two of them realizing they can’t vaporize one another, so they both try it the old-fashioned way, by tearing each other apart limb from limb. Violator is surprised Spawn’s more powerful, and claims he was supposed to be the stronger one.

Malebolgia intervenes, finally explaining to them that they’re both his minions in his little battle against heaven. Their goal is to cause man to do wrong, and Spawn will stop and kill them while doing so, locking them all on Malebolgia’s side. He claims that heaven is strong, but they won’t be able to create the numbers that he can mobilize. He even shows mercy and restores Spawn’s lost arm, costing him no necroplasm. He then punishes Violator for his unscheduled killing spree, because apparently that influenced the crime lords to slow down their evil ways. He locks him in his clown form, effectively grounding him.

There’s a brief interlude where Spawn encounters some kids running up to him, when really they’re checking out the Savage Dragon on the TV screens in the electronics store. Because there used to be televisions in electronics stores, kids. If I’m not mistaken, this is reprinted from Image Comics #0 or some other special edition at the time. I’m sure someone’s going to correct me in the comment section.

At the Fitzgerald household, Wanda Blake wakes up from a nightmare that Al was reaching out to her for help, but it changed somehow. Terry Fitzgerald lovingly supports her, and feels she doesn’t have to hide that she can’t forget about Al.

If I’ve got that Savage Dragon reprint wrong, correct me. The conversation lives in the comments on the video above.