Neil sued Todd due to not being paid for use of his characters, Gunslinger Spawn, Medeviel Spawn, and Angela. The results of the lawsuit saw Neil retain the rights the characters he created in Todd's book. There was no question of ownership in the lawsuit.

McFarlane in an interview talked about how much he disliked the idea when Marvel released variant covers and thought there is more to comics, than that. (Money) McFarlane years later, with Todd Toys created and released variant versions of the same figures for people to collect and buy. (Money) "You either die a hero or live long enough to see yourself become the villain" - Harvey Dent

You, and everyone else who hears the story

@@alanguagessorry to break it to you. But toys are not comics.

Effectively you are saying it is okay to make variants with toys, but not comics. Nice try. Todd became the thing he disliked, just a variant of one.@@hobo7007

If you've read spawn there's been an INSANE amount of variety in what's happened in the story. Though 75-95 was awful, 95 is a huge uptick in story quality, then it drops from 110ish to 170ish

It's a nice corpse chair!

@@MattDraper do a video about hellblazer

@@MattDraper i mean its extremely pretty....

Being a Creeper fan is pain and suffering indeed 😔

This comment is totally in my Q zone

Stan Lee was in love with a Steve Ditko creation.

@@ioannisfugazi6952 truth . And Jack kirby thought of the idea first but ditko perfected it

Jack Kirbys "idea" was literally nothing like the character that debuted in amazing fantasy 15, gtfo

@@guyverjay1289 jack kirby's had the idea and steve ditko put it into fruition

@@guyverjay1289 It's vaguely similar: Ditko claims that Kirby's brief 5-page plot established an Aunt May, Uncle Ben (who was supposed to be a gruff cop), web shooting and wall crawling but he gets it from a magic ring. It's a concept so it's not going to be exactly like the final product, but Kirby does seem to have at least laid the foundations for a few key features.

I have a feeling he does the stan lee style writing. This happens, then he fights this guy, now draw it lol

@@Htownblokhedz It works for the past 30 years

Tbh you gotta give him credit since it’s clearly working

Every fanbase loses their mind when the character they like is replaced. Where have you been?

Bro I couldn't read all those issues with jim downing

Thats true for most image founding father characters except maybe savage dragon. If you want to read excellent to amazing stories of Prophet, Glory, wild cats, or Supreme. Theyre available, but definitely not made be the original creators of those characters. Oh! i almost forgot about shadow hawk. His creator did a decent job writing him

Yeah Writing wise(alan Moore and neil gaimen have fantastic issues) on art tho McFarlane is an absolute freaken beast. When cappullao took over in those early years I was impressed but its just wasnt McFarlane. Spawn needs McFarlanes art it thrives on those dark shadows, insane linework, incredible almost cartoonish,figures amd gnarly horrific monsters. Just the look of hell is amazing my god

Yeah but at the same time nobody can screw with Spawn. Creator control is a double edged sword.

I hope something in the same lines happens with miura and berserk manga …

That’s the upside to non creator owned characters. Even though DC & Marvels stranglehold of their characters and just the superhero genre in general has actually been detrimental to the industry not to mention how many artists and writers who were fucked over. On the other hand guys like McFarlane or Dave Sim that can’t let the stuff they own go can ruin the book. Look at how all your favorite heroes have been reinvented or defined by a guy that didn’t originally create them.

Whats funny is this guy liked every other comment that was agreeing with him and didn't like the ones the were disagreeing with him😂

​@@jelloboyplays7942its as if he cannot handle criticism and people not agreeing 😂

Waaandddaaa....

I defenetly would invite spawn to my birthday

I’ll Invite Him He’s The🐐💯🔥

My life has been forever changed. Happy Spawntember!

Interesting video..whats that old Egyptian river called again.. o yea, Denial lmao the truth is I think most of the criticisms you made Matt about the overall body of work an story can also be found in many mainstream comics within Marvel and DC. The truth is I think the criticisms against the comic book genre in particular are fair (meaning that in the entire spectrum not just image comics it has always been art before substance even if other publishers didnt realize it) in that respect I think when ppl site those problems with Spawn I dont think its any less deep or richly written then Batman or Xmen for to give a few examples, campy storylines or what have you, mediocre writing that isn't close to a shakespearian level, plotholes, characters that are killed off an then magically brought back or fake tension (Supermans death made the cover of every magazine like it was an actual real thing after all), you can even find resolutions that aren't properly resolved. All the same problems Spawn has can be found in all those bigger more popular mainstream comics that ppl love, its still more mature in tone an less campy overall than the marvel and dc character stories and even at its worst the one place where Spawn has always excelled and reigned supreme from beginning to now above all those other superheros without question.. is the art. Happy Spawntember! 🖖😊

I'm pretty sure we could. The cartoon is a polished version of a shit story

@@mysteryperson1958 It's not your fault that your brain doesn't work properly. Hopefully they find a cure one day :)

@@libertyprime6932 no spawn sucks, you’ve just only read superhero event comics so you think it’s good

facts

@@m4tt.jpg22 the truth is its objective.

The passiveness kinda works with Spawn being more of a presence there with the focus being on the greater machinations of the other characters

@@ItsButterBean1020 that makes sense. I feel like sometimes a passive character works like Dream in the Sandman series, but a character like Spawn feels like he should at least be motivated by revenge but isn’t necessarily.

@@spawnpoint215 I mean isn’t he? He’s more passive because he’s not got a lot to live for beyond just vengeance

Apparently that was an intentional decision by Todd McFarlane, he wanted Spawn to be less of a main character and more of a force that affects the story, kinda like Dream from Sandman (which McFarlane was also reading at the time) and Batman from Year One

But he isn't passive the stuff he does have extreme rippe effects of the world killing Kincaid changed the whole spawn universe it drives Sam and twitch's story the looking into the CIA with Wynn. Every movement he makes effects everything in the world.

I could have told you that from the way he wrote ghost rider in his Spider-Man comics.

@Shin Shaman okay Spawn fanboy

@Shin Shaman I'm not a Venom fanboy, Spawn fanboy. Obviously Spawn is more powerful, but Venom has had more consistently good writing. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

@Shin Shaman I'll jump in as a fan of both. I've only recently started buying them (Started with Spawn 300, and Extreme Carnage and Al Ewing's Venom), but it's more complicated. Venom did have some strange moments. Eddie Brock post-separation very much feels like they didn't know what to do with him, and Gargan era Venom is hit or miss. It wasn't until Agent Venom started getting published did the character start to feel more consistent and well-done. Mike Costa also had a good run, but Donny Cates was a little hit or miss on a lot of issues. Spawn also was really good in the early bits, but once he starts fighting Vampires like John Sansker, and stuff like that, it gets...wild, and kinda dragged the series down. The constant soft retcons and snap backs like "Oh, Spawn was actually abusive the whole time!" "Oh, Caligostro was really Cain and used Spawn to rule Hell!" "Oh, he actually caused his wife to miscarry and his unborn daughter became an even stronger Hellspawn!". This kinda drags the series down. A lot of good ideas rarely get any foreshadowing or build-up. Resurrection and the current run is much better at focusing and tightening the story, but right now, it doesn't feel like it's going anywhere. Spawn is just kinda...here and there, gathering resources, but it feels meandering, like Tod's more busy setting up stories with Gunslinger and the like then making a focused story. So, to both of you, I'd say Spawn and Venom have had issues with writing. They're both long runners. But their issues are slightly different.

@Shin Shaman It’s okay man, I don’t like either of them.

Search your feelings, you know it to be true!

@@MattDraper NOOOOOOO

I only know Spawn on surface-level, but yeah this video somehow just made me like the series more lol. Granted I probably won't read the comics...but I was always a sucker for the art

For reall

Yeh

Very apparent reason why he uses guns lol

It's almost as though his powers have limited fuel and when it reaches 0 he goes back to hell to serve as a general, so Al Simmons decides to be smart about it and use his military training. If Spawn could use his powers willy nilly there would be zero drama and tension.

Spawn has limited use of his power, read the comic if you want to have an opinion aboutvit

@@anthonykarnes6804 I know smartass, which is in-universe explanation for him to still use guns, because all of McFarlane's ideas for the character have been based on "Man, wouldn't it be fuckign rad if".

Gunslinger turned out to be massively successful and it’s a good story imo

@@dankusmemeus7093 Yeah, I loved gunslinger. I havent read the original series as im going to, but I wonder if the criticisms of the story and character are basically just things that people that read books about how stories are supposed to go, base these so called rules after which the average reader that doesn't read books about how to write dont even care about. Sometimes breaking the rules or going against the norm can be a good thing in my opinion.

I just started reading Spawn comics and I'm still new to comics in general. I liked it very much, though the story going very slowly annoys me, when guest writers like Grant Morrison come in and shit hits the fan it's very cool. I'm glad that the newer issues and titles are successfull, deducti g from the replies.

"Just read 300 issues and then it gets good" LMAO

"I really liked 296-301" is such a funny statement to me. No hate if you like spawn but it has such "It gets good, I promise." vibes

Neil Gaiman and Allan Moore also wrote issues. When put in the right hands, spawn could work. Is honestly wild that spawn hasn’t been hard rebooted and worked into the witch-blade/the darkness universe.

@@qwellen7521 I have not read the Morrison issues, but honestly, Gaiman and Moore's weren't very good. They weren't as terrible as Frank Miller's issue, but they weren't anything special either. Even though Matt criticizes it, I thought the Dave "Misogynist" Sim issue was the only good one and that's because it had nothing to do with Spawn.

The 3rd issue by Morrison is a massive let-down based on the first two he wrote...particularly the first one which (and I've only read the first Compendium worth and some of the more recent issues) is probably one of the best issues of the entire series. The Neil Gaiman issues (9 and the Angela miniseries) are fun comics, any disappointment is based on the fact that Gaiman's name is on it imo if they were written by a nobody people would be like "that guy was pretty good".

@Shin Shaman wow. Never thought I’d find a real world cryptid.

3 grant Morrison issues.

Please do a video about hellblazer

Glad u agreed it sucked. Or I’d have lost respect. Terrible 90’s extreme leifeldish garbage

This is a devastating counter argument. Happy Spawntemer to you, too, Josh! So glad you loved it!

No. This is not a thing one can hold in their mind. You've brought a terrible, doomed premise upon this house. Heaven and hell will fall. In like 700 issues.

Spawn def doesn’t suck haha.

Naw it sucked, nothing happened for 50 issues, the first 50 issues 😒

@@jimmyju76 its not a show, not everything needs to be solved at the end of each comic

The HBO series is good!

So I guess you are a fan after all huh.. lol

Key words are HBO series, the comic sucked, hell most of Image pretty much sucked they were just given props for being edgy

@@jimmyju76 I thought the first 100 issues were cool but should have ended there. Things definitely went to shit though. The whole 90s era was extreme. We had short jacket Wonder Woman, Azrael, Adam X The "X-treme" lol

LMFAO yeah Spawn really does suck....Its sucked for decades. Everything beyond the first 10 issues just gets worse and worse....The only people that still love that shit are the same people who were those annoying emo edge lords in high school and thought they were "cool". It was even worse then McFarlane stopped writing or drawing it.

I agree with you

Opinions

Spawn isn’t a bad character…it’s the writer behind him. As much as I like Mcfarlanes art, he shouldn’t be writing. This also shows in the Batman/Spawn crossover, which is terrible.

All I know is I liked it a lot at first and wouldn't shut up about it. I've made it to issue 17 now and I kinda feel like backing out.

The new Spawn/Batman crossover or the older one?

@@austinroundsgallery83the old frank miller one

agreed if your into dark fantasy Read Elric novels By Michael Moorcock. on his Multiverse novels & and eternal champion with a black sword called Stormbringer & black sword Mourned blade soul eater swords. if like spawn. Try reading some dark fantasy Elric

Yeah it's a really great comic!

Facts spawn is underrated 🔥

​@jamichealruiz8640 he's got his cult following...this Kool Aid so good

DO NOT MENTION CHRISTMAS

Teu cu

I think maybe read Spawn's Universe #1 first and then King Spawn #1

@@MattDraper Thank you!