When fans discuss their favorite comic book animated series of all time. The first two animated series fans will say is the best is X-Men the animated series and Batman the animated series. Others will mention Justice League animated series, Static Shock animated series, Tick animated series, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles animated series, Spider-Man the animated series, and so many awesome animated series base on comic book properties from the 90s and early 2000s.
The one animated series nobody ever has on top of their list or ever mentions was Spawn the animated series. Spawn was created by Todd McFarlane in the early 90’s. In he late 90’s Spawn had his first live action movie and his animated series. The Spawn animated series was one of the first real adult animated series that was released in 1997 on HBO. It lasted for three season with a total of eighteen episodes. This was a animated series that was way a head of its time in my opinion. The series got away with so much shit it’s crazy to watch how much they got away with. SERIOUSLY go check it out. If I told you there’s animated series that had no censorship or filters this is the animated series I will tell anyone to give a watch.
The animated series follows almost all of the early stories of Spawn the comic book series created, written, and illustrated by Todd McFarlane. The stories in the animated series is pre Spawn Armageddon storyline, but the series was building towards that storyline. The animated series was away more people who did not read comic books heard about Spawn through his animated series. What made this series a huge success is the amount of creative freedom animators had on the series. The people who were behind the scenes came from Batman the animated series like Eric Radomski who was series producer, and the Legendary Sherly Walker who did the music score. Both of them came from Batman the animated series. Catherine Winder who produce many awesome animated series on Cartoon Network such as Dexters Laboratory, Johnny Quest, and so many more was involved behind the series. Todd McFarland did a great job surrounding himself with great talent did make his Spawn animated a huge success.
The voice casting who stars actor Keith David who was best know for his acting on NY Undercover tv series, he is best know for voicing Goliath from Gargoyles. His voice in my opinion is the voice of Spawn when I read the comic books. He brought this angry, and terrifying voice that Spawn needs to have. When he was voicing Al around Wanda or her mother he has a calm/ civil voice. The voice cast for the series was fantastic unfortunately they were not well known in voice acting like Keith David is today. The series does pay off to some moments such as our characters like Spawn, Sam and Twitch interactions, Angela’s appearance and the Clown who is voice by Michael Nicolosi. He is no well known in voice acting.
My favorite moments from Spawn the animated series was the opening scenes in season 1 episode1,when Spawn is taking out the mob in a gruesome opening scene. My other favorite moments is his battle with Overkill and Jess Chapel. I enjoyed the Chapel battle because it is a personal battle for Spawn because of what happen to him when he was AL Simmons. Season 3 is when many story points that starts to unfold which builds a lot of exciting moments. Unfortunately we never got a season 4 for whatever season. However Todd McFarlane did release a teaser back in 2005 of a brand new Spawn animated series that was set to come out, but it never was release for some reason which was never explain. It was set to have Keith David to reprise his vice role as Spawn. see the teaser below.
After 23 years later we still haven’t seen anything like Spawn the animated series yet. We have the raunchy Harley Quinn series, and the recent Justice League animated movie finally broke rated R barriers in Justice League Dark Apokolips. However those animation sill has some censorship to them. Since Disney owns Marvel most people like myself expect Disney not to even cross anywhere the rated R barrier. Maybe Robert Kirkman’s The Invincible animated series base on his own creation reaches that level like Spawn the animated series did. The Invincible like Spawn is also by Image Comics so there is a huge chance we will get something close to Spawn the animated series. If you love the Castlevania animated series from Netflix. You will love the Spawn animated series which is n Amazon Prime or HBO. The animated series is easily a perfect 10 for 10.
My Comic Book Opinion 