One of the earliest figures I reviewed was the original Raven Spawn figure, part of Spawn Series 21: "Alternate Realities." Less interested in the "Spawn" aspect than the "Raven," I just liked the cool demon knight look, with some neat angular crow-like covering and a bitchin' axe. That's still a solid figure, but in terms of articulation it shows its age - and in size, since now all action figures seem to be drifting up, up, up in inches. Which is where we hit upon the latest redo from Todd.
The demonic lord Kray-Von Gore, and [sic] one of Malebogia's Death Knights, was credited with creation of the K7-Leetha as [sic] known as the Hellspawn Suit. The symbiotic suit that adapted
itself to its host to create a Hellspawn. He was defeated and the suit was sealed away in the Necro-Stone. Anyone who found the stone was endowed with a Hellspawn suit and became a Spawn.
Wow, that's written like @&#*^) crap, isn't it! Was it copied from a badly written fan wiki, or is it the result of Todd chopping up existing text because he would have had to pay a real writer to come up with something cogent? Knowing The Man With the Balls, it could be either! Here, allow us to do your job for you, McFarlane Toys: "The demonic lord Kray-Von Gore, one of Malebolgia's Death Knights, was credited with creation of the K7-Leetha - the symbiotic suit that adapted itself to its host to create a Hellspawn. He was defeated and the suit was sealed away in the Necro-Stone, but anyone who found the stone was endowed with a Hellspawn suit and became a Spawn." It still has problems, but it's better. And now McFarlane, you owe us back pay.
Originally, "Raven Spawn" was simply how Al "Regular Spawn" Simmons looked in the Hellspawn comic, his suit evolving to look like this
a few issues in as Ashley Wood started straying further from the style guide and started drawing Spawn more the way he wanted; then Ben Templesmith took over the art, and immediately reverted the look. Years later, Todd "created" a "new" "character" and gave it the same design, which meant he could reclaim it for the main Spawn title and start merchandising it. But it only showed up in the comic after getting a new toy in 2021, with this variant edition coming a year later.
The 2002 Raven Spawn was a decently sized figure, his 6⅝" height close to today's Marvel Legends scale; but Todd
has always wanted his toys to be bigger than everyone else's, all the way back to Series 1, so today's Raven Spawn is a comical 8" tall. Why? That's not even the scale the other Spawn toys are in. It's not even like they used the extra size to go crazy on the details in the sculpt or anything: yes, it's a lovely sculpt, with striations in the armor and details that seem to almost melt out of the figure's surface, but I look at figures like Medieval Spawn and the amount of detail McToys can pack in there, and this one barely feels like a step up from where it was before.
I praised the gloomy paintscheme on the original figure, being true to the comicbook. The first release of this new mold,
right there in Series 1 to kick things off, wasn't bright, but the brown used for it was flat and muddy, like he was having an expensive spa day rather than being cloaked in the smoky darkness. This second edition, from Series 3 alongside Ninja Spawn and Haunt, is darker, an improvemnt to be sure. The brown has a redder tint, providing contrast while still being grimy. It makes the light teeth and the bright green eyes stand out more. His cape verges on black, so its feather-inspired sculpt will look more like the birds that give him his name.
One place where the modern upgrade really shows is in the articulation. Boasting 22 moving parts, Raven Spawn moves like any of McFarlane's McFarlane Toys toys do today. That means a barbell neck, balljoint/hinge shoulders with a ring between the chest and the arm to hide the joint,
swivel biceps, double-hinged elbows, swivel/hinge/swivel wrists, a balljointed chest, balljointed waist, swivel/hinge hips, swivel thighs, double-hinged knees, swivel/hinge/swivel ankles, and hinged toes. Having the detents on the joints (the things that make them "snap" from position to position without being trully ratcheted) means it's challenging to find a pose that will keep him balanced without falling forward or back. As with most modern McToys, he also features a round black base, with the standard peg and a Spawn logo, but ideally he wouldn't need it.
When Raven Spawn eventually appeared in the real comics
(King Spawn #13), he lived up to his name by having bird-based powers: appearing and disappearing in swarms of them, being able to use them to spy, launching them like weapons, so forth. The vintage version carried a large, if delicate, axe, and had two small scythes hanging from the chain around his waist. Two decades later, we get not a real chain, but plastic, with the hooks molded as part of them. A move backwards. The 2021 Raven Spawn came with a direct update of the old axe, a much bulkier two-handed weapon
than the flimsy original, to go with the much bulkier figure, plus another pair of scythes molded on another solid chain; this 2022 variation has a similar-yet-different axe with a larger, angrier blade, plus a single smaller hook without any kind of silly PVC chains on it. Small Hook! The thickness of both weapons is welcome; he'll hold onto them nicely and it doesn't feel at risk of breaking. The grips on the newer weapons are brick red, rather than matching the toy's body: was the original plan to make this look like the Spawn Reborn repaint?
Raven Spawn's debut appearance in the comicbook was, like Ninja Spawn, only in a pin-up of popular characters; it took until August of 2022 for him to finally have a story role. He truly is one of the most identifiable Spawn figures around, so an update two decades later should have been one of the biggest hits of the year. But to make him an inch too tall without a matching boost in the sculpt's detail, and the choice to sculpt all the chains rather than making actual chains may have all contirbuted to why both these versions ended up at clearance prices.
-- 10/01/25
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