It’s hard to believe that Spawn has been around for twenty years. Spawn was introduced in 1992 as part of the launch of Image Comics. The comic spun-off into a major motion picture, an animated series, and most notable a line of action figures that revolutionized the toy industry.

In order to celebrate Spawn’s 20th anniversary, Todd McFarlane is returning as the cover for artist for the Spawn comic book for the remainder of 2012. Spawn #220 will be a special 20th anniversary of Image Comics commemorative issue with McFarlane as the lead writer.

There with be multiple covers for Spawn #220. In addition to an original cover from McFarlane himself, there will be covers paying tribute to Erik Larsen’s Savage Dragon #1 and Rob Liefeld’s Youngblood #1. Each of these three covers will have a black-and-white variant available as an incentive for retailers.

Also, current Spawn artist Szymon Kudranski has created a cover based on the original Spawn #1 cover by McFarlane for the Spawn: 20th Anniversary Collector's Special, which is limited to 2500 copies. This special edition of SPAWN #220 publishes Kudranski's interior art in black-and-white along with additional content featuring a look back at a sampling of Todd McFarlane's inked pages from SPAWN #1.

“Early in my career one of the things I looked forward to after I finished the interiors on a book, was to sit back and try and come up with a single image that would catch the fan’s attention,” said Todd McFarlane. “I had a pretty decent run with some of the Hulk, Spider-Man, and Spawn covers, and I’m going to come back and see if I can draw a few covers that will intrigue everybody.”

Spawn #220 is scheduled to arrive in comic book stores on June 6, 2012.