Brian Truitt

USA TODAY

Todd McFarlane loves anniversary issues, and he's making the 250th issue of Spawn as special as possible.

The iconic comic-book artist and Image Comics co-founder has big plans on various levels with his longtime antihero, including the return of a key character, the release of the digital library, a new creative team and a triple-sized anniversary issue out in January.

It's all about making Spawn, who first appeared in 1992 and was the star of a 1997 film and late '90s HBO animated series, relevant again, says McFarlane, 53, who will be appearing this weekend at New York Comic Con. "We're back, we're resetting the machinery and let's see what can happen out of that."

The cover to Spawn No. 250 was illustrated by current Batman artist Greg Capullo, who drew 80 issues of the series between 1993 and 2000.

Even though the two artists are roughly the same age and contemporary peers, "I feel like a proud papa," McFarlane says. "Sadly he was doing some brilliant work for years with me but at times I think my shadow gets cast over a lot of people.

"Greg was a little nervous going out on his own because he didn't know how he'd be received. I even said, 'They're going to think you're a new guy.' But he's rocking the comic world right now."

Even though he created the character, McFarlane feels Capullo did the definitive Spawn, and Capullo's calm, collected portrayal of him on the cover conveys the fact that Al Simmons has returned after more than 50 issues and, as Spawn, is not going to be on the defensive anymore. Instead, he's going let others know what it feels like to be hunted.

"He's sitting there in the throne like a king," McFarlane says, "and it's going to be a lot of the new attitude of what the character's going to be about moving forward."

Now controlling the Spawn costume, Al returns wiser, smarter and with a gameplan, all part of a new direction for the character starting in February's Spawn Resurrection No. 1 debuting the creative team of writer Brian Wood and artist Jonboy Meyers.

McFarlane liked that Wood has cut his teeth in the industry on eclectic books such as DMZ while also doing X-Men and other superhero fare. He gave Wood freedom to rewrite aspects of the character and what Al's capable of doing as Spawn.

The rule McFarlane says he gave Wood was to break the status quo: "You will be doing your job if every reader says, 'This is awesome! I don't get why Todd didn't do this years ago.' Make me be the dumbest guy who's ever written the book."

Meyers, however, is a relative newcomer to comics. McFarlane collected 25 names as possibilities, and was surprised no one had signed Meyers to an exclusive contract.

His work tends toward "classic superhero, clean comic-book stuff that I think some of the Spawn fans have been aching for since arguably Greg left," McFarlane says. "Get us back to that big mythological character. Visually, it'll be pretty as hell."

Wood and Meyers in March will then pick up the story line in Spawn No. 251, which continues the classic numbering.

Other publishers tend to reboot their titles and start over with a new No. 1 but McFarlane wants to avoid that. Not only does he not see it as a great business decision, he says, "it would put me in a pool with too many other books that are less than 10 (issues). I spent 20 years to get to that number, and to just throw it away, I can't do it.

"If Marvel and DC want to renumber all their books and make me the highest-numbered book in the country, dude, I don't see that as a detriment. I see it as a badge of honor."

(McFarlane not so secretly also wants to blow past Dave Sim's 300 issues of his indie comic Cerebus. "I have to have that record, too.")

When the 250th issue hits, McFarlane plans to launch Spawn digitally for the first time and hopes to get the whole library out, where fans can catch up on his, Capullo's and other artists' work over more than 20 years.

He wants to get the fans involved, too. McFarlane is letting Spawn aficionados submit their illustrations of the character, and whomever gets the most votes will get a pinup page in Spawn No. 250.

"When I was a teenager and they had goofy stuff like that," McFarlane says, "I was the first one to send something off, no matter how bad I was at that point. With digital now, everyone can just click you their artwork."

In addition, McFarlane is lining up an all-star cast of contributors not only for pinups inside the issue but also covers, and many of the artists grew up on his stuff.

"I'm pushing 30 years in the industry, and I went from that cool brother dude artist to the uncle to I'm the dad now," McFarlane says. "I meet some of these guys and I forget that they were right in the sweet spot when Image was formed."

Artists of today such as Skottie Young and Sean Gordon Murphy, he adds, have " funky styles without being what you consider classic superhero stuff. I am way more interested in guys who have a style that I don't feel like I've seen a thousand times.

"These young whippersnappers are coming along, and I'm so jealous of what they're able to do."