Spawn



Spawn (Al Simmons) is a demonic superhero/antihero of the Image Universe

Origin
After government assassin Al Simmons was betrayed and murdered, he came back from the grave as a super-powered avenger, with the price being that every time he uses his power, he comes closer to death and becoming a servant of Hell.

Before His Death
Al Simmons was born to Esther and Bernard Simmons in Detroit and grew up with his brothers Marc and Richard. When he became a man, he joined the United States Marine Corps, eventually becoming a Lieutenant General and later joined the United States Secret Service. During his time there. Simmons saved the life of the president and which garnered the attention of the Central Intelligence Agency and it's director Jason Wynn.

This, along with his sterling reputation, eventually lead him to become promotion that put him in a new job that tasked him with missions that included highly classified information that would never be revealed to the general public. Over time, he became untrusting of his new bosses and uncomfortable with their ethics, which drew attention to himself from high-ranking individuals who felt his morality and values may make him a liability.

Al's superior, Jason Wynn, decided to deal with this liability by using Al's partner Chapel to murder him. Chapel succeeded in the mission, killing Simmons by burning him alive. After dying, Al found himself in Hell to be punished eternally for all the lives he took as an assassin.

Al Simmons in Hell and His Return
Al made a deal to sell his soul to a demonic being known as " Malebolgia" to get to see his wife Wanda Fitzgerald once again. He was allowed to come back but as a monstrous "Hellspawn" a creature of great demonic power. What's more, his body was skill scarred and deformed from the fire that killed him and five years had past since he left. He also lost much of his memory of the events that lead to his current situation. After remembering who he was and what he had done, he sought out his wife only to find she had moved on and married his best friend, Terry Fitzgerald and had even had a child named Cyan.

Not long after he learned that he had fantastical demonic powers fueled by his own "necroplasm", a magical substance that was actively animating his corpse. It was after this event that his demonic guide the Violator, in the form of a clown, showed up. He revealed to Spawn the purpose of his life was to eventually lead the armies of Hell in the war against heaven. Al, angry at the suggestion that he would serve Hell, battled the Violator, who revealed a powerful demonic form and nearly destroyed him until Malebolgia broke up the fight. Now realizing what he was intended for, Al decided to fight against this fate, choosing neither the sides of Heaven nor Hell. Soon, he made friends with the hobos of the area, skulking in the streets, trying to find peace.

After murdering a serial killer, Al decided to use his powers to hurt the guilty. He ended up getting targetted by the mob (believing him to be responsible for mob death actually performed by the Violator) who set their own cyborg enforcer, Overtkill, on him. Spawn defeated him, but he barely survived the encounter.

The Attention of Heaven
It wasn't long before Al attracted the attention of the forces of heaven. Believing him to be a grave threat, Heaven first sent one of their angels, Angela, after him. Al narrowly escaped Angela by using her own weapon, the Dimensional Lance, against her, forcing the angels organized on Earth (as part of a division called Terran Affairs) to send another force, the Redeemer, after him. Al's enemy, Jason Wynn, took on the role of the Redeemer, but Spawn proved to be too strong for him and Wynn was defeated.

Spawn would soon became friends with the homeless who he was living with in an alley, unfortunately sometimes making them targets for his enemies. Sometime later Spawn met the famous (and thought to be long dead decades ago) stage magician Harry Houdini, who revealed himself to be a real practitioner of magic. He taught Spawn to use his infernal power to reshape reality and Spawn was able to strengthen his abilities.

Later, Spawn's activities in killing criminals leads to him accidentally implicating his friend Terry in the killings, making him a target by both the CIA and the mafia. Spawn ends up protecting Terry's life, resulting in him being shot in the face, a wound that was sewn up with a shoelace by one of Spawn's homeless friends, Bobby. Later, while continuing to protect Terry, Spawn finally revealed to Terry that he is Al Simmons.

Later, Bobby is murdered by Chapel, the man who Spawn believed to be his murderer and Chapel committed suicide, hoping to challenge him in the afterlife. Spawn then used his powers to resurrect Bobby. Almost immediately after, Spawn found himself transported to Heaven, asked to participate in a trial of Angela, the angel who once hunted him. Spawn, accidentally exposed and targeted in Heaven while in disguise, escapes with Angela into Hell. The two soon teleported to Alabama, though Angela and Spawn had a moment of intimacy before they arrived.

Severly weakened but his escape, Al began to walk home to Manhattan from Alabama, battling the Ku Klux Klan and helping two children with their abusive father.

TV shows
He has his own show called Spawn but beware it shows nudity and very strong language.