After 30 years, Spawn's greatest enemy is finally getting an in-depth origin story

Art from Violator: Origin #1 — (Image credit: Image Comics)

Violator has been a thorn in Spawn's side for 30 years now but, perhaps surprisingly, the malevolent demonic alter ego of the Clown has never really had an official origin series. That changes this August with Violator: Origin, a new six-issue limited series that will delve deep into the monstrous being's history and how he has manipulated the course of events on Earth. What's more, the series is told from the point of view of Violator himself - though exactly how reliable a narrator he is remains to be seen.

Written by Marc Andreyko, the series is drawn by a different artist for each extra-long issue, including Piotr Kowalski, Kyle Hotz, Jonathan Wayshak, Gianenrico Bonacorsi, Cully Hamner, and Von Randall.

Here's a cover gallery, featuring Piotr Kowalski's cover for #1 and Kyle Hotz's cover for #2, followed by several pages of Kowalski's interior art from the first issue.

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"Strangely, that in the 30 year history of the Spawn-Universe, we have never written the origin story of one of the main characters of this mythology," said Spawn creator and Image Comics president Todd McFarlane in a statement. "So now, after such a long wait, Marc Andreyko and his crew of artists have delivered a story that is a multi-era spanning telling of how this villain came to be Spawn's main antagonist. Since his first appearance way back in 1992, I've been asking writers to think about doing this story. Luckily Marc has enthusiastically jumped on that request."

McFarlane seems not to be counting 1994's Violator #2, written by Alan Moore with art by Bart Sears, which does indeed reveal Violator's origin as the child of a demon and a human woman who slew his demonic father to take his place in Hell. Nonetheless, there's never been a whole series focusing on the story. And judging by how the new Violator series is being described, his origin is about to be re-written anyway.

Image's official synopsis for the first issue reveals that the series will "Follow the journey of your favorite Spawn Universe demon from his start in the celestial heavens through his fall and descent into Hell, and finally, his banishment to Earth. He existed throughout human history, living in the shadows and pulling the strings of some of the most powerful people to ever live."

Violator: Origin #1 is published by Image Comics on August 14.

Find out more about the expanding Spawn Universe line here.

Will Salmon is the Streaming Editor for GamesRadar+. He has been writing about film, TV, comics, and music for more than 15 years, which is quite a long time if you stop and think about it. At Future he launched the scary movie magazine Horrorville, relaunched Comic Heroes, and has written for every issue of SFX magazine for well over a decade. His music writing has appeared in The Quietus, MOJO, Electronic Sound, Clash, and loads of other places too.

With contributions from

George Marston