When it comes to Spawn, I’ve always been a bit of a casual. I remember seeing the comics when they first started hitting the racks, but I was never really into them. I saw the movie when it came to theaters, and enjoyed it for what it was. I also recently picked up the animated series, and that was pretty solid. For some reason though, Spawn has just never resonated with me the same way other franchises like X-Men or Star Wars have. However, I do hold quite a bit of nostalgia for the toy line. See, back in the 90’s me and my cousin were always on the hunt for new Spawn figures. Even though I wasn’t into them, I really enjoyed hanging out with him on the weekends, driving around hunting for figures. We would hit all the usual spots like Toys R Us and Kay-Bee Toys, and then all the random collectible shops we would find either by word of mouth, just driving around, or searching in the yellow pages. We would usually cap those trips off with an evening stop at Tower Record to see if a new ToyFare, Lee’s Toy Review, or Fangoria magazine dropped. Man, I really do miss those days.
Let’s fast forward about 30 years now, and here I am still on the hunt for Spawn figures. This time, however, they are for myself. I feel like I may be about ten years past the point where resellers were just dumping these for next to nothing. I don’t see as many as I used to these days, though I have been able to find a few figures for bargain bin prices. Even a lot of the higher-end stuff I find is usually at most $20. Most of these figures are just collecting dust, so a lot of resellers are pretty good about giving you bundle deals if you ask them. I guess I would lump Spawn figures into the same category as the 90’s Star Wars Power of the Force line. Both hit around the same time, were heavily mass produced, but were absolutely carried by the speculation market that was evolving thanks to a little known website at the time called eBay.
I remember going to random toy shows back in the 90’s, and they were always swamped with Beanie Babies, Star Wars, and Spawn stuff. I can’t tell you how many times I was told, “this is an investment,” by some shady vendor trying his best to get every penny out of thirteen year old me that he could. And you know what, it worked most of the time. I thought for sure all that stuff would be worth its weight in gold one day. If only I knew that in a couple of decades it would all be worthless, and I could buy the majority of the figures for next to nothing. In fact, I would say most of the value for any of this stuff is dependent on what someone is willing to pay, or by how eager a person is to get rid of it. Still to this day, a lot of mid to late 90’s toy lines can be purchased for not too much more than what they were going for on the store shelves when they first came out.
Anyway, I got a little off track there. Spawn! I am really loving these figures. The detail on them is quite phenomenal for the time. Everything is so intricate, and detailed. There are so many small molded parts, which couldn’t have been cheap to produce back then. Even looking at the first couple of waves, they really came out swinging. Figures like Overtkill, Violator, The Curse, Malebolgia, and Vertebreaker were amazing sculpts with incredible detail and intricacy. Most figures around that time had pretty simple sculpts, but these were ultra premium. If I were to compare them to present day standards, sure the articulation isn’t great, but they still hold up quite well. It’s crazy to think these were on the pegs for around $7.99, whereas most McFarlane figures are in the $30+ range now and don’t look much better.
The whole reason I started this website back up was so I could share my memories and nostalgia for stuff like this with other like minded individuals. The really fun part is that in doing so, I have unlocked a lot of memories I forgot I had. I have a pretty active Instagram account, and it’s there that I interact with so many people and find myself constantly saying, “I totally forgot about that!” Spawn is one of those things I just kind of placed in the back of my mind. Sure I have seen these figures all over the place throughout the years, but I never really paid much attention to them.I never really picked them up and looked at them, or thought about all the memories I had attached to this toy line. As I saw people posting about them, or saw them pop up in claim sales, I was constantly reminded of all those amazing times I had hunting for these figures decades ago. That’s what really prompted me to buy some for myself, and once I started I was hooked. I remember looking for that purple version of Cy-Gor, or the brown version of the Werewolf, or the grey version of Freak. I remember how awesome it was when we finally found the gigantic Malebolgia figure. I wish I would have paid more attention to this toy line over the years, but I am really happy that I am now.
