Spawn Reading Order / "Chronology"

[Forever Knight]

Whoa! That is a good one!!!
I thought i scoured the internet to it's fullest extent and couldn't find a good solid chronology!
Thanks for the post! I will continue to update mine, see if they match up, because there are some missing entries in that one, like Architects of Fear, Cy-gor, placement of the Hellspawn series, other Sam and Twitch issues, etc.

I don't think those one are in continuity with the original Spawn comic though

[NastyNes]

Is http://comicbooktimelines.wikispaces.com/Spawn+Universe done? Aside from the original series still ongoing.

[KalebYoung]

I deleted the original "chronological" timeline and replaced it with the ultimate reading order. Reading the series chronologically isn't all it's cracked up to be. There's references to characters, places, and events that the reader wouldn't understand. This is the BEST WAY to read Spawn completely.

Cheers!

[Mike Zomer]

First I want to thank you for this list, I've read some of the Spawn comics in Dutch when they were published in the nineties, and always wanted to buy / read the full series. This list is just what I needed!

Bought the first 133 comics of your reading order these past months and just finished reading Spawn #052.
This story continues in Savage Dragon #030, any reason why this is not in your list?

[KalebYoung]

All Spawn does in Savage Dragon #30 is tell The Dragon his backstory (being tricked by Malbolgia and finding out he'd been kept in Hell 5 years), he tells Dragon they are in Hell, and then Dragon's villain The Fiend shows up and teleports Spawn out of there.

SD #30 does include Spawn, but I don't have it included here because its events are never referenced again and it feels more like an advertisement for Spawn than actual story content. There is more stuff there involving SD's side characters than Spawn. It is self contained to SD's story only and has no bearing on Spawn's. My recommendation is to skip it unless you're reading the Savage Dragon series.

There is a meaningful Spawn/Savage Dragon crossover around Spawn #265/Savage Dragon #216 that has some bearing on events in both series, but you don't need to read ALL Savage Dragon to understand it.

Early in Image Comics history the company wanted to be like Marvel and DC, have an interconnected superhero universe. It didn't work out so well, and eventually all those characters ended up staying self-contained and they told better stories that way, not being weighed down by needing to read a bunch of another comic series to understand what was happening.

Trust me, if you're reading Spawn SD #30 just slows you down, especially since Spawn #49-54 have a really solid pace of interesting events. Hope this helps! =)

[Scraggler]

First, thanks for the hard work putting this together. I have just embarked on reading Spawn from the beginning (for the second time) and it seems that Curse of the Spawn #23 & #24 don't fit in where they are now. Overt-Kill's brother puts him back together much later if I'm remembering correctly. He doesn't become Overt-War until much later when Al confronts Wynn but I can't remember which issue that is. Of course, I don't think we ever see Pandemic again so those issues may not matter at all. Anyway, great work, this is pretty much the one and only Spawn reading order on the whole interwebs

[Trent]

Thanks for the update, looks great as always!

[MalebogiaSon]

This is without a doubt the most comprehensive and complete reading order out there!
Thank you for putting this together and posting it.
I have recently restarted re-reading my Spawn collection, and have been referencing this list quite a bit.
I especially like that you break down if a story is going on in conjunction with another story or if it is part of the main series or not.

Thanks again!
Beautiful work!

[slothc0der]

Fantastic post! Let's keep it alive and going!

[Haunt]

Thanks for the list. I'm going to start reading (and in some cases re-reading) Spawn again soon. It will be nice to have a list to guide me.