The recent launch of Todd McFarlane’s new monthly comic book, King Spawn #1, has shattered sales records. With just under a half-million pre-orders by comic stores retailers, this marks the single largest new superhero monthly title launch in the comic book industry in the past 25 years.

The Spawn character was first introduced in 1992, with the release of Spawn #1, to a record of 1.7 million copies that still stands today as the highest selling, creator-owned comic issue of all time. Published by Image Comics (the third largest comic publisher in North America behind Marvel and DC), the Spawn character also set a record as the longest running, creator-owned comic on the planet when issue #301 was published in 2019.

With its creator, McFarlane, announcing the expansion of a new “shared universe” at the beginning of this year, the initial title from that announcement, Spawn’s Universe #1, hit stores in June to the largest sales from Image Comics since 1998. The first issue of King Spawn beat that number by two and a half times.

McFarlane said,

“The numbers that came in were much higher than what I had projected. With sales that now have a historical impact in our industry. It proves that the character Spawn and the world he lives in still resonates to fans almost thirty years after I first introduced him. But the biggest thing for me is having King Spawn becoming another example to the creative community that you can have creator-owned success outside of the two huge publishing giants, Marvel, and DC Comics. Every story that shows you can make a career on your own will hopefully inspire other talented people to try. As President of Image Comics, advocating for the creators has been our goal since its inception in 1992.”

King Spawn #1 will be available at comic book shops on Wednesday, August 25.