It’s our second Patreon President selected episode – SPAWN! Find out what happens when an atheist becomes an agent of Hell! Plus references to the Simpsons, Annie Duke, and Pascal’s Wager! Listen now!

SHOW NOTES:

• Introduction
• Background (08:54)
  • Created by Todd McFarlane in Spawn #1 (May 1992)
  • Al Simmons, former Marine and CIA black operative, killed by a partner and sent to Hell – made a deal with Malebolgia – in exchange for his soul, he can see his wife again
  • Returns to human world 5 years later – wife has now married best friend Terry and they have a daughter, Cyan
  • Attacked by Violator, another demon and lackey of Malebolgia, who tells him he’s an agent of Hell
  • Meets bum Cogliostro, who knows history of Hellspawns
  • Attacked by Angela, agent of Heaven who hunts Hellspawns
  • Finds out order to kill him was given by Jason Wynn, his former boss, who is given heavenly powers to become Anti-Spawn/Redeemer – Spawn comes out victorious
  • Fights the Freak, tortured by nightmares of his past
  • Meets Harry Houdini, who’s a real magician
  • Finds out his suit is a living being known as Leetha of the 7th House of K
  • Gets caught up in battle between Heaven and Hell – uses power of Greenworld to become more powerful – he & Angela go to hell to fight Malebolgia – Angela dies, and Spawn kills Malebolgia in retaliation
  • Gets offered chance to rule Hell and declines – finds out Cogliostro is really Cain, who wants to control Hell and use Spawn to do it
  • Rejected by Heaven & Hell, he is on Earth in a warehouse with a rotting, maggot-infested corpse – his body ends up in Hell, and he, along with Sam & Twitch, have to escape
  • Discovers that Wanda has given birth to God and Satan (Jake and Katie) – lots of allusion to 12 disciples of Jesus, the 4 Horsemen, Armageddon happens but gets reset after Spawn eats fruit from the Garden of Eden, and gets resurrected as an angel on the same level as God and Satan – forces them to fight each other without armies and shuts them off from Earth
  • Returns to Earth as Al Simmons, but can’t reconcile with Wanda because he beat her into a miscarriage the day before he died, so he once again becomes a Hellspawn
  • Encounters his brother Richard, who is being tortured by his own sins – finds out Mammon introduced Richard to drugs and convinced young Al to torture animals – then discovers their mother slept with Mammon to create a great evil – Richard sacrifices himself to save world
  • Endgame – Spawn’s symbiote is fighting him because he rejected the godlike powers – Cyan stabs Spawn with a mystical knife that wounds K7-Leetha, who leaves Al Simmons – moves to new host, Morana, the miscarried child, who was restored by Mammon – Al & Cyan team up to trap Morana in Hell, and Al kills himself again
  • Reborn on Earth as Jim Downing, who has powers of Hellspawn
• Issues (27:02)
  • Atheist as agent of hell caught up in religious battle – makes deal with devil
  • Guilt over what Al Simmons did before he died
  • Torn over Wanda moving on after he died, and marrying his best friend and having children
• Treatment (43:35)
  • In-universe
  • Out-of-universe
• Skit (57:15)
• Ending

References:

• “The Devil and Daniel Webster” – Anthony – 11:19
• “Treehouse of Horror IV” from The Simpsons – Anthony – 11:24
• “Illusions, Michael” – Arrested Development – Anthony – 18:15
• “Yakety Sax” by Boots Randolph – Dr. Issues – 24:06
• Watchmaker analogy – Dr. Issues – 28:00
• Pascal’s Wager – Anthony – 32:22
• Nuremberg defense – Anthony – 33:16
• Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke – Dr. Issues – 48:39

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