Warning: Mild Ready Player One spoilers ahead
Todd McFarlane's Spawn made a welcome return in Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One, and now the character's creator is celebrating the return to form.
Tye Sheridan plays uber-nerd Wade Watts, who is transported into the VR world known as the Oasis. Here, you can be literally anyone (or anything you want to be), leading to the movie's many references to pop culture. From Clark Kent to Back to the Future, Transformers to Freddy Kreuger, is anything even relevant if it doesn't make a cameo in Ready Player One? There some pretty easy ones to notice, however, audiences will have to look pretty hard to find Todd McFarlane's Spawn hiding amongst the other icons of the screen.
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Taking to Facebook, McFarlane confirmed that Spawn briefly features in Spielberg's nostalgic movie and is "leading the charge" - a direct reference to when the character appears:
The trailers teased a climactic battle on the fields of the Oasis in the third act, and they are sure not to be disappointed. Spawn leads a group of DC heroes in the war, which is ironic considering he isn't as well-known as the likes of Superman and Batman. That being said, debuting with his own Image Comics line in 1992, Spawn has slowly gathered a cult following over the years - if not for one small bump in the road. It is great to see that despite the character's ups and downs, his creator is still flying the Spawn flag high.
Spawn aficionados will remember the maligned 1997 movie that had Michael Jai White as Albert Simmons/Spawn. Coming just five years after the character's inception, Spawn failed to set the box office alight and has gone down as one of the worst-received comic book films to date. However, given a brief nod in Ready Player One, the timing couldn't be better for McFarlane's upcoming reboot movie. Although filming is due to start any day, little else is known about who will star in Spawn or how McFarlane plans on handling the latest iteration of the character, but it is safe to say, everyone's excited.
Many had assumed that McFarlane's reboot would be the first time Spawn makes it into theaters since 1997, but it is a great Easter egg that the demonic antihero had his brief time to shine in Ready Player One. Over the years, McFarlane has tried to build the character's street cred back up after the disastrous reputation of the movie, so here's hoping Albert Simmons' Ready Player One cameo does just that ahead of his solo return to the screen.
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Source: Todd McFarlane
