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Proceeds from these pages go to support the work of the ERIICA Project and
the student creators, including the publication of future editions of
The Workday Comic.
For more information, contact Dr. Travis Langley (email: langlet at hsu.edu). |
Douglas Schimenti
Comics in Psychology
Character Analysis
Spawn, ex-assassin, husband, and
living being, now roams the alley ways of
Spawn is what we like to call an Anti-Hero. Anti-Hero does not mean he is part of some organization rallying against heroes and what they stand for, and it does not mean he is a villain. What Anti-Hero means is he is not against destroying things, torture, blackmail, and killing people. Basically he uses evil tactics to accomplish his missions. An excellent example of this is Spawns second battle with the Cyborg Overt-Kill. Spawn was beaten in the first battle because he was unprepared, but that changed when he knew how to beat him. Since Spawn was an ex-government assassin he knew where to find the hardware to take out a cyborg. This hardware included some laser guns, explosives, and extremely large handheld laser cannons. The equipment was very effective and destructive. After blowing Overt-Kill apart, Spawn proceeds to rip the rest of him apart, then covers his tracks by blowing the whole area up. This is typical behavior of an Anti- Hero. If Spawn were a regular hero like Batman or Superman then Overt-Kill would have been put in jail, but that doesn’t agree with spawn who has a preferred course of action which is what he is good at.
Even though Spawn is an anti-hero he fits the Hero’s Journey checklist, created by Joseph Campbell. The list starts with the call to adventure and ends with the freedom to live. Spawn goes though the hero’s journey from start to finish. The First act starts with the call to adventure; since he was an assassin in life he already liked adventure. Second is the refusal to the call; he has his powers but doesn’t want to kill everyone he is supposed to. Next is supernatural aid, which he definitely has, seeing how he has the powers of Hell. The crossing of the first threshold happens when Spawn realizes what he has become. Spawns belly of the whale seems to be more or less, eternal damnation which he tries to get out of. The second act of the hero’s journey begins with the road of trials. Spawn is constantly facing trials, mostly enemies, but he always overcomes them. A meeting with a god or goddess is not something a hell-spawn should look forward to, however when he does meet god he takes her hostage (God is in the form of an old woman) (issue 32). So it is pretty safe to say he has a meeting with God. The third part of the act two check list is the woman as a temptress. The only woman Spawn is tempted by other than his wife is the angel Angela; I think he has a thing for people who try to kill him (issue 9). Atonement with the Father would probably have happened when Spawn took God hostage, but since God knew Spawns intentions and he did let God go it seemed to be a bit of atonement (issue 32). After the series goes on for a while Spawn starts encountering difficulties with his costume and starts having pretty much a breakdown so he tries to hide him self away and refuses to return to the call of being the hero he could be (issue 49). Then after this episode he figures out what he needs to do and his magic flight and crossing of the return threshold seem to go hand in hand. Because the way to get to hell involves magic and that is definitely a threshold that is crossed, from earth to Hell is quite the leap. He eventually kills Malebolge (issue 100), his creator which means he is the most powerful being on earth and in the eighth circle of hell, or two worlds. After he has killed his creator he is then granted the freedom to live without being a puppet and he even turns down the throne of the eighth circle at first, but later returns to try and make Hell another type of paradise. Not the smartest of all decisions, but it is not like it works anyway. Spawn does go through he Hero’s Journey and when you are facing Hell that is no easy task, but this anti-hero pulls it off.
Many people would say Spawn is completely crazy, or schizophrenic. This is not the case. To be diagnosed with Schizophrenia the person must have “at least two or more of the following symptoms for a significant portion of time during a one-month period” as stated by the DSM-IV-TR. Spawn does have delusions and hallucinations, generally about his past life and his time and hell, but he does not have them frequently enough to qualify. He is perfectly coherent in his speech so that can be crossed off. He is not really organized or disorganized, since he lives on the streets he does not own a lot of things so there is not to much for him to be organized about. He has plenty of negative symptoms however. Things such as depression, anger and so forth are part of the Hell-Spawns daily life. After looking at the symptoms Spawn does not have Schizophrenia, but most people would say a guy dressed in a costume, fighting demons is completely out of touch with reality. In a world where demons and things don’t exist, sure he would be psychotic, but when the demons are real then I would have to say he is pretty coherent if he can fight them instead of stand there in fear.
Spawn borders on having Anti-Social Personality Disorder; however he does not have enough of the qualifying traits. According to the DSM-IV-TR Antisocial Personality disorder is defined as “a pervasive pattern of disregard for and violation of the rights of others occurring since age 15” and the person must have three of the seven qualifying traits to be diagnosed as such. This behavior has not been occurring since age 15, but we do know that Spawn is over 18 though it is not stated. We do not know about the childhood of Al Simmons so we cannot conclude whether he had a Conduct disorder before then. Spawn does “fail to conform to social norms with respect to lawful behaviors and does repeatedly perform acts that are grounds for arrest”. Please note all the killing, maiming, blackmail, and all around destruction caused by Spawn, almost all of his actions are grounds for arrest. One thing Spawn does not do a lot of is be deceitful; he is generally pretty straight forward and does not use aliases for personal gain or profit. Even when he was alive he did not use secret identities. When Spawn knows what he has to do he goes in well planned. If he wants someone to do something he gets all the information he can on them then hands them a copy of a file with more than enough information to put them away for life or more. Spawn is extremely irritable and aggressive and does get into many fights but usually only because someone or something started them. He has no problem finishing what has been started though. I wouldn’t necessarily call Spawn irresponsible, it would however be very difficult for him to maintain a job and since he lives on the streets he does not have to worry about financial obligations. If Spawn were to get a job it would probably endanger the people he worked with and the places he worked at, since things are always trying to kill him and it usually causes a lot of explosions. Though most people don’t notice it Spawn does not have a lack of remorse he hurts, fights, kills, and steals, but it is not good people he does any of this to. It is mostly from people he knows are evil and usually the hurting, fighting, and killing are towards those who started something with him or were terrorizing the good people. The last thing mentioned about Antisocial Personality disorder in the DSM-IV-TR is “the occurrence of antisocial behavior is not exclusively during the course of Schizophrenia or a Manic Episode”. This is Spawn all over because the behavior that would lead you to believe he has Antisocial Personality Disorder is constant and he does not have Schizophrenia.
This Anti-Hero has what is known as an internal locus of control. The locus of control relates to if a person feels like they control their life or an outside force does. Being that Spawn has an internal locus of control means that he believes he is in control of himself. Even though his creator Malebolge thinks of him as his puppet, Spawn eventually shows he is no ones lap dog and beheads the demon (issue 100). This action and all of the defiance towards his creator shows that he is not controlled by something else and he knows it.
The OCEAN test was also used to do some analysis on Spawn. OCEAN is an acronym which stands for openness, conscience, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Spawn seemed to score fairly low on all the sections. From the scores Spawn received we can conclude that he is not a very open person. He does have some conscience, but not enough to keep him from being an anti-hero. He has a very low extraversion sense of things, meaning he doesn’t really give to much though to anyone other than himself. He is not agreeable in the least, and tends to prefer to do things his way instead of taking advice from others. The only one Spawn scored high on was the last one which is neuroticism. He does have some neurosis which means mental disorders and he has enough to score high on the neuroticism part of the OCEAN test.
Again if this were the real world that Spawn lives in he would have enough of the qualifying factors to be diagnosed with Schizotypal Personality Disorder. Schizotypal Personality Disorder, According to The DSM-IV-TR is “A pervasive pattern of social and interpersonal deficits marked by acute discomfort with, and reduced capacity for, close relationships as well as by cognitive or perceptual distortions and eccentricities of behavior, which begins in early childhood.” (DSM-IV-TR pg. 290 “Personality Disorders”) To qualify for this disorder you must have at least five of the nine traits listed. The first one is ideas of reference which Spawn does have, he keeps referring back to his past and will not let it go. Next is “odd beliefs or magical thinking that influences behavior, and that is inconsistent with sub cultural norms.” Again we are looking at this in the perspective of the real world at this point and Spawn would definitely suffer from this second trait. Teleportation, a giant red cape, a costume that acts on its own, and fighting off demons; if someone were acting like this or saying they believed this was happening then something is not right. Next is “unusual perceptual experiences, such as bodily illusions” believing that your body is made up of 400 pounds of a substance called psycho-plasm dictates a bodily illusion. Next is, odd thinking and speech, he believes he is back from hell; enough said. Fifth is “suspiciousness or paranoid ideation” Since he is constantly watching over his shoulder and never trusts anyone I think it is safe to say he qualifies. Since that is five that he has qualified for it meets the criteria for a proper diagnosis of this disorder, however the one that I have not mentioned that he no doubt is a victim of is number eight. “Behavior or appearance that is odd, eccentric, or peculiar.” Okay, when someone walks around in a red cape that can shadow a building, has glowing green eyes, constantly makes strange actions that they claim they can not control, and is extremely violent; that is peculiar. Even in the world in which spawn lives where most of this stuff seems to be common place, it is still very strange.
Does the Hell-Spawn have Borderline Personality Disorder; surely not. Of course according to the DSM-IV-TR he has enough of the qualifications. First we will talk about the identity disturbance of Spawn, his unstable self image as it were. He knows who he used to be, but he has a very hard time of coping with who he has become. He still wants to think of himself as a living human; however this is no longer the case. His original body is in a grave and he is 400 pounds of walking psycho-plasm with powers from hell. This is what we consider a major difference. He definitely has self-damaging impulsivity. Constantly infiltrating government building, military bases, and other places loaded with security is not the safest thing a person could do. When he attempts these things he constantly gets shot, but I guess when you are already dead that does not matter as much. It does not negate the fact that it is self damaging. Number six “affecting instability due to a marked reactivity of mood”, that is our anti-hero. Spawn, most of the time he is very irritable and just wants to be alone; that is definitely his mood affecting things. Chronic feelings of emptiness are something every Hell-Spawn should enjoy. After dying and being brought back five years after your death seems to make people feel unfilled with life. Not to mention the fact that the world has been shaped to torment the soldier of Hell. When the only reason you came back (his wife Wanda) is married to your best friend (Terry), you would tend to feel a little down and empty inside.
Whether you like it or not, Spawn is an anti-hero from hell with a few things that are off, but none can agree that his methods are effective. Even Spawn can tell something is wrong with him at times; I mean he can hear voices, but they are actually talking to him from different dimensions, he sees demons and haywire experiments, but they are real, and he thinks has superpowers, which he actually has. So even if he’s mentally a bit unstable you cannot argue with Spawn, because he protects people from the horrors of hell. Even though, if he were in the real world he would probably be considered completely psychotic.
Works Cited
McFarlane, Todd. Spawn. Image, 1992 – 2000. Issues 1, 2, 9, 14, 24, 27, 32, 49, 100
DSM-IV-TR.