In the 1990's, Todd McFarlane's Spawn was a very big deal in the world of comics, even going as far as becoming the number one selling title in the industry at one point. It's hard to imagine for modern readers, as Spawn has fallen in popularity quite considerably since those heady heights, but the character is still in publication and retains a dedicated fanbase. All this is to say that fans were pretty darn excited to see Batman and Spawn interact in 1994, and they were treated to two separate one-shot comics in that very year. Spawn/Batman is probably the more celebrated of the two stories, which is no surprise given that it was written by Frank Miller (The Dark Knight Returns) and drawn by superstar Spawn creator Todd McFarlane. This issue was published by Image Comics, hence Spawn's name coming first in the title, and the plot involves Batman coming to New York City to find a villain who has been kidnapping and decapitating homeless people, using their severed heads as brains to power an arsenal of cyborgs that are to be sold to the military. Comics, man, you've got to love them. The best part of the story is when Spawn asks Batman to 'bury the hatchet' at the end. He gets a batarang unceremoniously embedded in his face in response, along with the quip 'Bury this'. No love lost there. DC published Batman/Spawn: War Devil the same year, written by the team of Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon and Alan Grant and drawn by Klaus Janson (Daredevil). In this story, Batman and Spawn take on the demon Croatoan, who is working for Satan to collect souls for his army. For a street-level vigilante who started out punching mobsters in the face, Batman sure does find himself in some outlandish scrapes sometimes, right?
