According to its creator Todd McFarlane (via his Twitter account), an animated version of his comic book anti-hero Spawn will be returning to the airwaves in 2010. Spawn last had an animated version on HBO in 1997 (and it had adult content such as nudity, profanity and violence to boot).

Honestly, other than a few cult followers of the comic book, has anybody even heard of Spawn anymore? The character pretty much jumped out of the mainstream once the experiment that was Image Comics failed. Yes, I know Image is still around and the creators are still involved with it, but it was intended as an experiment to see if comic book creators could run a business as a collective. Most of the founders spun off into their own companies and it failed.

Spawn is too adult of a character to ever reach the mainstream anyway. It can't really be marketed to children. If the animated series does return (or get a reboot), it would be best served on Adult Swim (or one of the pay channels that would let it go uncensored).