I actually only recently discovered the obscure Marvel character called “Nightwatch”, who’s most comedically undeniably a rip off of Spawn! His first appearance was Web Of Spider-man #99 from 1993 and to be honest back in 1993 I wasn’t all that taken with most Marvel titles except maybe Claremont and Jim Lee’s X-men reboot. So it’s no wonder I missed out on this guy. The stories & artwork during this period of comic book history is less than flattering, I’m no big fan of Erik Larsen, Wilce Portacio and the gang to be honest. Well the artwork in “Web” during that times was done by Alex Saviuk and it’s pretty god damn awful. So let’s move on…who the Hell was Nightwatch? Was he really a rip off? First check out his picture…

Ok so we can agree that perhaps he looks an awful LOT like Spawn! But who came first officially? Well it was indeed Spawn who came first in May of 1992. There has been rumors that Mcfarlane actually created “Nightwatch” before he left Marvel and that Spawn is actually a rip-off of his own character. After searching around the web I honestly couldn’t find the info anywhere on who officially created the character. Could it be true? Could Nightwatch be the legit orginal bad-ass that was created first before the success of Spawn? Well it got me thinking aside from his appearance what other similarities do they share?

Number one they were both African American. Two they both died, Doctor Kevin Trench (Nightwatch) witnessed his own murder, a future version of himself killed by terrorists, where he discovered the living suit which he acquired off of his own dead body. Spawn was also murdered by a mercenary. Three, they both had living shape shifting capes. So yeah pretty much the same thing. The interesting thing is that Trench is supposedly in a time loop unable to stop himself from discovering his older self. So it’s entirely possible we could see Nightwatch return someday. Perhaps then we can ask him who his creator was? Oh Marvel in the early 1990’s how I love to hate you…