COMIC-CON: TODD MCFARLANE PANEL

SAN DIEGO -- At his Comic-Con International panel on Saturday. Todd McFarlane displayed two promotional images from the Spawn/Batman book, which is scheduled for a December release.

McFarlane said he had the idea for this story in his head, even back during the first Spawn/Batman book, which was written by Frank Miller.

He said the story will focus on the psychological aspects of the characters and how they differ. It will also include Spawn facing Batman's foes and Batman facing demons.

"It's sort of two adventures," McFarlane said. "You have the heady stuff but you also get all the cool action stuff."

In other notes from the panel:

* The 30th series of the Spawn action figure line puts the character "in with the big boys," McFarlane said.

The seires will be The Adventures of Spawn, a slick, animated version of the characters that will be accompanied by an online comic-book story at the Spawn site. "Everything's very streamlined and big," he said.

The line, due in November, includes The Redeemer, Cy-Gor, Overtkill the Destroyer, Tiffany the Amazon, Lord Mammon and Omega Spawn.

In describing The Art of Greg Capullo book, McFarlane described him as "one of the most underrated artists in the last 10 years."