What happens when a Spartan warrior driven to vengeful violence against pantheons of Gods and Goddesses from ancient mythology crosses over with a government assassin reborn as an antihero agent of hell? As Reddit user turtlesalad711 posited with a piece of fan art combining God of War with Spawn Friday, the result is an incredibly volatile Spawn of War.
Turtlesalad711's art, posted to the r/PS4 subreddit and later crossposted to both r/Spawn and r/GodofWar, showcases the God of War series' protagonist Kratos (rocking his dad beard from the most recent entry) wearing the iconic red cape of Todd McFarlane's comic book hero while shredding apart demons and human warriors alike. He's also overflowing with a deathly green aura that spills out into his Blades of Chaos.
In the comments of the initial post turtlesalad711 said they embarked on this crossover venture as part of the #prokochallenge on Instagram, rather than it being for fun like when Reddit user TheGreatScubdu added Danny DeVito into the world of The Witcher.
On January 17, Ukrainian artist and Watts Atelier of the Arts professor Stan Prokopenko (who also runs the art instructional video YouTube channel "Proko") offered people the chance to win Wacom digital art products by posting pictures of unique comic book and video game crossover characters to the social media platform. The submissions period for that contest ended Friday, with the hashtag having nearly 2,000 posts.
This particular piece stands out not only because of its sheer quality, but because of how relevant each character currently is. Spawn, for instance, will be appearing in Mortal Kombat 11 as a DLC fighter voiced by Keith David (who also voiced the character in the late 90s HBO animated series Spawn).
Meanwhile, rumors are pointing to Kratos having more time in the spotlight soon. Some wonder if developers Santa Monica Studio may unveil God of War 2 at a potential PS5 reveal event in February.
Yet even if Kratos is not coming back out to capitalize on his recent successes, Santa Monica Studio will likely still be in the news for something. The developers teased a new game in production, which further leaks have suggested may be called Legendz. However, not much else is currently known about either game.
No matter what the future holds for God of War (which Director Cory Barlog has talked about continuing) or Spawn as individual franchises, at least the Internet can relish in turtlesalad711's incredible crossover art in the now.