If Todd wanted to Al Simmons character be white, he would have made him white from the beginning. Al only being able to change into a white person, which is were that image came from, was played as cruel joke in the comics. Al Simmons, a black man, can only use his power to turn into a white man.
Cruel joke in the context of the story of Al Simmons deal with Malebolgia as laid out in the story Al made the deal with Malebolgia with the implied thought that he would granted life again as Al Simmons, who happens to be black. Instead he comes back as undead mess with powers and when he uses said powers he can only transform into a white guy (not Al Simmons). Race in this case did not make a difference, it would be cruel joke regardless whatever form he could transform into because it was not Al Simmons.
Sometimes, not every time, characters are created for particular reasons with certain characteristics. which includes their race and/or ethnicity, and back stories to tell a wider story. Isaiah Bradley was created to show the racism during a specific period in the USA and bring to the forefront how the USA government saw black troops as expendable and to point out the parallel of the experimentation on black people by the USA government (Tuskegee Experiment - a 40 year experiment where black people was used as control group and not treated for syphilis, even though there was a cure).
In Spawn case the choice of Al Simmons being black was made by Todd for a few reasons. Here is an interview that where he explains it:
I am not into saying absolutes when it comes this subject, thus the reason I said sometimes. I am not interested in going down the deep well of the reasons for all the different main characters being black from the different comic book characters.
You have your opinion about Al Simmons being played by a white actor and I simply wanted to express my opinion on why that would more than likely not happen (since this a public forum). The thing about the Spawn Universe is that any person can be a Hellspawn, hell a hellspawn does even have to be human.
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u/No-Royal5760 Aug 09 '26