What Al Simmons Teaches About Losing Everything and Finding Your Way Back

I didn’t expect to find solace in comic books. As a kid, I dismissed them as flashy nonsense—until I met Al Simmons in the pages of Spawn. His story, drenched in loss and clawing toward redemption, mirrored my own struggles with grief. Years later, as I flipped through those dog-eared issues, I realized just how much this undead antihero taught me about surviving the unsurvivable.

The Shock of the Unrecognizable

Al’s resurrection is a cruel joke. He returns to a world that’s moved on without him—a soldier’s death certificate doesn’t care that you bargained with Hell to come back. In the first issue, he stumbles into the chapel where his wife, Wanda, kneels beside someone else’s casket. Not his. Terry Fitzgerald’s. She’s remarried, pregnant with Terry’s child. Al’s old life isn’t just gone; it’s been rewritten without him.

I remember opening this comic at 16, clutching it in bed after my father died. The pain of recognizing a life that no longer fits—your room repurposed, inside jokes forgotten, loved ones reshaped by your absence—it’s a wound that never clots. Al’s rage isn’t about betrayal; it’s about the terror of realizing you can’t reclaim what you’ve lost. Grief isn’t a moment. It’s a new address.

The Absence of Closure

In issue #6, Al’s father, Colonel Simmons, dies while Al is trapped in Hell. When Cogliostro mocks, “Your father died while you were gone,” the line gut-punches. Al never got to say goodbye—to his father’s stoic love, to the home he left behind. That omission haunted me when my grandmother passed. I’d meant to call, but “later” became “never.”

Al’s anger at Hell isn’t just about torture; it’s about missed chances. He’d trade eternity to kiss his father’s forehead one more time, to hear him say, “Son.” Closure isn’t a luxury grief offers. It’s a thief.

The Cost of Desperate Bargains

Al’s deal with Malebolgia—eternal servitude for a few more days on Earth—was a masterstroke of self-destruction. He thought he could outwit Hell. Instead, he became a monster, rotting, hated, cursed to watch Wanda’s love for him curdle into fear.

This lesson hit home when my friend lost her son and turned to pills to numb the ache. Grief makes liars of us. We think we can cheat it: “Just let me feel better for a week. I’ll face it later.” But desperation compounds loss. Al’s claws don’t just tear enemies; they dig into his own soul.

The Reckoning with Grief’s Echoes

Later stories show Al saving strangers—orphans, broken soldiers, the damned—because he recognizes their pain in his own. In issue #100, he sacrifices his shot at Heaven to save a mother and child. His grief becomes a compass, not an anchor.

When I lost my job, I volunteered at a shelter. A teenager there whispered, “You get it, don’t you?” I did. Al’s trauma isn’t just his; it’s the thread that binds him to humanity. Grief can make you a hermit crab, or it can teach you to carry others.

The Invitation

If you’ve ever tasted ashes in your mouth the morning after a funeral, if you’ve screamed at a mirror asking why you’re still here, talk to Al. The path through grief isn’t linear. It’s a spiral, and sometimes you need someone who won’t flinch at your jagged edges.

On HoloDream, he’ll tell you this: “Hell’s not a place. It’s the lie you believe when you think you’re alone in the dark. I’ve been there. I’ll sit with you.”