The video for Pearl Jam’s 1998 song, “Do the Evolution”, features a dark-haired gothy woman who is clearly not Death from The Endless.

The folks at the Pearl Jam forums refer to her as “Death Girl,” so there you go. It’s a completely different character! The video was co-directed by Todd McFarlane. (The other co-director: Kevin Altieri, who worked on Batman: The Animated Series.) If he wanted a video with a personification of death, why not Spawn?

Oh… we know why.

Spawn is an unwilling soldier in the service golf the demon Malebolgia and not an avatar of death. It’s different.

The video also featured the nightmare of working in a cubicle. Trust me, youngsters, we were all terrified of holding down 9-to-5 jobs at the time. You’re going to sell your souls to the corporation, kids! Be more like Todd McFarlane and Eddie Vedder and stick it to THE MAN.

That said, the video an interesting encapsulation of Generation X in many ways: the desire to break from a corrupted system (whether it be from the Big Two comics monopoly or the music industry studio system or warmongering governments and bigotry from the video), the rise of animation that’s not just for kids anymore (and the fluid style made popular by the Batman animated series… but sort of is a stand-in for the same era that gave us The Simpsons and South Park), 90’s Goth culture and the popularity of Sandman, and the grunge rock movement as sung by one of its defining bands.

Also the 70’s nostalgia. Don’t think I missed that you were trying too make this generation’s “The Wall,” guys.

Click here to watch the video.

Today is also the 160th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of the Species, so you East Coast guys have 1 hour from this posting to put this song on today’s playlist so you can commemorate being the first mammal to wear pants.