CBR: WC:11 Marvel Television Presents

[CBR News]

Marvel Television's WonderCon panel featured a new episode of "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" along with previews of "Ultimate Spider-Man" and the anime versions of "Iron Man" and "Wolverine."


Full article here.

[Anxy]

Can't help but feel like DC is whipping Marvel's butt in terms of developing TV programming. Are we really supposed to be chomping at the bit for Ultimate Spidey footage? How many Spider-Man cartoon series have there been in the last 40 years? Sure, it's always nice to have another one, but big whoop. And anime? Really?

[Squashua]

"Spectacular Spider-Man" was not bad at all. No reason it should have vanished.

[0bsessions]

Can't help but feel like DC is whipping Marvel's butt in terms of developing TV programming. Are we really supposed to be chomping at the bit for Ultimate Spidey footage? How many Spider-Man cartoon series have there been in the last 40 years? Sure, it's always nice to have another one, but big whoop. And anime? Really?

I really don't see this as much different than anything else before. DC has pretty much ALWAYS had the upper hand in animation since the Dini/Timm era. That said, your complaint about the volume of Spider-Man series in the last forty years is pretty off base considering Batman has had, off the top of my head, four series in that timeframe compared to Spidey's four (Including the upcoming USM):

60's Batman (Adam West one), Batman: TAS, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Vs.
Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, Spider-Man (90's), Spectacular Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man

That's not even getting into spin-offs and ensemble cast shows. Spidey had Spider-Man Unlimited, but then Batman's got Batman Beyond, JLA, JLU and Super Friends in that timespan.

That said, to pretend Marvel's output hasn't dramatically improved would be a fallacy too. Yost and Kyle formed a pretty excellent tandem on the X-Franchise for a while and some of their DTV input and Spectacular Spider-Man have been at the least on par with the likes of the 90's Superman toon and the JLA titles (If not up to snuff with Batman, which I honetly can't imagine any comics cartoon ever topping). Additionally, Wolverine and the X-Men was a very pleasant surprise (Easily the best X-Men cartoon ever)

If anything, I'm of the mind that Marvel's input in the last decade is close to, if not better than some of DC's stuff (Which was nice considering the bulk of Marvel's 90's work is absolute garbage in retrospect). Teen Titans simply never held a candle to DC's older stuff and DC hasn't really had much else out there. I admittedly haven't followed Brave and the Bold.

That all said, USM excites me (Even if I agree that there was absolutely no good reason to get rid of SSM) and I've been meaning to check out Avengers, but I wish they'd do something with the X-Men.

The Wolverine anime is a bit off putting hearing the guy from Heroes is involved. I really can't think of many people who suit the character less in my mind and can't see why they wouldn't just stick with the tried and true voice actor from W&TXM (The same actor from Cowboy Bebop).

[Phil Clark]

Can't help but feel like DC is whipping Marvel's butt in terms of developing TV programming.

It's only fair considering that Marvel is whipping DCs butt in terms of developing and fulfilling on Movies. And of course I am talking about the movies that Marvel has direct control over, not necessarily Spiderman, X-Men Daredevil or Fantastic Four. Although some of the Spiderman and X-Men films were quite good. And FF 1 and 2 were at least fun, if not overly faithful to the source material.

[Loren]

I really don't see this as much different than anything else before. DC has pretty much ALWAYS had the upper hand in animation since the Dini/Timm era. That said, your complaint about the volume of Spider-Man series in the last forty years is pretty off base considering Batman has had, off the top of my head, four series in that timeframe compared to Spidey's four (Including the upcoming USM):

60's Batman (Adam West one), Batman: TAS, The Batman, Batman: The Brave and the Bold
Vs.
Spider-Man and his Amazing Friends, Spider-Man (90's), Spectacular Spider-Man, Ultimate Spider-Man

There was also 2003's one-season MTV "Spider-Man" series that was more or less set in the movie continuity.

[rauj13]

Josh Keaton as Spidey? WOO (seeing as they never announced it >:[ )

[comicboy53]

Ah Josh Keaton as spidey all is right with the world

[n8twing]

There was also 2003's one-season MTV "Spider-Man" series that was more or less set in the movie continuity.

Also, SPIDER-MAN UNLIMITED, remember that weird one?

[Squashua]

There was also 2003's one-season MTV "Spider-Man" series that was more or less set in the movie continuity.

That was pretty lousy. Almost as bad as the computer-animated Iron Man of the last year or so.

I feel like I am one of the few who really liked "X-Men: Evolution". "Wolverine and the X-Men" was cut down in its prime.

The 1990's X-Men and Spider-Man (and related Hulk, FF and Iron Man shows) had consistently crappy animation and unnecessarily convoluted plotlines.

The F4 show that came out when the movie did was downright terrible.

The current "The Avengers" is great story-wise, but has sloppy animation and poor angles. "Superhero Squad" also has very sloppy animation, especially when compared to DC's slightly-OLDER child-friendly fare like "Krypto the Superdog" and "Superboy and the LSH".

"Batman: The Brave and the Bold" is excellent and should just be developed for TV in perpetuity like The Simpsons, regardless of all other DC shows.

I always forget about "Teen Titans", but to be honest, I'm glad I do. "Young Justice" is good, but also has some weird animation at times and is very unnecessarily violent for the intended audience.

[BrotherUnitNo_4]

The F4 show that came out when the movie did was downright terrible.

I feel like I'm the only person who liked this sometimes. Sure they made Reed younger and the art-style wasn't everyone's cup of tea (a bit too angular for even my tastes), but it really felt like the further along they got the better the show became, especially when they started bringing in other Marvel characters.

The 90s Fantastic Four on the other hand, fails to hold up on SOOOOO many fronts. I'm still not sure how the Penance Stare works on Galactus.

I also agree on the X-Men and 90s Spider-man, although the first Lizard episode has great animation even to this day and I would put that against any episode of any of the shows from either of the big two.

Marvel's still behind in some regards but they're definitely catching up. And I too liked Evolution though I really disliked the end with Apocalypse I believe when Xavier and Magneto became Horsemen.

[Kick-Ass]

'NUFF SAID!

[Squashua]

I feel like I'm the only person who liked this sometimes. Sure they made Reed younger and the art-style wasn't everyone's cup of tea (a bit too angular for even my tastes), but it really felt like the further along they got the better the show became, especially when they started bringing in other Marvel characters.

I agree with you that the designs for the post-movie FF cartoon were really nice, but the cartoon failed on both the animation and voice acting fronts. I've seen it more recently and the poor quality is simply downright appalling, almost embarrassing.

[Scavenger]

Adding into the Batman tally is the in the work next series, that Brave and the Bold has been canceled in favor of.

Frankly, it's a toss-up...each is more or less even. Marvel has XD to look at, while DC just got the DC Nation block at Cartoon Network.

Looking at current shows, I'd say Brave and the Bold is far superior to Superhero Squad, and Avengers beats Young Justice. So 1 each.

[ryan_filler]

Is anyone going to mention the "The Batman" show? I didn't watch it so I can't say anything about it either way, but it does exist.