While I'm glad the big two (DC and Marvel) are finding success (I guess, anyway. Never really heard how these things were doing) with their animated endeavors, I came across an alleged quote from Marvel Animation president Eric Rollman (you can read the interview here: http://tinyurl.com/39zp9ry) that does make me a bit perturbed.
If you skipped the interview, or just skimmed through to get the gist of it, here's the short of it. Marvel, after its merger with Disney (or buyout from Disney? What did they end up calling it?) is doing awesome with its animated projects. It's going to launch a bunch of new shows, which I'll get to in a bit, but there was one little line that I latched onto. In the interview, Mr. Rollman says that Marvel "has fully funded its third 52-episode series."
Now, many would say? But Kellen, you love Marvel, you like quite a few of their animated series, why does this make you angry? Well, I'll tell you why. In 2008, 2009 in the US, a series aired called Wolverine and the X-Men. The animation style was very much like the previous X-Men cartoon, X-Men: Evolution, but the plot seemed to be geared towards a slightly older audience. The show was pretty good despite being another X-Media project centered on Wolverine and it was supposed to be picked up for a second season. Tidbits were released, including the fact that Nolan North would be returning to voice Deadpool (he provided the Merc with a Mouth's voice in the animated film, Hulk Vs. Wolverine, which serves as a prequel of sorts to WatXM), among other things.
However, months went by and there was no news on the show like when it might air, what additional characters we might see, etc. until it was announced that partway through production (how far into production this happened is anyone's guess) funding fell through to complete the rest of the season. I was disappointed, and confused, as I thought this was just a series that Marvel had produced itself and had contracted it out through whatever studio was doing it. Never once was it mentioned that it was cancelled because of the Disney merger or problems with the studio or NickToons refusing to pick up the second season (though the fact that the show had finished airing in the rest of the world before it aired half the season in the US didn't help. Nor did the fact that the show's release schedule was stretched over nine months for 22-episodes), so I have to take Marvel at its word.
And that is why I'm a bit angry over this whole animation business. Marvel couldn't provide the funding for a decent show, but it did find the cash to do yet another Spider-Man cartoon? Didn't they just do Spectacular Spider-Man? And doesn't the premise of Ultimate Spider-Man sound a lot like SSM? While I was never a fan of the art on Spectacular, I did hear good things about the stories.
Also mentioned in the article is news on other projects, such as a more adult oriented series entitled Marvel Knights. Whether this is going to focus on one specific character (or group of characters) or kind of encompass the whole Knights (a semi-frequently used) label wasn't discussed. Though the article did briefly mention possible characters we might see in this, and other, cartoons. Characters such as...Black Panther? Didn't they just make a, from what I heard, critically acclaimed BP show that never aired on TV? It's now available on iTunes and other download markets, so I'm going to try to give it a viewing sometime soon.
It just seems that Marvel really likes coming up and making these cartoons, but not supporting them.
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I believe the whole reason behind the Black Panther cartoon, was that all that was produce was a few epiodes that equal the first arc of Black Panther series, from a while back. The plan from what I remember back in 07' was that they wanted to keep it in JRJR's style which just turned out to be motion comic (which can clearly be seen from the previews I have seen of it). I think BET and Marvel had no idea how much work, time and money it would cost to make a 13-22 episode season let alone make each episode 22 minuets long.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the same boat for X-Men, I wanted to see the second season so bad (orginal plans were for AoA, then House of M, and then in theory the Messiah Trilogy).
As for Ultimate Spider-Man. From what I gather it is case of if Disney is going to air a Spider-Man cartoon on their network that is brand new, they rather it be made by them, then paying Sony to air it on their chanel. But Sony lost the rights for cartoon rights, so because of the merger/buy out, Dinsey said screw it we'll make it ourselves. Though I did read (I think it was CBR) that they're still going to make a straight to DVD movie wrapping up SSM, and that the voice actor from that series will be doing the voice again USM.
And didn't mention, but Iron Man: Armor Adventures is still green lit for a second season on Nicktoons, since Nicktoons is actually forking out money for it (which makes sense since Nicktoons is own by Viacom, which is part of Paramont, who puts out the Iron Man movies). It's halfway decent, animation get crappy and annoying at times, and they don't say Justice.
Well, if they don't say Justice, then count me out. I keep meaning to watch Armored Adventures, but I think I keep pushing it out of my mind because of the FF cartoon from a couple years back. That and the animation/art style of SSM (the stories were supposedly pretty decent) have made me leary of most new Marvel Animation projects.
ReplyDeleteAnd after I made the rant about BP, I did find out it was mostly a motion comic, which to me, are pretty much worthless. The "animation" is pretty terrible and the voices, if they bother to get different voices for the different characters (the Watchmen motion comic was notorious for reusing voices), are usually also pretty bad. I haven't seen any concept art or stills from USM, so I hope it turns out ok.