Over the weekend at Emerald City Comic Con , Marvel’s Vp of animation Cort Lane threw a one man panel with lots of teases for most of the Marvel animated shows and a preview of Avengers Assemble returning only to ‘Disassemble” .
Ultimate Spider-Man will return to finish its season in July with a new storyline titled S.H.I.E.L.D ACADEMY. Many of the characters Spider-Man recruited at the beginning of Web-Warriors will be joining him again. Even Trition from the Inhumans and Squirrel Girl are coming back. Fans can also look forward to the threat of Arnim Zola, voiced by Mark Hamill, in a look that can only be described as Kang from Ninja Turtles meets Apple Computers. In addition Robert Patrick will be voicing The Whizzer, yep that guy.
Fans also got a look at the entire first episode of the “Disassembled” arc. If you want the spoiler run then highlight this blank space.
Episode begins with a Captain America-less Avengers battling the Adaptoid. Spider-Man joins the team in order to combat the robot who can mimic all the powers of the Avengers. Cap joins the fray alongside S.H.I.E.L.D as he’s been working for them since leaving the team an episode before. He’s even in his Winter Soldier film based costume.
The audience finds out Adaptoid is actually Ultron in disguise and he’s been after Starks tech the entire time. In a desperation move, Stark enacts his “final protocol,” destroying his labs and Avengers Tower to stop Ultron.
Cap and Stark are clearly building towards a mini inner Avengers civil war. Spider-Man is trying to hold things together, but ditched the Avengers. Cap has called for a new Avengers team, seeing Falcon, Black Widow and Hulk join his team, while Tony, Hawkeye, and Thor ban together.
The Avengers have officially disassembled, giving Ultron exactly what he wanted.
During the fan Q&A we got a few teases about the animated Marvel U:
-No kid Avengers plans.
-Plans are in the works to have animation produce something that takes place in the Marvel cinematic universe.
-No X-Men plans since those rights are still controlled by Fox, which include animation. They’ve only been able to get away with using Wolverine in his solo character costume incarnations with no X-Men ties.
To close things out, Cort showed the Guardians of the Galaxy prequel shorts leading up to the premiere of the animated series. First was Star-Lord part I. It takes most of its cues from the film version of the team, even going so far to say it may be a fill in for missing information. What we saw deals with what happened when Peter Quill was beamed aboard the alien ship as a child. In this version he’s had the Element Guns all along but is just now discovering their power.
A preview was show of Rocket Raccoon’s short. We see the moment he escapes the lab and becomes partners with Groot. You’ll hear the famous “Ain’t no thing like me…” line and it’s even got mature tones of his acceptance that he’s lost anything that will connect him to his species.
Marvel’s animation presentation was the most informative of all their ECCC panels. Cort’s division has made the Disney merger benefit Marvel without having to sacrifice much in the way of character voice.
Hopefully during Wondercon we’ll get answers to when fans will see the Guardians prequel shorts, what’s coming up in Agents of S.M.A.S.H and what the future holds for Ultimate Spider-Man once its third season ends since typically most Marvel animated series after 1997 only last between 3-5 years.
Would you want to see Marvel animated do something in the Marvel Cinematic Universe?
Just to clarify…you’re reporting that no other X-Men characters have appeared in any Marvel animated show since the “agreement”, except for Wolverine?
Also, what do you believe is Wolverine’s solo outfit?
Would it be possible for you to list any steps you have personally taken to verify your information – not including the original Newsarama article?
Beezzi, that’s a report of what was said on the panel, not an investigation.
That said, I agree that it doesn’t particularly make a lot of sense. “We don’t have the rights to use those characters, but hey I’m sure lawyers won’t pay attention if we use the most famous one anyway”? A while back, Nick Lowe claimed that people just wouldn’t be interested in an X-Men animated series because of the tone of the movies. Which makes about as little sense as this new claim.
I agree with you on Nick Lowe’s statements, the whole thing is off.
As for the article:
“They’ve only been able to get away with using Wolverine in his solo character costume incarnations with no X-Men ties.”
Wait, the above was mentioned in the panel? Marvel, in public, admitted trying to sneak Wolverine past Fox? Because that would be huge and maybe a tad bit illegal from their side. ;)
There’s clearly editorialising here, with no context, background or references to a source.
And for clarity – As of 22/08/2014 Marvel still owned the animation rights to the X-Men according to Stephen Wacker – Marvel’s VP of Current Animation. Various X-Men have appeared in Marvel animated shows as late as last year and not just Wolverine. Lane most likely misspoke.
Correction: It was Wacker who said that, not Lowe. I confused them over the Spider-editorship, but obviously Wacker is the one who went to the animation division.