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SCOURGE Home : News : Videos : Pictures : Polls : Contact

Why is Marvel so Bad at Animation?

Most Marvel Cartoons and Animated Movies Suck...

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By SCOURGE - 11/6/2010


I will just admit early on, I have been a life long Marvel Zombie, and one of the things that has always driven me crazy about Marvel is their HORRIBLE track record when it came to television. I have always understood why Marvel has never really attempted to break television in live-action form becuase they had a medicore track record (The Incredible Hulk show as good, but Mutant X and the Incredible Hulk television movies were terrible), but their history of cartoons and animated features is horrid.

A few examples:

1. Spider-Man and His Amazing Firends (1981)--The art and voice overwork were terrible even for its day, and the characters involved made no sense, why was an X-Man being used in a Spider-Man cartoon? The only thing that really came out of that was Firestar (Amazing Friends was her first appearance).

2. Iron Man (1994)--This trainwreck of a show only lasted one season, and if you have actually watched it you can undertand why. The artwork and vfx work left a lot to be desired, and again the casting made no sense. Can anyone explain to me why M.O.D.O.K. (A Captain America villain--and a dumb one at that), is doing in an Iron Man cartoon? Not to mention the fact that this was more a West Coast Avengers cartoon with Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and the rest always showing up.

3. Avengers: Earth's Mightest Heroes (2010)--I have watched this show and it makes me want to throw something at my computer everytime I watch it. The cast is to big and confusing. The art is so-so, and I am not to thrilled with the voice work.

There have been a few good cartoons over the years (The 90's Spider-Man and X-Men cartoons, for example), but the brutalness of the majority of Marvel's cartoon work greatly out weighs the positives.

The same is true of their animated features:

The only one of those that I can say I really enjoyed is The Next Avengers. The Ultimates, Dr. Strange, and Iron Man movies feeling disappointed.

I am hopeful for future projects with though with the appointment of Mr. Loeb as the head of the television division. I am hoping to see not only great animated projects in the future, but great live-action shows as well.
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27 Comments
LEEE777 - 11/6/2010, 12:38 PM
Most of Marvel Studios own animated's have always sucked!

DC however = PURE GOLD!
yankeemanf - 11/6/2010, 12:44 PM
i liked all the x-men animated shows except for wolverine and the x-men and pryde of the x-men i however enjoyed spider-man and his amazing friends when i was a kid nowadays lookin back it wasnt great but as a kid its very enjoyable which is what u want out of a cartoon series and i liked the spider-man animated show and spider-man:the new animated series and the amazing spider-man tv show and the spider-man unlimited tv show....soooo imo marvel's animateds arent so bad but they r nowheres near dc's animateds but just lookin at their animateds as an enjoyable kids cartoon series they arent that bad
SCOURGE - 11/6/2010, 12:56 PM
I am really mixed on DC's stuff as well, Batman: The Animated Series was really good, but some of the other DC related cartoons (Teen Titans, Batman Beyond, etc) have left going NEXT!

As for the animated movies, I have only seen a couple over the years, I saw Batman: Mask of the Phantasm growing up (It was ok) and the Wonder Woman movie recently (terrible), but I have genrally avoided most of Dc's stuff do to lack of caring.

Oh, by the way, Batman SHOULD really be a Marvel charater...
WeekendAvenger - 11/6/2010, 1:05 PM
Wow first off Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes is great the voice acting is superb save for Iron Man, The animation is perfect its not too complicated. The 1990s X-men cartoon as much as I loved it had many flaws why i recall one episode Forge turned his head and his mustache disappeared and like three frames later it was back. Really?! Oh M.O.D.O.K isn't just a Captain America villain he has fought Iron Man and The Avengers on a number of occasions.
@Yankeemanf Wolverine and The X-men had some of the best writing in an animated superheroes since Justice League Unlimited.
One more thing you didn't mention Spectacular Spider-man while short lived it was probably the best Spider-man cartoon in terms of writing and voice-acting.Overall Marvel is finally making it in animation the only thing keeping them back is people who want shot for shot remakes of the comics.
DurtyTalynt - 11/6/2010, 1:11 PM
Not a fan of there animation style either. Im sure it will get better as the company grows.
CaptainOtter - 11/6/2010, 1:11 PM
You don't really give alot of compelling evidence. The first thing you cite is a show from 30 years ago! How may animated shows from that time period have stood the test of time? Not many. You give a grand total of three examples and then cite this as the "overwhelming majority" when compard to two good series Marvel has produced. Marvel doesn't have a huge number of critical successes here, but saying they're flat out terrible isn't the best way of putting it.
SCOURGE - 11/6/2010, 1:59 PM
I liked The Spectacular Spider-Man for the most part. I am not a manga person, and I always felt that it was to influnced that way.

My compelling evidence lies sin the fact that the average Marvel cartoon lasts maybe two seasons. I just cited the few examples that first came to mind. I wasn't going to cite a complete list, but some other examples:

There have been two Fanstatic Four cartoons--One in the 60's, maybe, ?I forget at the moment and one in the 90's. Neither was very goood.

I believe (I would have to back and look) that there have been two Avengers cartoons--again, one in the 60's and today.

There were awful Sub Mariner, Captain America, and Thor cartoons from that time period as well.

I was largely dealing with the stuff from my childhood forward.
SCOURGE - 11/6/2010, 2:20 PM
Sure he would, he is the most "real world" of all the DC character. He is a man who has dealt with great loss and decides to fight crime. He is Peter Parker, just with Biliions of dollars to do it.

Moon Knight is often cited as beings Marvel's Batman...
robometrallador - 11/6/2010, 3:54 PM
i hated earth mightiest heroes when i first saw the trailer, but i think this opinion is very poor on the new show. yeah the design of the characters is simple but the animation is not bad at all, i just saw episode 9 and there are some sweet animated sequences there. Also the story is not bad at all, and make no mistake, the show is for kids, but it is not a bad show at all so far (except for episodes 3 to 7, what the hell, did they run out for meoney or what??? dont show the [frick]ing scenes we have already watched!!! and totally out of context as well)
SCOURGE - 11/6/2010, 4:36 PM
So, the first seven episodes encompass the movie?
StuckInPanels - 11/6/2010, 6:55 PM
@scourge...so you want every cartoon be like a Miyazaki flick or be drawn by Bruce Timm? Animation is an evolving media, typically the tools at their disposal for the time are pretty much how they did things. You mention those bad animated shows but what were you expecting in the 70s or 80s. You fail to mention any of the animated movies they made, some had good animation, yet sadly they haven't made that much money for the company, that problem is simple, they focus too much on their Live Action movies rather than do tons of great ideas and stories in their mitts. You never mention any of the other 90 Marvel shows like Fantastic 4, Hulk, or the horrible Avengers show they had before. For every bad their comes good. We have the 90s Spider-man, Spectacular Spider-man, X-men, X-men Evolution, Wolverine and the X-men, the recent Iron Man anime, and we haven't seen images of Ultimate Spider-man. Oh and if you thought EMH had too many characters, go watch Super Hero Squad and restate that comment.
CosmoChild - 11/6/2010, 8:08 PM
Spectacular Spider Man was great. There is nothing wrong with the modern animated Marvel productions in my opinion.

I really like The Avengers: Earth's Mightest Heroes on Disney XD. I also liked Thor: Tales of Asgard. Seriously, Marvel is doing quite well.
HavocT - 11/6/2010, 11:57 PM
At least they aren't involved in the live action movies...
marvelwienr - 11/7/2010, 1:25 AM
@LEE, really? all DC pure gold? even the super man show in the 90's that was the borinest crap ever! which is probably why it only got 1 vote in the poll.

@scourage, how can you list the GOOD avenger show and not the bad one? the new show is pure greatness, the animation is good the voices are good and the story is great! if it make you that mad when watching it how about you stop watching it!!!! duh!!! its that simple really
marvelwienr - 11/7/2010, 1:29 AM
but i will gladly admit the mavel animated movie are usually really bad.the iron man was terrible, the hulk vs. were meh at best and the ultimate avengers were pure shit cuz i loved the ultimates and was so excited when i found out they were making a movie of it, but then they went a fricked it up :/
ThreeBigTacos - 11/7/2010, 7:11 AM
@ShieldSmack: we all know LEE is a DC fanboy at heart. lol.
And I agree the Superman show was boring, but it did have awesome moments too. I mostly like how when superman punched things, it made the loudest 'thwack' noise ever lol.

DC's track record isn't all that perfect. The shows from the 90's were good, but that's all 2 of them, being: Batman the Animated Series and Superman the Animated Series. Justice League (2000's right?) was good, but Unlimited let in way too many super heros in my opinion, which kind of made the show lose it's integrity. A lot of die hard fans HATED 'The Batman' that came out a few years ago. (Personally I liked its cool take on Batman). People are 50/50 on Teen Titans, Static Shock, and Batman Beyond. If you look at it: Batman and Superman are the only 'golden' cartoon characters that DC has used to frontline their shows, whereas Marvel is using more of their characters with their own series, which are more or less hit or miss.

We'll see how the Green Lantern show goes.
golden123 - 11/7/2010, 1:16 PM
Get your facts straight before posting an editorial; Iron Man lasted for TWO seasons (and besides the 2nd season was much better than the 1st and definatly stepped up).
golden123 - 11/7/2010, 1:18 PM
@SheildsSmack: Superman only got one vote on the poll not because it was bad but because DC just simply had better shows.
Suzanne - 11/7/2010, 3:34 PM
Avengers: Earth's Mightest Heroes has been the best group superhero show since Justice League Unlimited.
Paulley - 11/7/2010, 4:28 PM
Marvel has been lagging behind DC in regard to animation for years... however, just lately Marvel is coming up with great animation

Wolverine and X-men -- pretty good
Hulk vs Wolverine -- good fun
Spectacular Spider-Man -- great character piece
Avengers Earths Mightiest Heroes -- awesome nod to old school avenger fans

Aslo Marvel are less afraid to take risks in regard to shows like
X-Men: Evolution
And even projects outside there country with the new focus on japanese markets with Anime
thunderforce - 11/8/2010, 9:46 AM
I think as time goes by marvel will now just keep getting better and better with disney owning them . And i love the avengers except for the look of iron man .
TheGreatone0207 - 11/8/2010, 10:52 AM
I thought The Ultimates movies were great. The Next Avengers was pretty good too.
jonedc - 11/10/2010, 8:22 PM
I agree marvel animation hasn't been great. I think a problem for marvel and dc is that they seem to always get new animators for every new release.I bet all the tea in china the superman/shazam was done by the people who did the boondocks, not my choice for dc or marvel animation films. They should stay with just one animation company. for marvel I actually think the people who did spectacular spiderman was great. That show was awesome in showing spidey's quickness and agility when fighting. Lastly I think dc should just let the animators who did justice league do all of their animation projects.
out..
CBF - 11/12/2010, 4:00 PM
"Iron Man (1994)--This trainwreck of a show only lasted one season..." WRONG. It lasted TWO seasons, and was better and closer to comics than "Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends" and "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes," which you go on to mention. You might have wanted to note the previous Avengers 90's cartoon ("Avengers: United They Stand") since it was a lot worse in many ways instead of mentioning "Earth's Mightiest Heroes".

"The same is true of their animated features:

The only one of those that I can say I really enjoyed is The Next Avengers. The Ultimates, Dr. Strange, and Iron Man movies feeling disappointed."

Are you serious? "Next Avengers" was the WORST Marvel Animated Feature, and "Ultimate Avengers" (as you ignorantly mis-title), along with "The Invincible Iron Man" and "Doctor Strange: Sorcerer Supreme" were the BEST of the bunch. We can see from this that you do not have a valid outlook on Marvel animation.
whiteboyfresh - 11/15/2010, 5:31 PM
i'll take any comic stuff I can get. I actually really enjoyed Dr. Strange, and the others for the most part. I like the animation much better than all the anime crap out there.
PREZ - 1/11/2011, 6:13 PM
Dr. Strange was fantastic. That story was great and the voice acting was good.

Current Avengers animated series....so, so.

The Ultimate Avengers movies...lackluster.

Iron Man...not terrible but not great.

Wolverine vs. Hulk...crazy good.

Planet Hulk...again, not terrible but not great.

Iron Man animated TV series...hated it.

Spectacular Spider-Man...not too bad.

90s X-Men....good.

90s Silver Surfer...just as good.

90s Iron Man...don't get me started. That was absolutely horrible.

There's more of course but not all of them have been bad. They are hit or miss.
gamecreatorjj - 7/14/2011, 3:29 PM
Ironman(1994) lasted 2 seasons, the 2nd season was good

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