The Best (And Worst) of Modern Marvel Cartoons

[Mr. Q]

Out the line-up mentioned on this list, Spectacular Spider-Man and Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes was the best modern renditions of these characters. Fantastic writing, great animation, top-notch voice actors and beautiful characterization. Shame we had to ditch them just to put up piss-poor knock-offs like Ultimate Spider-Man, Avengers Assemble, and Hulk and the Agents of SMASH. Trust me, Bob. The Marvel Universe block on Disney XD is insulting on multiple levels.

Is it too late to stick Jeff Leob into a fucking nursing home? Or maybe send him adrift or take him out into the woods and hunt him for sport? The man has screwed too many pooches to be given a second chance IMO.

 

[LazyAza]

I will never not be pissed about EMH being canceled. By far the best marvel series ever. And the design they came up with for Wasp is one of the best female super hero character designs ever created and the way they wrote her was so utterly perfect she ended up being my favorite character from the show.

 

[shintakie10]

Huh, kinda surprised you didn't mention the Ultimate Spiderman series that's currently running (or did it get canned? No idea). It started out really good, but the latest season was pretty bleh since they completely ditched the whole team aspect and seemed to have given up on any sort of continuing plot.

I am also surprised you weren't as into Wolverine and the X-Men. Its not the most spectacular thing ever, but the animation is absolutely fantastic and the stories are the best they've been in animated X-Men. Its absolutely not nearly as good as Evolution, but it was also a lot less likely to grate on your nerves if you couldn't get over the whole teenager aspect.

 

[Darth_Payn]

Ah, X-Men:Evolution. One of my favorite episodes has flashbacks to Wolverine in WWII, fighting side-by-side with Captain America. One of their last missions was liberating the camp that was holding the boy who would become Magneto.

I've already said this, but had Wolverine and the X-Men been allowed more seasons, here's what I think would have happened:
-lead up to or prevent the Age of Apocalypse
-Wolverine, Cyclops, and Jean settle the relationship triangle business
-Magneto finds out he, the Brotherhood, and the X-Men were played for chumps by the Inner Circle, and he single handedly kicks their asses
-Wolverine and the X-Men all take on Weapon X, bring in X-23, and find out about its origins in WWII as Weapon I, a.k.a. Project Rebirth, the very same one that turned Steve Rogers into Captain America, which would lead to...
-team up with the Avengers! I was convinced they were in the same universe anyway.

I also ponder about the future of Spectacular Spider-Man, great as that show was. My theory/fanboy-wish: since the major criminal bigwigs through the series are either arrested (Tombstone, Silvermane, Doctor Octopus) or got out of dodge (Green Goblin) leaving a big void to fill, and the only man big enough for the job is Wilson Fisk, The Kingpin. And if you think he's only Daredevil's nemesis, I say, good! Bring him in, too! His friendship with Spider-Man is supposed to be one of Marvel's most celebrated, and here could be more antagonists, like Bullseye and Elektra.

I have to admit, I actually quite liked Armored Adventures. While I felt the animation was a bit wonky (I prefer traditional animation over CGI) story and character-wise it was pretty solid. They did a pretty good job in updating a lot of the 'classic' Iron Man villains - if you recall, originally they were various racist stereotypes when first conceived in the comics that nowadays are majorly cringeworthy. Pepper was hilarious, Rhodey makes a good support for Tony and lets not forget, this is pretty much the only incarnation of Iron Man where Howard Stark wasn't a massive dick.

I really wish the series had gotten another season, especially with the way it ended - I'd bet good money that the plan was to bring together the Avengers eventually since Black Widow, Hawkeye and Hulk had already been 'guests' on the show and Captain America in deep-freeze was already in SHIELD custody.

And the X-Men. There was an episode they had to fight Magneto, with help from Jean Grey, using the cover name Annie Claremont. At the end of that, who should arrive at Tony's school with an offer for Jean but Prof. Charles Xavier.

 

[Creedsareevil]

Armored adventures was actually pretty decent. It featured a cohesive storyline, had nice cameos of Marvel staples (Doctor doom being the most memerable) and ended in a nice wham episode with the invasion.
Also does not include a broken man with drinking problems, yay for that.

 

[Jetsetneo]

Earths Mightiest Heroes is, to me, by far the best marvel animated project of all time. All heroes, the villains, the plots, pretty great. Probably my 3rd highest animated superhero series just behind Batman:TAS and Justice League. IMO its the closest Marvel has ever come to reaching the lofty heights of those two series.

 

[Norithics]

I loved both Evolution and Wolverine and. Mostly for the fact that they had good characters, and neither respected the super awful gritty muscle show that was Cable and his whole... thing. By the time the 90s cartoon started introducing Cable I just about lost my lunch and couldn't go on.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Err can someone link me of the past Bob articles on this? I mean I saw the 80's article but I competely forgot about it until now and it's confusing trying to find the other articles since Bob does other stuff beside said article!

OT- Out of the Marvel shows of the modern era, Spectacular Spiderman and Black Panther were my favourite. Sepctacular had a nice artstyle and their take on Spiderman like Pete being friend with Eddie and Black Panther was soo underrated! That show gave me new found respect for Black Panther as a superhero whole!

 

[nima55]

Looks like Spectacular Spider-man and EMH were victims of their own hype T^T it's a shame Bob didn't enjoy them as much as I did.

 

[TheNaut131]

Okay, let me just copy paste something I said about the Black Panther cartoon

Spoiler

Perhaps one of the best superhero cartoons I've seen in awhile.

Really, there's something about it that's just...good. It feels like a very well written comic book. It establishes the basics of the Black Panther mythos, explores his life and creates an array of well written, interesting characters.

It addresses issues in a slightly exaggerated, but honest and intelligent way without sacrificing the fact that the Black Panther is at the end of a day, a comic book character.

And it acknowledges the fact that Black Panther is a comic book character in a way that makes you go "so"?

There are augmented assassins, mutants, radioactive men, religious knights on flying horses, fucking cyborg zombies of dead soldiers! The show handles it all in a way that feels cohesive, like they're not just references or homages, but actual parts of a spiraling world.

And even with all this happening, the show stays true to the Black Panther and Wakanda's struggle. Or more accurately, Wakanda dealing with the shit being thrown at them so they can get back to work.

As for Spectacular Spiderman and Avengers Earth's Mightiest Heroes: Fantastic, great, really fucking good and gone before their time.

 

[ElMinotoro]

Black Panther being poor is not surprising. Reggie Hudlin has some really weird conceptions of race and seemed to struggle with the difference between an African-American attitude and an African attitude. Once T'challa gathered up every black hero he could find (Luke Cage, Blade and someone else I can't remember. Possibly Falcon) and went to Louisiana to fight KKK vampires who were feeding off Hurricane Katrina victims. I'm not quite sure what point Hudlin was trying to make there as it's just that little bit too subtle a metaphor for me.

Super Hero Squad was my favourite show for a while. "Tell Brubaker not to worry, it's a just a civil war re-enactment". I don't care that I had to explain that to my friends.

 

[Falseprophet]

So I never watched or cared for any of these. But I did see an episode of Super Hero Squad where they introduced Black Widow with a cheesy Russian accent, and promptly used that as the springboard for a Rocky and Bullwinkle reference. I remember thinking, "there are people in their 30s who wouldn't get that joke!" And now I realize that was my version of watching old Looney Tunes cartoons, that made jokes referencing 1940s pop culture that went right over my 6-year-old head. Amazing.