Further strengthening its robust animation slate Marvel Animation, a division of Marvel Entertainment, announced today the production of an all new animated series, "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes." Production on 26 half-hour episodes is already underway using the production services of Film Roman, producer of "The Simpsons" and "King of the Hill."
The new series, expected to be available for broadcast in 2011, continues on Marvel's already impressive television line-up which includes the all-new "Wolverine and the X-Men" and "Iron Man: Armored Adventures" series that will both debut on Nicktoons in 2009. Marvel Animation will also debut the all-new series "Marvel Super Hero Squad" and "The Black Panther" next year.
"The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" is an all-new property featuring some of Marvel's all-time favorite characters including Iron Man, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, Giant Man and Wasp. When the planet is threatened by super villains, time traveling conquerors, alien invaders, mythical monsters and mad robots bent on the total destruction of humanity, when forces of evil are so overwhelming that no single hero has the power to save the world, when there is no hope left…the Avengers assemble!
The Avengers are the best of the best in the Marvel Universe and the greatest heroes who take on the most unbeatable foes. These are the heroes who hold back the storm, and the fate of the world rests on their shoulders.
"The addition of 'The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes' to our quickly expanding animation slate continues our plan to complement each of our tentpole live action features with an animated series," said Eric Rollman, President of Animation. "This new ensemble series tracks perfectly with our highly anticipated 'road to the Avengers' strategy which includes some of Marvel's biggest and most beloved characters, and which kicks off with two Avengers' themed feature films in summer 2011."
The news that Marvel Studios plan to use a new animated series to build anticipation for their blockbuster crossover movie The Avengers may make those with long memories worry about flashbacks to the shoddy 1990s series Avengers: United They Stand. But there's very good reason to be optimistic about what's lying in wait for TV audiences in 2011 - and we'll prove it to you with Cartoon Math.
The Avengers haven't had the strongest history of animated adventures, we'll be the first to admit. Aside from guest appearances on the 1960s The Marvel Superheroes and 1980s Spider-Man And His Amazing Friends, it took more than thirty years for the team to make it to the Saturday morning big-time. And when they did, they weren't exactly looking their best...
It's not that "Avengers: United They Stand" was a bad show as such. It's more that it captured the team at their 1990s comic nadir, and somehow managed to exclude many of the big name members like Captain America, Iron Man, or Thor (probably due to licensing agreements -somehow Hawkeye managed to make it into the faux Avengers team "Force Works" that appeared in the 1990s "Iron Man" show). It wasn't until 2006's Ultimate Avengers (a quasi-adaptation of Mark Millar and Bryan Hitch's The Ultimates comic) that the team most people know as "the Avengers" finally achieved animated glory.
From there, they were unstoppable. 2007 brought "Ultimate Avengers 2," and this year saw "Next Avengers." With an Avengers movie on tap for 2011, was there really any doubt that the characters were due to escape from direct-to-DVD onto television?
What makes the newly announced "The Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes" series most promising is the people behind it. Marvel Studios may be bringing "Next Avengers" writer Chris Yost on board as the established old hand, but we're more excited about the fact that the new 26-episode series is being created by Film Roman, the company that's brought you this for the last 20 years:
And to make matters even better, the producer of the series? A gentleman called Ciro Nieli, who's responsible for the following two shows:
Somewhere, Avengers purists are probably appalled by such day glow insanity, big-eyed characters, and just sheer "cartooniness" of it all, but screw 'em. After all, if nothing else, the new Avengers series will have awesome theme music.