Upcoming Avengers cartoon

Animated superhero movies

More news on the animated superhero front (this is starting to become a theme), DC Animation has suddenly announced the cancellation of many planned projects. The reason they site is poor sales on the Green Lantern and Wonder Woman movies.

Now, I thought Green Lantern was great. I'd love to see a sequel, but I'm not sure what they could do with it. The last one had the origin story and Sinestro as the villain. However, the Wonder Woman movie sucked. I'm just so tired of seeing Wonder Woman as a whiny feminist.

YOU CAN'T BE A FEMINIST IF YOU BARELY HAVE A CONCEPT OF GENDER!

Not really. Feminism is a reaction to a masculine environment and Diana isn't from a masculine environment. Now, it would make perfect sense for her to adopt a somewhat feminist attitude, but you still have to think of it through an alien point of view and not make it conform to Steinem conceptions of feminism.

Anyway, because of this, they are canceling not only the proposed sequels but also Aquaman, Batgirl: Year One (an awesome comic), and Teen Titans: The Judas Contract (a classic and somewhat inappropriate for kids comic).

This is a really dumb move and it sounds to me like the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. Clearly, these animated movies are not being developed for fans as much as for movie producers. They are kind of like high-budget storyboards for people who don't have enough imagination to look at a comic and see a movie.

Even if Wonder Woman failed, the point is to excite interest and create a prototype for a Wonder Woman movie. What DC should be doing is making animated movies of everything they want to market to Hollywood. Naturally, as much as I'd love to see Batgirl: Year One and watch it with my niece, it doesn't accomplish the larger goal of selling film properties.

In other animated superhero movie news, Marvel has announced that Shout! Factory is going to be their new distributor of animated movies. This is awesome because Shout! puts together a lot of excellent DVD packages and is kinda indie. They distribute Home Movies, Johnny Carson, Greg the Bunny, Inside the Actor's Studio, MST3K, and even stuff no one likes like The Goldbergs! So I don't know if Shout is selling out or Marvel is reaching for alternative venues. You decide.

Supposedly, this isn't just Marvel Animation, but Marvel Knights Animation. I'm wondering about the distinction. Marvel Knights was a line aimed at a more mature audience with a sophisticated take on (usually) failing properties. I wonder if there is any relation.

It looks like they'll be producing Astonishing X-Men: Gifted (based on Joss Whedon's script, but this is actually my least favorite of the four stories in his run), Iron Man: Extremis, Spider-Woman, and Black Panther.

... Hmmm... this sounds suspiciously like a "motion comic" to me.

Also canceled: Wolverine & the X-Men

How is it that I found two new cartoons that I love and they are both being canceled? Spectacular Spider-Man was canceled after two season but Wolverine & the X-Men didn't even make it that long!

I had a few issues with this show, mainly the name. I imagine this name was forced on the writers in order to tie into the recent movie that bombed. Although Wolverine is placed front and center and leading the team in this incarnation, there is plenty of time devoted to the other characters and this show has pretty much all of them.

The plot was basically Xavier gets sent to the Days of the Future Past universe (a dystopian future where mutants have been placed in concentration camps by Sentinels) and sends his consciousness back in time to instruct Wolverine on how to stop it.

It was probably the most accurate interpretation since the 1992 series, but the animation, dialog, and stories were a lot better.

I wish we could have seen season two.

Young Justice, Ultimate Spider-Man, and superhero-cartoons

So a few months ago they announced the Young Justice cartoon and the first thing I did was go to Peter David's blog to see if he was involved. Peter David was the sole writer of this comic book title (with the exception of a two issue stint by Chuck Dixon). He started on issue #1 and continued until it was canceled to make room for Geoff Johns' Teen Titans relaunch.

Young Justice was a spin-off from JLA (Justice League of America) at first featuring just Robin, Superboy (a teenage clone of Superman), and Impulse (the ADD kid Flash of the future). They found a club house and essentially just hung out together and got into trouble. It was exactly what a teen superhero book should be. It was filled with fairly light-hearted and funny stories, but also had a lot of interpersonal drama. Eventually, the team filled out (so to speak) with some girls including Wonder Girl, Arrowette, and the Secret as well as several others.

Unfortunately, Peter David's blog informed me that he didn't know more about the series than the rest of us, so I was afraid that the series just took the name of the comic and nothing else... like Teen Titans.

Well, a couple weeks ago, Disney announced plans to create a new Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon which I found hugely disappointing mainly because they already have a cartoon about a teenage Spider-Man currently on air... and recently, they confirmed that Spectacular Spider-Man will be canceled.

What I liked about Spectacular Spider-Man (other than fantastic writing, animation, and voice acting) was that it seemed like the perfect blend of the original Stan Lee/Steve Ditko Amazing Spider-Man comics and the Bendis/Bagley Ultimate Spider-Man comics. Although it stayed mostly true to the original interpretation, it borrowed elements from the new series to update it a bit. On the whole, I enjoyed it a lot more than Ultimate Spider-Man.

My problem with the Ultimate Spider-Man (and to a larger extent, the Ultimate universe as a whole) is that it started off with a good premise, but just seems to meander in whatever direction after that. There is no focus and often it seems like the entire story is just an excuse to show a new twist on a character. For this reason, I'm not really invested in the characters.

To make a long story slightly shorter, I found out today that although Spectacular Spider-Man was in fact canceled, showrunner Greg Weisman (probably best known for the awesome Gargoyles cartoon) would be running Young Justice.

So for those of you keeping score (like me), I guess we can call this a draw? I'll miss Spectacular Spider-Man, but now I'm really looking forward to Young Justice. If Weisman reaches out to Peter David and adds him to the writing staff, we can call it a victory.