Ultimate Spider-Man Animated Series

[theanswer]

 Now that the Ultimate universe has been so royally screwed up they thought it was a good time for a tie-in animated series to rope in the youngins!.



At the very least maybe this means Marvel shows will finally be on one television station instead of the CW, Cartoon Network, the Disney Channel, and Nickelodeon.

Comments

[rainspirit]

...I'm actually looking forward to this! The Ultimate Spider-Man game was something I considered buying purely for the cutscenes. :) Really loved the way they captured the feel of the books.

[rainspirit]

On the other hand, this show has some strong competition with its predecessors. I'm of the strong belief that no Spider-Man show will ever be as great as the truly epic SUPAIDAHMAN.

[punishermax]

Um...the Ultimate universe is still pretty decent. USM is a good comic and Ultimatum has been essentially ignored by from what I can tell. And there's clearly a huge market for Spider-Man stuff.

I'm really excited for this and I have absoltuly no clue what you mean here.

[mullon]

Didn't we just have Spectacular Spiderman?

[sherkahn]

There is a new Spiderman cartoon every two years. I kid you not.

[akodo_rokku]

Yeah.

But Spectacular Spider-Man has been really good! The best Spidey cartoon ever, definitely.

So of course they decided to toss it and start over.

[punishermax]

To e fair, wasn't it on a fixed life span from the start? I mean, yeah it kicked ass, but I thought it was always set for a certain season count.

Plus, we have no clue who or what is up with this, when i saw the animation and early pics for Spectacular I though it looked stupid as hell.

[theanswer]

Most cartoons are these days. By modern standards any cartoon that reaches the 52 episode point can remain profitable with reruns.

[majingojira]

And yet, animators don't plan for their Grand Finale to be on Episode 52.

It's weird. This has been true, especially with Disney products, for almost a decade and a half now.

[theanswer]

Well I think they expect to produce the next SpongeBob and keep going for 10 years while the executives look at it and think, "Can we sell buckets of merchandise crap? No? And it's got over 50 episodes? Canceled."

[majingojira]

Yeah, you can count the number of shows post 1992 that pull that off on one hand.

Maybe 2 if you're lucky.

As compared to the dozens of others that hit 50 and ended--or never even made it to 50.

[freezer]

It used to be iron-clad policy that once a Disney animated show reached a certain threshold (three seasons, IIRC), the plug was pulled . This got set aside once they tried to cancel Kim Possible, and fan outrage pushed Disney to make a fourth season.

[long_silence]

It's been canceled? Damn it!

[sun_man]

what happened to Spectacular Spider-Man

[robo_kai]

But, but! Spectacular (spectacular) Spider-Man...

;_;

[twigcollins]

Naoto icon! P4 BEST GAME EVER!

[xammax]

Spectacular Spider-Man please?

[punishermax]

I just hope people don't jump on Marvel's ass for the cancellation of spectacular. The issue was with Disney's shitty as hell schedules more than anything. It made Marvel money, Disney just sucks ass at anything it imports. A good example would be how Doug became fucking atrocious when Disney bought it.

[colonel_green]

It's not surprising that Disney wanted to develop its own new show.

Too bad about SSM, though.

[silverzeo]

Does this mean Spectacular is really canned?

[skalja]

If Spectacular Spider-Man never existed, I would be happy about this. But because it existed, I am sad.

[stubbleupdate]

Spectacular Spectacular Spider-man was very good.

I tried to get into Iron Man Armored Adventures, but it's difficult. Is it worth it?

[tacobob]

Iron Man shouldn't be a little boy. He should be an IRON MAN. Thankfully we'll get him in the Avengers cartoon as he's supposed to be.

I could never get into the the SSS toon. I like how they handled the Peter/Eddie Brock relationship..But I hated the character designs and Spider-Man just seems to be too powerful. He seem to have invulnerability in the toon.

[skalja]

It's a cartoon. Normal people have invulnerability, too.

[tacobob]

It's better now than it used to be..When I was growing up they couldn't even say "Die" or "dead" in my cartoons. People never died or were really hurt.

[khamelea]

"But I hated the character designs"

Even their Doc Ock?

[tacobob]

Ehhh. I take that back, I didn't hate the character designs. It did beat the usual generic types we would normally see in Super Hero type animation.

[khamelea]

I did dislike some of them, personally. The style didn't seem as fortunate with organic type villains as it was with the techies. But I thought it was very fortunate with the techies.

[greenygal]

I love IMAA. It's got excellent banter, emotional depths, long-term plotting, villains with motivations and backstories--the Mandarin, for me, is worth the price of admission all by himself--and a main character that I can recognize as being Tony Stark. The animation style, okay, not especially fond of that, but you get used to it. And they've pulled off some really nice visual effects.

That said, they changed a lot of things, over and above the deaging, so if you're looking for a faithful take on the comic this isn't it. But on its own terms it's great.

(And incidentally, for anyone who is looking for a more traditional Iron Man cartoon, the '90s series is being released on DVD in a month, and the second season is pretty damn good.)

[neuhallidae]

I tried to watch a few episodes and kind of ended up wanting to kill Pepper. Is that normal?

[greenygal]

I gather you're not the only one to feel that way, no. I like Pepper myself, though I wish they'd let her be more useful.

[stubbleupdate]

The animation style is the big issue for me. it just looks... unfinished.

[skalja]

I love Armored Adventures to death.

[colonel_green]

According to Comicscontinuum.com, it also appears that the planned second season of Wolverine and the X-Men has been nixed.

Seems like they must be eying a total relaunch of Marvel-related properties on Disney's channels.

[taggerung301]

seriously?!!?!?
D:
dammit, I really liked it . . .

[theanswer]

Probably not so much a relaunch as a canceling of a sucky series.

[colonel_green]

It was a big commercial success, so I rather doubt that.

[rainspirit]

Man, is there any cartoon you're not a huge downer over?

[theanswer]

Batman: The Brave and the Bold

[rainspirit]

Fair 'nuff.

[tacobob]

Did you see the last ep with the Spectre?

[likeaminx]

BUT BUT BUT THERE WAS A CHANCE FOR NOCTURNE TO SHOW UP

):

[busterella]

On one hand, I'm INCREDIBLY sad that there is no more SSM. D: That's what made me first care about Spider-Man.

On the other hand, this could also be good. I'll try not to be bitter.

[cyberghostface]

As much as I love Ultimate Spider-Man, I would much rather read the Ultimate comics and watch the Spectacular cartoon.

[punishermax]

Yeah, but to be fair we know quite literally nothing about this cartoon. There's a chance in may end up being better than Spectacular,

I mean it would follow the formula, every Spider-man animated series has been better than the last.

[skalja]

Spider-Man: the New Animated Series wasn't nearly as good as the 90's cartoon, although the animation was sleeker obviously.

[sandoz_iscariot]

To say nothing of Spider-Man: Unlimited. (no, really, let us never speak of it again)

[thatnickguy]

So, basically Marvel & Disney are giving a giant middle finger to Spectacular Spider-Man.

I'm sorry, but it makes no sense. Spec. Spidey had its most recent episode JUST LAST YEAR. Why start from scratch again when there is already an established (and great) team of writers, animators, etc already on board? Everybody I know who watches the show have been dying for a third season.

Would it not be more cost effective to continue Spec. Spidey than start up a new show? It would take hiring new artists to redesign the characters...again. It would require retelling the origin...again. This just feels completely redundant to me.

Personally, I honestly feel that Spec. Spidey is not only the best animated Spider-Man of all time, but one of the best animated superhero shows of all time and...quite frankly...one of the best renditions of Spidey and his overall mythos in ANY medium in over 30 years.

I wish there was a way we could convince Marvel Animation Studios to just re-air the first two seasons and then give us a third season and onwards.

[theanswer]

You act like this is new. Pretty standard actually.

[thatnickguy]

A new Spidey cartoon? Sure, that's no surprise. The surprise is how short the time is between Spec. and Ultimate. Plus, it really bothers me that they wouldn't just continue Spec. Hell, nearly all the comments I've heard about this so far have been "What about Spec.?"

[colonel_green]

From what I gather, the lengthy down-time between the end of production of Season Two and now has effectively scattered the SSM team to other jobs anyway; you could get them back (some of them, anyway), but it's not like they're all already under contract and sitting in their offices waiting to get to work.

[thehood]

It's not like that though. Spectacular ended because Sony gave the TV rights back to Marvel.

Also, since it was a Sony produced show and many on the show worked directly for sony, they probably couldn't return if Marvel/Disney picked it up. So they would have to hire new people anyway.

Marvel didn't end it for kicks. It wasn't even their show. You can't really blame them.

[thehood]

No, Spectacular ended because Sony gave up the TV rights to Spidey to keep the movie rights.

Spec was a Sony show.

[ficticons]

Maybe they'll set it in the same 'verse as the Ultimate Avengers animated movie instead of a direct version of the comics-verse - which I'm assuming (as someone who hasn't read any of the Ultimate titles) is what you were refering to when you said that "the Ultimate universe has been so royally screwed up".

That could potentially be a good place to put an animated series, I think.

I don't want to be a Negative Nancy but..

[big_daddy_d]

Am I the only one not looking forward to this? I usually love the idea of a Marvel Comics Animated series but... Seriously..Couldn't we at least get another season of Spectacular Spider-Man? Hell I thought that series was based on Ultimate Spider-Man..so..yea. It's like trying to read a comic series that seems to be constantly rebooting. It might rock but a fatigue builds also..

[darkblade]

They should adapt the current 616-verse comics to a TV show.

That way Disney will have to actually look at what Marvel is doing to their own cashcow and save it before it becomes unuseable.

[badficwriter]

Waiting for the box sets.

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Well, for those who think the quality has dropped, look on the bright side: maybe if they follow the comics arcs' closely, the show will be over before that point...?

--LBD "Nytetrayn"

[hatman]

Dammit. I wanted more Spectacular Spider-Man. That show was doing so well. And the fight choreography was gorgeous.

On the upside, a USM show with decent art might just encourage Marvel to stop pretending that the new USM is manga. For that alone, this series might well be worth it.

[mistersandman]

No Spectacular Spider-Man is a gigantic disappointment. I know not everyone was crazy about the art style, but the story, characters, and choreography were top-notch. Even if USM manages to surpass SSM, we'll still have to wait a few years before it can get to the same level of world building as SSM.

Anyway, I'm not exactly familiar with Marvel characters. The one in the top left is obviously Dr. Octopus, the guy at the bottom is Nick Fury... Is that Iron Fist?

Oh, I just remembered that Ultimate Goblin is the Incendiary Hulk. Wonderful.