The Marvel Television Presents panel began with the introduction of Jeph Loeb. The enthusiastic audience applauded Marvel’s Head of Animation and he quickly went into his presentation of their upcoming shows.
Hulk and the Agents of S.M.A.S.H. will be coming in 2013. The team will be made up of Hulk, She-Hulk, Red Hulk, Skaar and new character, A-Bomb. The clip shown featured a battle scene, with the characters leaping out of a combat vehicle and the team then engaging in witty banter as they’re beating up the bad guys. I have no other problem with the clip, but I sincerely don’t ever want to see another sequence of the heroes of a show leaping into an action pose, while the background changes and their name flies in behind them. Ever again. Please.
The next iteration of the Avengers cartoon will be called, Marvel’s Avengers Assemble. It will feature a cast similar to that used in the live-action film. Loeb made it a point to mention that the continuity of Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes would not be scrapped in this new show. He considers this show to be the next logical step. Avengers Assemble will have an epic tone, mixing larger-than-life battles with humor.
An animation test for the show was screened and featured a big city battle against Fin Fang Foom, who towered over the buildings of New York City and its citizens. Captain America, Iron Man, Hawkeye, Hulk and Thor were featured in the clip. It played up on the Thor/Hulk relationship established in the live-action movie. The test used some effective shots that did, indeed, make the scene more epic. The character designs were pretty slick looking. It did, however, also use the aforementioned cliché of heroes leaping onto the screen and names flying in behind them. Sigh. Other than that, it was a pretty cool animation test.
Loeb also showed some upcoming projects from Marvel Knights Animation. Amongst those titles shown were Astonishing X-Men, Inhumans, Wolverine: Origin, Weapon X, Ultimate Wolverine vs. Hulk and Eternals.
The next show was Ultimate Spider-Man. Villains for the next season will include The Lizard, Rhino, Swarm (I think) and Electro. An upcoming episode featuring Spider-Ham was also screened. In, “Run, Pig, Run”, Loki tricks Spider-Man into eating a hot dog that has had a spell cast upon it. The consumption of the enchanted frankfurter causes our hero to transform into Spider-Ham. As if that’s not enough to put a crimp in his day, he discovers that his new form has caused him to be the target of some of Asgard’s finest hunters, led by Scourge. Apparently, the Asgardians have an event called, “The Day of the Hunt”. During this day, the assembled hunters have until dusk to capture and kill a boar.
Thor appears to thwart his brother’s mischievous tomfoolery, but realizes the day is sanctioned by his father and cannot take any actions that directly conflict with the All-Father’s orders. Instead, he attempts to assist Spider-Man by slowing the hunters down. I don’t want to ruin the episode, so, I’ll merely say that the battle is taken to Peter’s high school and all sorts of craziness ensues.
Ultimate Spider-Man isn’t really my thing, but I definitely appreciate the polish the show has and that they found a way to use Spider-Ham. Because, come on: why wouldn’t you if you had the opportunity?
The audience seemed to enjoy the episode and applauded after it ended. With that, Loeb gave his outro and the panel concluded.
